Episode 31: Navigating your Design Career in Agencies & Startups with Daryl Tan
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Hi everyone, I'm Dalen, founder and design educator at Curious Core. Welcome to our Working in UX Design podcast series where we interview a UX design leader in the industry on their experience in this emerging field. We've had UX professionals from Grab, AirAsia, Google and more join us previously and we're bringing you more exciting interviews this year.

Stay tuned for this week's interview with our special guest, who is working in UX design. Good evening, everyone, and good day to all of you who are joining us from overseas. It's our pleasure to be hosting you and have you here today, joining our live webinar session and podcast with a special guest, Daryl Tan.

And Darryl is currently in transition. However, Darryl is a digital product designer with over a decade of experience working in various agencies, startups and small medium enterprises. So he's a curious soul himself and enjoys crafting meaningful experiences by leveraging on the latest data, processes and technology.

So he has done many projects and delivered many high-value projects before, and he very much enjoys implementing processes and systems while collaborating with various business research and product companies.

as well as engineering units to drive product success. He definitely enjoys engaging people from different backgrounds and we're going to be asking him lots of questions today in our show and also understanding more about his experience working for a startup, working for

an agency and being a UXer in all of this and also training junior UXers as he is growing along as a senior UXer. And for those of you who are familiar with the work culture in agencies and startups, you know it can be very brutal

and very intense. We were just talking about how skipping dinner is a common occurrence. So we will talk about managing burnout, managing stress in such an environment and being able to thrive in such an environment. So can we please put our hands together for Darryl? Welcome Darryl. Tell us a little bit about this

experience of skipping lots of dinners and not being able to go back and have proper dinner times with your family. How does that feel like and why is it necessary in working in a startup or in an agency? Thank you, Daylan. Thank you so much for having me here. I super appreciate it. So everything that you've mentioned earlier on, that was usually my sales pitch. But now that you've said it,

I guess we're done with rounds of introductions. So skipping dinner is very common. Also, not having to see the evening sun. Stepping out of your office is super late. That's really common. So it applies for both types of environments in a startup, in an agency. It really depends on your workload as well. So where do I begin dealing? What should I talk about first?

How do you do that for so many years and not lose your friends? I don't have friends. No, I'm just kidding. I have a very small group of friends who are very understanding. Some of them are in this line as well. So they're very understanding. They know what it's like. We have similar experiences. So we usually just wing it most of the time. It's a lot of improv. It's very common where I'm going to go meet someone for dinner, have

have to delay it for maybe an hour or so. Thank God I have very understanding friends who are still around in my life. That's great. I'm glad to hear. Well,

Outside of France, a lot of talk has been about mental health these days. It sounds like you have to work late. If you have to work late, then it means you also have less time for yourself, less time to recharge. Does that take a toll on your mental health? Yes, definitely. But your mileage may vary from person to person. So I have a controversial opinion on burning out. So it was very interesting prior to

to join this webinar where we were discussing what were some of the topics that you want to bring to our viewers. So we talked about like burning out and I said to you, I wanted to keep it real. So an opinion that I have when it comes to burnout, a lot of the times you go online, you listen to podcasts, you read articles, you watch videos, you go like, oh, okay, these are some ways to manage burnout. What you can do to control

getting overwhelmed but my opinion is such that burnout is inevitable and I'll tell you why as we go along but I think it's very important like you're talking about burnout is inevitable in any job you're saying yeah any job actually I mean you just think about it like

You have colleagues that go on vacation, you go on vacation, they come back, go, how's your vacation? They go like, oh, great. And then what's the next thing they'll say? They say that, oh, I wish I never had to come back. So I don't remember the last time...

Someone came back on a vacation, especially for creatives, I don't remember the last time someone came back and said like, "I'm super recharged, I'm ready to get to work." Especially in the scene here lah. I mean, I'm just keeping it real. As far as I can remember, no one has ever said that to me. They always go like, "Oh, I wish I never had to leave. I wish I had like one more week in Hokkaido, in Japan, or like everywhere else." So I think burnout is just gonna happen. It's how you

deal with it later when you get to that stage. What are the plans that you have made for it? It's also important to like knowing the kind of work that leaves you feeling fulfilled and energized versus the kind of work that just drains you can be an important limitation to recognize. So that's just something to keep in mind.

I think that's great that you mentioned it and thanks for keeping it real. I also like to say not everyone gets to go to Hokkaido to manage their stress and burnout, but I see that as a privilege as well. So I'm just wondering, between the trips, between the rest breaks and

and the travels, how do you manage it on a day-to-day basis? And I think you brought up a really good point as well, like fulfilling work. I think to a certain extent, we all choose the work we do. So what's wrong?

