Two Types of Designers

If you’ve ever felt like you’re great at what you do, but somehow still feel out of place in the roles you take, this might help. If you’re hiring designers, understanding these two types might save you from some expensive mismatches.

Earlier this year, I took a Senior Staff role at a major tech company and left after six months. In this market, that’s insane. Tons of designers are fighting to get into roles like that, not walking away from them.

Q1 had been brutally slow for my own studio, and I panicked. Stability felt smart. I convinced myself this time would be different. Six months later, I walked away. Not because anything was wrong, it was one of the best teams I’ve ever worked with.

It just taught me something I’d been ignoring for over 20 years across Microsoft, Google, Amazon, GoPro, Adobe, multiple startups, agencies, and independent studio work: I’m a Type 2 designer who, every few years, tries a Type 1 role hoping it’ll finally click. Let me explain…

Two Types of Designers and Why It Matters

Type 1: The Systems Builder

These designers thrive in mature design organizations with established systems and processes. They find deep satisfaction in:

• Refining components, documentation, and design systems

• Cross-functional alignment and stakeholder management

• Improving existing products at scale

• Building influence through levels and scope expansion

• Mentorship, clear career ladders, and organizational impact

They want stability, structure, and the resources that come with mature companies. They’re design systems leads, career managers, senior ICs on established products, and the people who build the foundations that let companies scale.

Type 2: The Builder

These designers thrive in 0→1 chaos with no guardrails. They’re energized by:

• Defining what “good” looks like from scratch

• Working directly with founders or heads of product

• Moving fast across the entire design stack (strategy, UX, UI, motion, systems)

• Seeing fast, direct, and tangible impact on product direction

• Autonomy, variety, and velocity over process

They’re the first design hires at startups, fractional designers for early-stage companies, and the people who turn crazy ideas and engineering concepts into shipped products in weeks.

Neither type is better. But man, being the wrong type in the wrong environment will wear you down. Ask me how I know.

What Type 2 Designers Hit at Mature Orgs

Here’s what happens when a Type 2 designer lands at a company that’s scaled past thousands of people.

Too many people in too many meetings. More small firefights than meaty problems. Design systems to work within, not ones to build. Strategic decisions happening behind closed doors made by directors and VPs, handed down as direction. You can find meaty problems or work strategically, but it requires political capital, navigating upward, and selling ideas through layers. Sometimes it works. Sometimes you get “stay in your lane” vibes.

Not because anyone’s doing it wrong. That’s just what organizational scale looks like.

This isn’t a bug. It’s a feature.

When there are hundreds of designers, dozens or hundreds of products, and millions of users, process is necessary. Alignment is necessary. Systems that prevent chaos are necessary. Type 1 designers understand this intuitively. They build influence across that complexity. They shape culture at scale. They make the bureaucracy productive.

I just wanted to design the thing, get it in people’s hands, and see how it actually worked. Big companies taught me how to think systematically and collaborate at scale, but at this stage in my career, I crave speed and direct impact more than structure.

For a Type 2 designer, that environment feels like a 33° powder day with no wax. Slow. Most energy goes to coordination, less to the design work that actually energizes. Meanwhile, founders are texting: “We need to ship this product in 8 weeks.” That’s end-to-end ownership on something that matters, not endless alignment on incremental changes.

The mismatch works both ways.

A Type 1 designer at a chaotic startup will be stressed by the lack of process, unclear scope, and constant pivots. They’ll try to build systems before the product has found product-market fit.

A Type 2 designer at a mature org will be suffocated by alignment meetings, stakeholder reviews, and the 6-month timeline to ship a single feature. They’ll push to move faster and get labeled “difficult.”

The work isn’t bad. The designer is just in the wrong place.

Why Companies Get This Wrong

Every mature company wants to “move like a startup.” They hire Type 2 designers because they see startup experience as valuable. They want that energy, that velocity, that 0→1 magic.

Then they put those designers into environments with 20+ stakeholders, quarterly planning cycles, and design systems that can’t be touched without a review board. The “why” has already been decided three levels up, you’re just there to figure out the what and how.

I learned multiple times over the years that the team labelled a “startup inside a big company” is not a startup in any way.

Type 1 designers are essential. They’re the ones who make design scale. They build the systems, the culture, the processes that let companies ship at scale without falling apart. The industry needs them, and they thrive in environments where Type 2 designers burn out.

In my search for stability, I really forgot which type I was again until I was six months into the wrong role, wondering why it wasn’t clicking when the market, team, and company were so amazing.

It’s not malicious. It’s misunderstanding.

The Test

Here’s what helped me figure it out. Ask yourself honestly:

Does stakeholder alignment energize you or drain you?

• Type 1: Energized. You love building consensus and navigating organizational complexity.

• Type 2: Drained. You see it as friction keeping you from shipping.

Do you prefer refining existing patterns or inventing new ones?

• Type 1: Refining. You find satisfaction in making good things great.

• Type 2: Inventing. You want to define what “good” looks like from scratch.

Does ambiguity excite you or stress you out?

