The Reality Check Most Designers Never Get

Luis Ouriach has spent just over a decade as a user interface and product designer, working across e-commerce, charity, hospitality, travel, and startups — usually as a solo designer in non-design environments. That experience pushed him to stretch beyond pixel-perfect alignment and toward a broader question: “Will this sell more products?” Now a Designer Advocate at Figma, he shares the first five of ten lessons that took him years to learn.

Nobody Actually Knows What They’re Doing

The uncomfortable truth about the tech and design industry is that most people are improvising. The barrier to entry is low, and with heavy venture capital flow, the industry resembles a gold rush: easy to enter, hard to benchmark, and prone to producing mediocre products.

The first step is admitting this. You will work with people who don’t meet your standards — and that’s your opportunity. Those who build strong interpersonal skills, make decisions confidently, and understand that someone else will decide if they don’t, are the ones who advance quickly.

An illustration with two equal circles, and a white line between them. One of the circles is green, the other one is blue.
We’re all faking it. (Large preview)

The cold reality is that even veteran designers ask seemingly basic questions. Ouriach admits to recently asking, “What is the pixel width of an iPhone 12?” The key isn’t knowing everything — it’s asking for help when you don’t. One former manager accused him of “spinning his wheels” at project starts, trying to solve everything alone. That criticism was accurate, and recognizing it was a turning point in becoming a better designer and colleague.

The Job Hunt Is Brutal — And Unconventional

Hiring is broken, and Ouriach knows this firsthand. He spent 12 months applying for jobs without a single first-stage interview while stuck in a full-time role where projects kept getting rejected or de-prioritized by management. His portfolio wasn’t impressive enough, he had no industry presence, and he lacked connections for warm introductions.

An illustration with many circles. Majority of them are green, and only three are blue.
Finding a job is hard. (Large preview)

His situation wasn’t for lack of results. He had introduced a newsletter scheme generating an extra £10k per month and scaled a subscriber list from 60k to 500k in about nine months. None of it mattered on his CV.

His solution was drastic: he moved from London to Sydney. The relocation forced a reinvention beyond the constraints of his existing position. He found a new job before even arriving in Australia, and a better one within three weeks of starting that role.

The lesson isn’t geographic — it’s narrative. You are employable; you just need to shape your story. Are you interested in agile design processes? Show how and why. Good at illustration? Show it off. Took a short course in front-end basics? Make it known. Anyone can design a login screen, but few can talk about it, write the copy, add illustrative polish, and plan the full user journey.

When it comes to actually finding positions, traditional platforms rarely worked for Ouriach. Across seven full-time jobs, his leads came from:

  • An obscure internship website he can no longer find
  • A friend’s referral for a poorly advertised job
  • LinkedIn job search
  • A Facebook freelancers group
  • An Australian designers’ Slack channel
  • Twitter searches followed by direct messages

Only one job came through a conventional platform — the one where he felt stuck. The pattern is clear: unconventional searches surface positions that are poorly advertised or poorly applied for, meaning fewer candidates and a better chance to stand out. Get into designer Slack groups, search Twitter directly (he once messaged a CEO after searching “product designer London” and landed an interview based on his older Behance work), or follow LinkedIn hashtags instead of blasting applications at recognizable companies.

Packaging Your Work So Recruiters Notice

The author of the source piece admits he went twelve months without a single interview. His hard-won lesson: job applications are scanned, not read, so the goal is to make your value obvious in seconds. The formula he lands on is being concise, paired with the earlier advice about targeting roles others overlook.

Most CV advice misses the point because it ignores luck, but a few practical steps can help you stand out during that customary 30-second scan. Use bullet points. Note team or business wins rather than pixel-pushing projects. Did the company recently go through funding? Were you involved? Did a project you worked on see a boost in subscriptions or signups? Talk about it. Have you led anything? Describe the impact. What cross-functional work have you done, such as partnering with an engineering lead on a project that increased efficiency?

Your portfolio should answer five questions per project: who worked on it, what you built, why you built it, when it was built, where it was marketed or showcased, and how you had an impact. Think in actions rather than describing what you did. A bullet point like “increased conversions on our signup form by 10%” impresses immediately; “worked on the website” tells no one anything.

If you have complementary skills — say, a designer who enjoys writing — add them as a footnote. An “ongoing side projects” section also shows broader interests, though doing work outside contracted hours is a privilege, and the industry shouldn’t hold it against those who don’t.

Connections Beat Craft

Community matters more than most designers realize. The source author took seven years to understand that investing in the industry pays off more than mastering Photoshop or Sketch in isolation. Nobody tells you to work harder on making good connections than polishing your designs, but it’s the industry’s best-kept secret. He credits a community ambassador role at Figma directly to prior community involvement.

When he moved to Sydney without knowing anyone, he started attending local design events. A monthly design critique — a “crit” — became something he eventually ran. A monthly speaker series gave him a chance to share tips, which led to invitations to co-host. He also rediscovered writing. Neither skill was design-specific, but both made him a better all-rounder: communication — holding a microphone, explaining decisions to colleagues, documenting work in articles — becomes more important as you climb. The best designers and managers are the ones who communicate often, in detail, for the team’s benefit.

Practical steps: hover around industry events, reply to social posts from designers you admire, join design Slack or Discord communities, and become known. It’s frightening, but you know something, so contribute. Most large companies prioritize internal referrals over blind applications, so build friendships at target companies — or just because human connection matters.

Working Beats Waiting

Inspiration on demand is nearly worthless. Doom-scrolling design galleries waiting for the spark leads to copying something that doesn’t fit your product. As Picasso said,

“Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.”

The source author learned this the hard way as the only designer on a team with no senior mentorship; he simply had to do the work. The same pattern defined his university years, when evenings spent hitting every Flash error message made him the go-to expert.

Rather than asking others for answers, search first. Google is your friend, and designer communities will help when you need a fast solution. This approach compounds into genuine expertise, and being self-taught is fine in a world where everything is a click away. Design itself improves only by doing: open your app, move elements, zoom, experiment.

Nothing replaces a solid foundation. Strong accessible color palettes, good typography hierarchy, and an underlying spacing rhythm make designs feel right far faster than hunting for one-off inspiration.

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