Is there a type of work that drains you and drains your soul? Like, tell me more. It depends on the kind of environment you're in. The two polarizing environment types, I guess, would be startups and agencies and a similar environment that's close to agencies. But same difference is I'm going to just group it together and call it like corporate. So I think in between those, it's really the, I'm a simple dude. Uh,

enjoy the simple things in life. A lot of designers I know, they sacrifice their time, they just put it into work, product day in day out, they eat, sleep and breathe the product that they're designing. And they sacrifice a lot of their interests and their passion in lieu of that.

So try to find the little things in life that make you happy. Go out and do them. Go and have dinner with your friends, spend time with your family. It's very cliche because everyone says this, but just bear in mind that the time that you sacrifice when you're working on a product, when you're at work, you're not getting the time back, man. So it's just really something to keep in mind.

I hate to constantly repeat this. It's everywhere, but it is the truth because you'll come to a point where you've done so much work, whether or not that product is successful or unsuccessful, time spent is not time that you're getting back if you're not doing what makes you happy.

Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. And I mean, especially working in a product, right on a product, work is never done. It's always a cycle of continuous improvement. The product can always be better. So it really depends on whether you draw the line. And you've done this for a decade, right? More than a decade. You've done this for more than a decade. Yeah, 14 years.

- 14 years, man. - What's keeping you sane for 14 years? You know the next job you're gonna go into is gonna be the same thing. What's keeping you fresh? What's keeping you going despite knowing you're gonna go through the same thing again?

That is a tricky question to answer. But what has kept me going was it needed to survive. Survivability. So the past few years, I think a lot of people had the impression that getting into tech, it's a lucrative industry. And to be honest, a couple of years ago, it was until it started getting a little bit saturated these days. Generally, it's not difficult to survive.

to survive in terms of like financially, you can be quite comfortable depending on which environment you land

land up in. So for me, it wasn't really about, well, it's about the work. I don't want this to sound like bad or anything, but surviving, I guess. That was my number one. I grew up poor, so having to worry about day-to-day expenses and whatnot. So those were some of the challenges that I had to deal with growing up. And I don't want to put myself in that position anymore. So Mantec allowed me to survive.

Would you say also it brought you to a place where it improved your quality of life as well? Because of the fact that you're in tech. Definitely, definitely. Yeah, it saved me. And for that, I will be forever grateful for design in general. I still love it until today. I don't hate it. I've learned so much from it. I've grown from it. What would you say to people who are going into their first

in an agency or a startup, what do they need to know before they join an agency or what do they need to do before they join a startup? Do they have to sacrifice their dinners? I don't know.

I think these days, a lot of companies will encourage very good work-life balance. So you don't have to sacrifice too many dinners. It's usually how you plan your time. I think for joining a startup, there are some differences on what to expect versus joining an agency. So for startups, one of the strengths of a startup is that you are able to call

collaborate with various units. You can be, and I say that like you can be collaborating with the CEO or the founder. He or she could be working like right next to you. So that's a very unique experience to have. Working at a startup will also allow you to pick up auxiliary skills, which is kind of

exclusive to startups, I would say. You get to learn about a lot of business nuances that you would not necessarily pick up at other environments. The work is interesting, but you're also working on one product and you're working on that one product over a long period of time. The ultimate goal, of course, would be everybody scrambling to get the product into the market quickly and gain traction with

with that product. It's nice also working at startups because generally the idea working at startups is they have this whole taking care of people which is an attraction. So you have your typical very common catered lunches and your ping pong tables and whatnot. It's a very nice feeling to be in a startup. I would also say it

makes you a consistent creative by learning to stay the course because you're always, you're working on one product, right? So you're always going back to the drawing board to iterate, to concept, to prototype. So your growth at a startup is more, I would say, camaraderie-based

as you have to believe in the product. So whichever startups that you blend yourself into believing in a product is very important. Yeah, it sounds a little bit like college to me. However, is there anything bad about being in a startup? Bad? Yeah, it sounds bad when you say that way. It's funding dependent for sure. So the number one thing going into startup, manage your own expectations. It really is funding dependent. And I've had this happen

uh before back a couple of years i joined the startup two weeks into the role you start making friends and everything and then i had someone come up to me and go like hey actually water cooler talk we're not doing that well so everybody else is scrambling to find that next opportunity they're already preparing to move on and i just joined like two three weeks ago a month in and then you you get this sort of news

not very encouraging, not very motivating at all. Then you start questioning yourself like, what am I doing here? Is this the right thing? And you don't hear this from management. You will never hear this from management. Typically, you hear this from the people who have been there for a while and you get to know them and then, hey, guess what? Place is not doing too well. Get ready. So funding dependent. The working conditions may not be up to expectations. One startup I've been to, I mean,

You know they always say like, "Don't be a softie, just deal with it, deal with whatever you have." But to be fair, this is very real. Some places may not even have your basic needs, necessities. They don't even have a water cooler, if you can believe that for one. I had to go down, run down through the convenience store to buy water, that sort of thing. Some of the other cons, it's less structured in terms of timing, your policies.

your perks and your benefits. So everything can be quite chaotic. It's not set up. It's literally called a startup. So you've got to be prepared for, oh, okay, you might come into work on 10 a.m. one day and you're working late all throughout the night. Next day, you come in at like two or three and everybody has their own timing. So,

coordination can be a little bit chaotic, a little bit messy. But that's a minor issue that you can work around. And I think the startups we're talking about over here are probably like less than 20 people and they're pretty early, right? These are the types of startups we're talking about.