• Type 1: Stress. You prefer clear scope, established patterns, and defined processes.

• Type 2: Excite. You thrive when nothing is figured out yet.

Would you rather have a clear career ladder or direct product impact?

• Type 1: Career ladder. You want to know what Senior → Staff → Principal looks like.

• Type 2: Product impact. You want to own the entire problem, not just your slice of it.

Do you want to influence how design happens, or just design the thing?

• Type 1: Influence. You want to shape design culture, build systems, and scale design practices.

• Type 2: Design the thing. You want to ship products, not build organizational infrastructure.

Your honest answers tell you which type you are. Founders love Type 2 designers because they move fast, think in outcomes, and don’t need to be managed.

What I’m Building Instead

Not just freelancing again. Building Hold Fast Studio into something real. Choosing problems instead of just taking projects. Learning to actually run a business, think like a founder, and yeah, spinning up some of my own products on the side.

I’m chasing the most complex problems I can find. Hardware/software/AI convergence, where the seams between disciplines determine whether the thing succeeds or fails. Working with early-stage founders on 0→1 products that are still taking shape.

The work is flexible depending on where founders and teams need to be. Getting engineering moving, painting a strategic picture of the future, helping secure funding, hiring designers from scratch. Sometimes fractional, sometimes project-based, always focused on velocity and impact. And yes, sometimes that includes 0→1 work inside big companies. Skunkworks teams, new product launches, the projects that moves fast regardless of the org chart.

What I love most now is the control. I can stack my weeks around deep work, client calls, and life. If it’s a powder day, I’ll take a few laps in the morning and get back to it in the afternoon. That rhythm keeps me sharp.

What thriving looks like for me

Right now I’m working with a pre-funding AI hardware startup on something brand new and really novel, helping them shape the foundation for the product experience and get investor ready. I’m also partnering with an AI medical platform to simplify how new applications onboard into their ecosystem.

I’m talking with a few VC incubators about helping their early teams move faster, and advising founders who either hired design too junior, mismatched type, or can’t yet afford dedicated design resources.

It’s a mix of building, advising, and experimenting, helping multiple companies move from idea to traction while (re-)building my own design practice at the same time.

This is what a Type 2 career looks like over time. Not climbing a ladder. Building something that’s mine and helping a ton of cool people along the way.

I’ve had incredible experiences inside big companies. Working alongside brilliant people, learning rigor, and seeing what design at global scale looks like. I wouldn’t trade that time for anything. It made me sharper. But over time, I realized I get more energy from early-stage chaos than maintaining mature products at massive scale.

The Reality of a Type 2 Career

Type 2 designers can thrive as employees at startups or as independent practitioners. But if you go independent, you have to think like a business owner, not an employee. No steady paycheck. No career ladder. Just bets, quarters, and clients. You live off your network, your reputation, and the last thing you shipped. You write. You post. You take too many calls that lead nowhere. You build a business that happens to be you.

For years, I fought that. I’d freelance, then run in-house when a shiny gig came along. It always felt safer, but it never fit. Every time I joined another big company, I told myself I just hadn’t found the right one yet.

Looking back now, my career jumps make some sense. I wasn’t flaky (well, maybe a little), I was learning where I actually thrive. Leading design at agencies in Tokyo. First design hire at startups. Three camera systems from scratch. Product design lead on multiple Google products. Early conversational systems at Microsoft Research. New hardware products at Amazon. Taking a startup hardware companies’ new software offering $0 to $1M ARR.

Not a straight ladder, but a pattern. Every high point was when I was closest to the work, closest to impact, and farthest from politics.

I used to think I needed to change that. Now I see it’s the blueprint.

What I Wish I’d Known Earlier

If I could go back and tell myself something 20 years ago, it’s stop trying to fit.

Type 1 designers should chase those mature big company roles, build influence, refine systems, climb the ladder. They should invest in the skills that let them shape design culture at scale. The industry needs them there. They’re the ones who make design work at 10,000-person companies. They’re essential.

I kept trying to be that designer. I’m not.

Type 2 designers need to find the startups, the 0→1 projects, the fractional gigs where they can move fast and see direct impact. Stop apologizing for wanting velocity over politics (I’m still working on this one). That’s not immaturity. That’s self-awareness.

Build the network. Stay visible. Think like a business owner. Get comfortable with uncertainty. Stop running back to “stability” every time it gets scary. I did that for 20 years. It never worked.

Here’s the Thing

The market is brutal right now. I get that. Walking away from stable offers is super privileged. Clarity about which type of designer we are might be the most valuable thing we have right now. It can only help us make better decisions and companies better identify us. Maybe, just maybe, it might lessen the need for performative design theater in interviews (right, who am I kidding?).

Whether fighting for a BigTech™ role or building a design practice out of choice or necessity, understanding what actually energizes you will determine whether you succeed or burn out.

If you’re a Type 2 designer stuck in a Type 1 environment (or vice versa), you’re not failing. You’re not “not good enough,” you just might be in the wrong place.

And sometimes the bravest thing we can do is admit that and make a change.