TL;DR

• A former civil engineer, builder, and business founder/owner

• I came into design through personal startups, leading to a career pivot into B2B2B mobile and web application design for a unicorn company over 12 years ago

• I'd rather face hard truths than believe comfortable lies, brought on by my INTP/ENTP type

• I can lose sleep over unknown unknowns

• My experience outside software gives me a unique perspective as a designer and leader

Becoming a Designer

About 12 years ago, I inadvertently entered the field of design by pitching an app idea to a local agency prototyped in Keynote. The idea transformed from a prototype to a working product, and I spent a year-long crash course inside the agency that built it.

The biggest discovery was learning how much I loved solving problems through digital products. After a year, the agency shut down. However, it wasn't long before I found another problem to fix and secured angel funding to build a multi-cart commerce app. When I pitched the MVP to a company in Columbus, Ohio, they countered a few weeks later with a different offer…to become their first officially titled UX Designer and help them design and build their company's first mobile apps, kickstarting my career in the world of corporate/enterprise design.

Since those first experiences, I’ve collaborated with product and engineering folks to solve fun and tricky problems in various spaces. I’ve worked alone as the scrappy generalist designer/researcher and I’ve been a part of larger teams, where systems and processes are the only way to stay efficient, productive, and pixel-perfect.

Over the years, I've learned that I have a strong affinity for the front end of a project - when hopes and assumptions are high and projects require a lot of strategic thinking and a good dose of ambiguity.

I’ve developed a healthy obsession to learn more about myself and others, especially concerning the psychology behind the decisions we make, employee and stakeholder motivations, group and individual biases, and all the weird and curious things we humans do to solve problems, find meaning, belong, and deal with our fears.

I place the highest value on leadership, teamwork, and seeing individuals achieve their personal and professional goals through their work.

Prior to Tech

I spent the better part of my youth on construction sites, playing in sand as a kid, then later cleaning up after every subcontractor - making it easier for others to get their work done. I didn't know it at the time, but it was a full education in servant leadership. The contractor bears the most risk, but serves others by creating clarity and removing obstacles.

Growing up in construction it felt natural for me to earn a degree in Civil Engineering. At 23, I became a building official for 7 years, then a residential contractor, building custom and multi-family homes. I started a systems integration business that I owned and operated for 10 years. At the height of it all, we began developing a 96-lot subdivision, just before the housing market began to crumble. Luckily, we survived the crash, but it wasn’t without bruises and lessons learned.

Those former experiences and challenges still influence my thinking and framing of problems today. Most career designers just haven't been exposed enough challenges to give them multiple perspectives (this is why side projects are hugely valuable). I understand the relationship between risk, leverage, and perseverance. I see projects as investments that need a return and teams as partners that work together for a common objective. There are more similarities between construction projects and software than most people realize, which is something I plan to write more about.

The most important lesson for designers is that design is not just how it looks. Beautiful UI's aside, it’s how everything works together as a system, considering problems, context, triggers/motivations, how satisfied people are currently solving their problems (or not), and figuring out what keeps them coming back to a solution or what gets in the way.