Would you know if it's any different if they're bigger? Maybe there are 100 people and they're a little bit more stable. Yeah, they're maybe in a series B or C. I don't know. Okay, so startups, they tend to grow very quickly. Almost every other month, there's a call for expansion. We're expanding this team. Engineering goes bigger. Design goes bigger. Generally, it's a...

I would say the honeymoon kind of feeling. It feels nice when the team is small and agile. As it grows bigger and bigger and bigger, then it starts to have a lot of red taping. Some processors are just starting to...

be put into place. So that's where you typically grow with the startups, but a lot of common mistake, not sure if it's a mistake, but from what I've seen with fast expansion, it comes with a lot of risk. But then again, as creatives, it's outside our pay grade. So something, I mean, we don't have to actually be actively worrying about it. We just need to think about, okay,

Let's make sure this product works and everybody is like that. They have like a hive mind trying to make this work because they know that if it bombs, it bombs. Also, I suppose be prepared to multi-head. That's one thing. So you might not only be doing design design, you could be doing design today,

Next day someone needs help and then suddenly you're the copywriter. You got to see the copy and you know nothing about copy. And having to eat, sleep and breathe product can

kind of feel you have like new releases and versions of product that can make you feel like you're stuck in a wheel. So at the end of all experience at a startup, just be prepared that the resume that you're going to be putting out, it's going to look very chaotic because you're going to be thinking like, oh, okay, not only have I designed for this product, I have done copywriting, I've done marketing, I've done like so much stuff. And then it

it kind of feels super fragmented. So in some cases, it looks good on your resume. In some cases, it doesn't. It really depends on what your next opportunity is going to be. So that's just really something to keep in mind. It does sound as what you said, Darryl, it sounds like a lot of growth because you're being stretched in areas you're maybe not so used to being stretched.

But at the same time, it is also very chaotic. It means you need to keep adapting and that can also be tiring, right? You mentioned something about environment earlier, right? Like, does all these like ping pong tables and all that, do they matter? Like, or what would you say is a good environment

What do you say is a good environment? It makes the environment look good, but I think it's just fluff. So one of the things that we're going to be talking about later on is coaching junior designers. I'm not going to go off tangent right now, but it's a little bit fluffy. Fine, you'll use a ping pong table like...

after work for maybe 30 minutes maybe just to get to know new staff who has joined new designers but other than that i don't know maybe it's maybe you have aspirations of of being a national ping pong champion then you use the table but yeah you know most of the time you're so focused on work you you

you clock in at like maybe 10, 11, you're at it the whole day. At the end of the day, you just want to go home and crash. You don't really want to spend any more time on a ping pong table. So yeah, that's what I have for ping pong table. So what would you say, we got enough black on the ping pong table, but what would make a good environment in your opinion? If you were to

choose a startup right and you say hey it needs to have a good environment what would you identify as a good environment in the startup getting to know each and every member on your team on a I don't want to say like super deep level but understanding how this person what makes this person think there isn't an answer for this there isn't like a one size fits

fits all kind of t-shirt answer like oh I'm gonna buy a new ping pong table everyone's gonna love it I don't really care for the ping pong table some people love it I think getting to know that individual people on your team that's super important maybe this person is a little bit more do the work finish for the day go home don't want to just stop interacting with everybody else some people are more sociable that's fine one of the companies that I work for we had drinking sessions every Friday that was part of the call

As your team grows, it's understandable that you're not going to be able to do all this stuff. I think what's important is just basically having health insurance is nice. Things that allow people to survive day to day, health insurance, dental. So you feel like they're taken care of. Yeah. Feel that they're taken care of. That's super important to me, I guess. Wherever that I go,

end up in but the benefits is always super important more important to me than like catered lunches pizza I don't really care

That sounds reasonable. Startup founders and bosses, please take this as a feedback as well. I'm going to be blacklisted now, man. No, right? I'm sure you're fine. Now I want to know the good, bad and ugly about agencies. I understand you spend more time in your career in agencies, right? What's good, what's bad, what's ugly about it? Well, if you join an agency with a good name,

a big name, you have bragging rights. Bragging rights is always nice because you'll look good on your resume. What's an example of an agency with a good name? I'm not going to take the risk and name drop agencies now, dude. That's entrapment. That's a trap. That's big.

Alright, alright. I'll light you up on this one. But, okay, you typically know, like, you have your big name agencies. So, bagging rights, it'll look nice. You have better job stability, that's for sure. It's not so much funding dependent.

better job stability doesn't mean you won't be able to get X because you can still very well get X. Yeah, I heard when they don't get a project or a renewal, they get X. Right, so then they will do with a reduction exercise. The structure is there compared to startups. There's a lot more structure. Yeah, there's generally more structure. Yeah.

The benefits are there. They have some nice benefits. I'm going to like kind of just generalize and group agency and... Yeah, that's fine. Yeah, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Kind of corporate together. There are some exclusive benefits and perks that comes with agencies and some that are corporate specific.

But in general, structure and benefits, those are there. I think it depends also on how big your agency is as well. Yeah, that happens as well. It depends on how big your agency is. If you are at a corporate, there are nice facilities. Okay, but generally, the mindset working at an agency, you will be surrounded with like-minded individuals. That's agency-specific.

not so much corporate. The atmosphere, I guess, for agencies, the atmosphere you'll have typically have super nice ergonomic chairs and dual monitor setups. And that is a luxury. It's really nice to have compared to startups where they might typically tell you, use your own machine. We will give you some sort of rebate later on, but generally you bring your own machine to work. So

Agency wise, there's a little bit more welfare. Yeah, you're provided with nice ergo chairs, ergo tune. The work there is very gated and there's a steady flow of work. In turn, that translates to like vast learning through your research, through your project that comes in. You've got typically research for your project flows, the lifespan of the project and that kind of challenges you, grows your knowledge.

The time that I have been in agencies has allowed me to, I would say I would have a pretty vast general knowledge base. Well, 90% of it is useless information. But being on these projects, it really, really broadens your general knowledge. Like, for example, I might not know anything about the marine industry today.

But the more of a project comes in, I got to do research for that. The next thing I know, you'd ask me anything about that. I'm not like a marine oil and gas Wikipedia kind of person now. So that's nice to have. You become smarter. So the learning is there. The work varies, but it's a steady flow of work. I think some of the challenges that come with agencies, okay, this one is corporate specific. There's a hierarchy. But some people appreciate hierarchy. So that might be a...

pro to them i guess there's a lot of structure with corporate there's also kind of a lot of red taping going on so bringing your ideas and processes up the chain you're going to face with a lot of it's slow it's a very slow process there's also some resistance from different departments where if you have to bounce off a certain area of your product to that department you think it takes a damn long time to come back and by the time comes back then

Maybe you get reasons like no, we're not doing this. Then you go like, huh? Why? Can you tell me more? Maybe I can approach it from a different perspective. But the person, the answers that you get, maybe the dude doesn't like it. So we're stuck and you can't move on smoothly. Also, I think this is quite critical expectation wise. Typically, if you look at a JD for maybe a corporate

corporate company, right? So they'll go like, we're looking for someone who can take full ownership of our product or service. But in a corporate kind of environment where you have different departments, it is nigh impossible to take full ownership.

ownership of a product because like I said, I mentioned earlier, your product gets bounced from department to department and at the end of the day, everything feels so fragmented. You just go like, okay, I'll just do my part. At the end, it's time to go home or just clock out, that kind of thing. So that's generally the kind of feeling that you will have. Other challenging things that I can think of being in an agency or corporate environment, progression is kind of slow, but

then again your mileage may vary so slow progression your salary does not always grow to meet demands dress codes some places will have you dress up smart casual i guess or maybe like even formal even though you are not client facing but you know i don't make the rules there's typically more ego personality crashes compared to startups this is corporate specific so i have a rule kind of

Generally, if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.

Just don't. Trust me. In an agency environment, there will always be a feeling of tension, for sure. You're always going to have thoughts at the back of your head. Oh, okay, I have deadlines to meet. Am I doing this correctly? Am I doing this well? Do I have to rely? I don't want to have to rely on my teammates. That sort of stuff. So the feeling of tension will always be overhanging. It's always there. You'll have to deal with things like scope creep, deadlines, extra hours. Those are...

mainly the challenges that come with working at a agency slash corporate environment. Now that you've been on both sides, thanks for sharing the good, bad and ugly for both sides. I do have very fond memories of my agency life because I just remember everyone being very chill. And especially if you're working in a corporate one, it's...

It's quite nice because the welfare and the perks are not bad. Now, I wanted to ask you, as a designer, our portfolio is everything, right? So which place built you a better portfolio, startup or agency? Do both. If you have the opportunity to do both. It doesn't matter which you step foot in the door first, you will definitely want as colorful of a resume that you can build.

You don't want to shoehorn yourself and focus only on going into startups and I've only been working on like, oh, startup products. Then when you want to maybe try a new environment, it's going to come with its own set of challenges. Maybe it used to be frowned upon where it would seem like you're jump hopping every two or three years, but do what's best for you. Expose yourself to a multitude of projects and experience and

the people that you work with and from that know which type of environment you enjoy the kind of work that you want to do if you go talk to anyone and if they tell you like oh you know

don't go to startups, focus all your efforts on corporate, that person is straight up just giving you bad advice for yourself, for your own personal growth, if you're just starting out. If you see an opportunity that you want to explore, just go and explore. Because if that opportunity disappears, it's going to be difficult. I guess in generally, do both, but be expected to multi-head in both environments. And always remember that

you know your work and your career and your health and happiness that that is really all that matters not the brand of the agency not how fancy the the building is it really doesn't matter that crap doesn't matter focus on you if you are dedicated and you really want to like stay in this line you can see yourself doing it for a long time just do that

I fully agree, especially in such a tough and recessionary environment right now. I mean, jobs are scarce as well. So if you have a good opportunity, why not? Whether it's a startup or whether it's an agency.

I do recall that you do get to work on slightly different problems, right? And slightly different skills, depending whether you're in a startup or agency. I wanted to ask a question in general, like what is the most memorable moment you had in an agency and the most memorable moment you had in a startup?

You want the good one or the bad one? It's up to you. Most memorable agency for me. Okay, so I talked about

friday night drinking with a bunch of super cool designer that i met so yeah that that was a memorable time for me so this designer worked worked in the agency or they didn't we were kind of considered an agency it was like a digital arm within a events company yeah so then within that small unit all we had was each other man so we had to find things to make our to a

to entertain ourselves and we ended up bringing so in general the company was quite fragmented and we ended up through our regular Friday drinking sessions we ended up bringing people together so that was that was one great memory that I have another memory that I have memorable experience working at startup I

got to know some pretty great designers. So we have maintained that relationship until today. We've seen the industry grow, basically, from the time where startups wasn't a thing and then the government implemented this initiative.

Suddenly you wake up the next day and everyone's a startup. Everyone wants to build products. So that was a memorable time. The work was very interesting. I was working on like blog projects and some very interesting projects, products that I don't think we'll see very commonly these days. So that was a memorable time. I noticed all your memorable moments are about people. Yeah, definitely. It's all about the people. At the end of the day, like cold hard truth, everyone is replaceable.

So when you're on your deathbed, no one's gonna come to you and go like, "I'm so grateful for whatever you have done." It's just so, it's about the people, really.

I think that's definitely very on-team, especially these days there's a lot of talk about AI and all that. It's good to know that the human connection still matters a lot. I have a question that's people-related. Have you ever dealt with a project manager or department lead who have a different vision from you on the project? How do you solve it if you're also one of the leaders in the project?

competing vision, different vision from you? I am going to assume that this is kind of a power struggle that you're having right now. Try not to turn it into like a wee-wee contest because it's not about that at all. If you're super confident in a direction that you want to take a product or service in, if you're not seeing exactly eye to eye after doing your due diligence, sitting down, discussing, having all that conversation,

that talk, you're super, super confident. Take the time, do your own research. If there's an approach that you want to go for, you have to back it up with data, facts, anything that will help drive your point across. But don't go in swinging because that's not going to work. It really is about understanding that person also. Make sure you have understood where this person is coming from. Don't jump to your own conclusions. Don't assume anything.

if it really is where that project manager, you were saying, if that project manager is really confident, I mean, it could be a business directive for, you know, so if that's the way it has got to go, then sometimes you just have to bite the stick. That quote was given to me by one of my creative directors back then. So it's about seeing through the fluff. So hold on to that question and then we'll just, we'll

We'll circle back where we get to that. What was that quote you mentioned earlier, right? You're a creative director again. Oh, right. Sometimes you just have to bite the stick because...

Sometimes you have to bite the stick like a dog. What do you mean? It sounds bad when you put it that way. I'm trying to understand. Yeah. Like bite the stick. What does that mean? Okay. So sometimes it's an order from top down that you just don't have any other control. There's no way for you to change it. So you just have to. Oh. Yeah. Oh,

Oh, right. You just have to suck it up. You just have to suck it up and do it. It's very common, you see, because you remember what I said about JDs having you to like, oh, I wanted to take full ownership. Then now you can't. You're so emotionally invested. And then something like this happens. And then you go like, all right.

I think that's the thing. I mean, like what I noticed about startups is that your role is always evolving and it's always changing. So don't expect to do the same thing like for the next one year, right? Like six months later, your role might evolve and change. Same thing for agencies though. I mean, you're on a project, you're maximum on a project for what, six months? Then you're on the next project. You're not only going to be working on one project, you'll

you might be on two or three projects within six months. Yeah, so many things are going on. But I think I appreciate when I was in the agency, I was much younger. So I appreciate that dynamism, right? Like that ability to do different things and change. And I think when you're young and you have a lot of energy, it's always good to also be in an environment where people are young and have a lot of energy. Like you, yeah. That's a lot of value. Like people,

Usually people in such environments, they're still single, right? So they're sort of like workers, they're focused. They're still single. As far as I remember, that was the case. There were a lot of single people in my agency. I guess so. If you don't have any other commitments, then just work is your only commitment. It's a good thing. It's

Depending on how you look at it. In some way, it's a very self-selecting kind of environment. Yeah, so let's talk about growing in an environment, whether it's agency or startups. I believe any kind of mentorship that you get from such a fast-paced environment is a blessing, right? Because usually these environments don't have structured training programs, unlike a big corporation. I remember I was in Unilever, like,

Every month, there's some kind of training for the marketers. So let's talk a little bit about your approach and your process of growing the next generation. And I know that's something you're very interested in as well. You're hoping that after your transition, you're hoping to move into a more...

teaching kind of like role. So I'm curious about your process. Like how do you mentor your juniors? How do you grow them? Yeah, what's your perspective?

This one is kind of tricky. Okay, so typically, say you've gotten to a position where you're like a senior product designer, you're tasked to mentor a team of junior designers. Typically, very typically what happens is new designer comes in, there's a ton of work to be done. You immediately start throwing work at a junior designer, right? That's completely, that's all wrong. What I'm about to say couldn't exactly be done during COVID.

during the lockdown especially. But I think what's very important on coaching junior designers is instead of throwing them a whole bunch of work and trying to bring them through this work onboarding process, it's very important to reach agreements. And okay, this is kind of also actually from, what's that book called? Highly Effective

The seven habits of highly effective people. Yeah. Right. I,

I hate to keep beating a dead horse and that book has been like, everybody knows about it. So seven effective habits of high people. Is there something like seven habits of highly effective people? Yes. Stupid book, by the way. What I think everybody needs to do when you're coaching designers is sit down and start reaching agreements. And this expands everything.

outside of junior designers. This applies for your employers, your managers, your higher ups. So reach agreements on the type of results that you're going to get.

sit down with that person over a cup of coffee, reach agreement on results, on guidelines and resources, how a senior designer can aid a junior to achieve his or her goals, reach agreements on accountability, how would you measure those goals on meeting deadlines and the consequences. Basically what's going to happen if the project or product bombs, if you're unsuccessful,

So reach agreements on all of that and you'll kind of realize that everything else will just come into place naturally. Like after reaching agreements, you'll go like, okay, I don't really care when you get it done as long as you meet the deadlines, that kind of thing. You definitely have your daily standups, your syncs, your retros and all that. But you'll notice that after reaching agreements, everything else will just naturally come into place. And it's also a good first step to have. Far too often I see junior designers

joining companies and then they get like shafted a whole bunch of responsibilities that they have like no idea that they're coming in to this line with the best intention it will be your role to not leave them with a bad taste in their mouth so yeah that's the that's the number one thing i think that's a very kind way of doing things and also yeah that shows a lot of empathy to

to someone who's new, how exactly do you reach an agreement? I don't want our audience to necessarily go and read that book. Not because it's a bad book. I read it. I actually gave copies to my cousins to read it when they were growing up as a teenager. But yeah, how exactly would you do it? Let's say you have to mentor someone. How do you facilitate an agreement? What exactly do you talk about and not make it awkward? I couldn't do this during COVID. But back then, pre-COVID,

pre-covid it would just be verbal agreements don't need to make it like anything too formal so uh i'll take you out to coffee uh if you like to be wine and dine no but typically i'll take you out the coffee i'll go okay so here are the results that that's expected of

us. I'm not going to say like, okay, you were expected to do this, but I'll touch on your... So it's not an expected behavior, but it's an expected outcome. Correct. I want to see. Correct. Yeah, so...

It's not behavior, it really is outcome. There really is no point trying to turn your team into like a mini concentration camp. Really it's about, oh yeah, I would typically ask about your expectations as well. Like which areas do you see yourself going into? Do you want to focus more on the research aspects of design? Do you want to be more UI based?

So that's when you get to identify those aspirations and whatever skill gaps that they have. And then depending on the project that comes in, you will then be at your role, you'll be managing certain projects and you'll know how to slot them in and give them the best exposure in order for them to train on the job. It's understanding their expectations, but it's also setting

expectations of outcomes. Once you agree that this is the outcome we're both driving towards too, then it's easier, much, much easier to mentor, much, much easier to manage the person. You won't even feel like you're mentoring when it gets to that point because everything will come so naturally. I think that's important. I think, yeah, alignment is probably like, that constitutes alignment. Yeah, and this goes all the way up to maybe you just started a new position at a company. You can bring this up to

up to your CEO because you'll be interacting with him. Generally, you talk about agreements, your habits of working, and it won't even be a problem if you take this out clearly. If you're both on the same wavelength and he goes like, okay,

as long as this feature gets launched at this point you don't have to step in the office best case scenario that kind of thing but it's really about getting to know that person and having that person understand you as well now you're training to be an educator as i understand so i'm curious like what kind of educator or coaching style did you did you employ when you were

you were in such a fast-paced environment whether it's an agency or startup like because obviously they're not your clients right like you're not you're not you're not there to teach them full-time how do you guide people along while doing while doing the work oh you mean like educating stakeholders educating juniors educating juniors i didn't have a style

I learned this the hard way. Yeah, I was guilty of throwing work on the first day to a junior designer and junior designer got so overwhelmed and then we had to take a step back to see like, oh, okay. Yeah, so through trial and error, that's where the

the whole agreement thing i decided to try the whole agreement thing so there was a lot of uh missteps at the beginning there wasn't a straight up style everything was just kind of improv

I would say. I didn't go through any training programs or structure on what to do, how to train this person. Well, I'm an educator myself, right? I know that when you want to teach someone, you need to have patience, right? So how do you be patient with people who may not deserve the patience? I do not know how to answer that question. How do you be patient? It comes naturally to you. Yeah, I am a pretty chill kind of guy, I think.

you know, that every, everybody seems to take everything so seriously all the time when it comes to these kind of highly driven kind of fast-paced environments. But every once in a while, take a step back, you know, just laugh it off. Yeah, just be chill. It's just, it's work at the end of the day. And like, you know,

You have like people butting heads all the time. You go like, what's that for? Are you one of those guys who meditate every morning or something? Like, no, no, I do not.

I'm just wondering, I mean, cause you keep saying I'm chill, I'm chill. So I'm just, I'm just wondering what, what, what kind of a Kool-Aid are you drinking? It's just something I have to tell myself, like, just be chill. Don't be a hot ass. Did something happen when you tried being a hot ass to others? I guess in the beginning, I might've pissed off a couple of people just being so rigid in my ways, being so stuck. But you learn these things as you developing, as you're coming into your own as a designer. Like I remember right at the beginning,

And this, I draw back to your experience joining an agency or whichever company as a designer, you are kind of shaped by the people who have seen it all. So you come in to an environment, they go like, ah, it's just the way things are.

you kind of subconsciously, your reptilian brain kind of shift to that sort of thinking and then you become this person that someone else has shared their, thrown their experience at you. So if like say that person is a very stubborn kind of person, very difficult person to go with, as you're going into that role, you become like that person.

Because people are coming in doing this, they're fresh, so they're impressionable. It's just human nature and it's just the way things are. So if you are a senior designer and your first few rounds at managing junior teams, I think it's super important that you leave a good impression or at least try to stay neutral. Yeah, I think that's great advice because when I was young, I used to just look up to my creative director and I was like, oh, this is like God.

And then I was like, oh, what does this person do? What coffee does he drink? Or stuff like that. So if that person is super opinionated, he or she has a certain way of doing things, you kind of want to live up to that person's expectations and you kind of subconsciously

become that person if you are a junior person and you are interacting with a mentor figure right how how do you make this relationship effective like how would you wish your juniors would have engaged you i approach it where it's not a mental mentee kind of relationship i much rather prefer that we

get to know each other as friends, I would say. That makes discussion of topics, that makes the...

ways of doing things a lot easier to bring across a lot of uh it makes points easier to it drives points across much easier so you don't have like this awkwardness you go to class then you see your trainer as a trainer right i always try and like kind of eliminate that barrier and be as approachable as i can be like i'll see things how you are seeing them uh and i'll try to empathize and basically it's our job as our jobs as designers to be able to

empathize as much as we can. So just do this for your junior designers. Try and eliminate that barrier, which draws us back to if you have those agreements in place, it won't

feel like a mentor-mentee relationship. You can go hang out with that person afterwards or drink that kind of thing. I think that's very cool. It makes me think you'll be a good teacher. Hopefully, yeah. I strive to become one. Yeah. So I think that's great. Personally, I would say, I'll add on to your point, right? Empathy is a designer's superpower. And

If you can empathize with your mentor, that will be great. Because I think the difference between someone who's more senior than you and yourself have is time, right? There's a difference in terms of the amount of time that they can spend or can give away, right? So I think being very conscious of their time and being very...

careful on how you use their time, that would be great. I mean, just coming before any official mentoring session with questions, just taking care and being thoughtful and being flexible if, let's say, they need to reschedule and change things. Apply that same empathy to the relationship. I think it would be great. Yeah, of course, we are all working towards the same goal. Why make life difficult for others?

It's such a common thing. You know, the agencies, corporate, you have like clashing egos and whatnot, and it just sours the whole environment.

Yeah, actually, that's one of the things I didn't like about agencies. It was about egos. But yeah, I've once heard about that definition about how in some conversations in agencies, people are literally just comparing the size of their balls, right? I don't mean in a literal sense, but I mean, literally, it's like, hey, you know, I'm good at this.

hey, I'm better at this. It's a common thing. So if you ever find yourself in that kind of situation, don't engage in a power struggle. It really isn't a business contest. It's not worth it. No one's going to get anything out of it.

How do you keep learning? Beyond company training programs and stuff like that, how do you continue staying sharp? Whether you're a senior, whether you're a junior? Super important that you stay up to date. Online, offline channels, build your own network. There's a question like if there aren't any mentors available. So don't depend on anyone. You have to feel it intrinsically. You have to want to always be relevant.

i guess you have to make the effort on your day off take the effort to go and check out what's the latest figma updates if you want to improve technically go subscribe to like design blog just read up as much as you can yeah read up on on latest processes okay so the thing about like things like processes right they're always changing one of the things to think about especially when like there are no mentors available um you're trying to improve yourself constantly generally

Like when it comes to designing, building a product, you have like an end to end process, but know that everything is not set in stone. It doesn't mean you have to follow like step one, step two, step three, everything can be changed. Everything should be tailored anyway. So try and draw this back to whatever projects or product that you're working on and try and see where you can improve those processes. I think a huge part of design, uh,

I always think that design is all process, that isn't like a destination. So it's complete process, no destination. And if you go along with that mindset, things are always ever-changing. You will tend to kind of want to see how to do things more effectively, which in turn translates to

thinking about new processes, how can this one process be improved? And if you keep doing that, you'll generally pick up new skills along the way, unorthodox or maybe orthodox or just new ways of doing things. And with new ways of doing things, you'll kind of reach into your thinking of how you approach things and then the rest should hopefully fall into place. But don't depend on anyone to like, hey, here's what you need to do next.

So also draw back yourself to say like, I can do better in this area. What can I do better? Just take time, go and see what's out there. Attend courses if you have to. Attend a course at Curious Core. I'm sure Daylan will be able to definitely accommodate.

Any of you guys. So those are some of the best ways. Or just come talk to us. Just come talk to us. We'll be happy to see what kind of gaps are in your company or even like in your profile. And we can advise you. I mean, I don't always tell my students to just attend our courses. We actually do recommend them like, hey, go study here, like to learn this thing. Right, because it has to make sense what they're trying to achieve.

It's no point trying to feed them, here's your framework, here's a bootstrap for you to follow. And then you do all of this stuff and then at the end of it, this is what you'll become. Because again, it's not one size fits all. Yeah, definitely no one size fits all. I think the reason why we're called Curious Core, it's because I really believe curiosity is a superpower and it's one of my core values. And as long as you stay curious, like,

like you'll be fine right like you're curious let's say you're curious about ai or you're curious about i don't know design systems or you're curious about accessibility as long as you're curious about something that that becomes like the

the thing that you start to get more interested in knowing and and you get to be known for it and i think it also sort of answers this existential existential question that we have from the audience should we start being a generalist or a specialist first like specialist meaning you work in a very niche area my personal preference so everything that i i we have talked about

it's pretty much very anecdotal it's very experiential just trying to draw back to our stories to try to get in your career development and whatnot i think it's more important to be a generalist over a specialist because being a generalist

you are able to, yeah, everyone knows what generalist is. Occam's reason is, if you think about it in that way, if you're a specialist at something, if a specialist sector industry crashes, yeah, you only solve it in one way. And if that industry or sector crashes, you're going down with it. So generalist, for sure, that would be my answer. But there are some people who...

love what they do, they love that specific aspect of it, then by all means, go ahead. Be a specialist. I think in some way, I relate to what Daryl was saying. I think being a specialist is like a higher risk. Depends on your appetite for risk, right? Like, it's higher risk, but it's also higher reward, right? Can you imagine, like, you know, how many rocket scientists are there, right? Like, how many people who actually know how to do UX design and are great with, like...

I don't know, maybe design systems only. I think it's a high risk, high reward. But I do notice in many of our students and their careers, the people who tend to do better tend to be generalists because in Asia specifically, generalists tend to land on opportunities much more easily. Yeah, you have to generally survive better. It's all about surviving because...

Maybe you specialize in AI and then if AI dies one day, you're in trouble. My heart goes out to all the people who were specializing in Web3 and then it went into crypto winter. In some parts, Web3 is well and alive, but it also means there's a lot less interest these days versus AI, for example.

Thank you so much for the conversation, Daryl. And thank you for sharing your approach and your compassion. I wish you all the best in your next career in teaching. Thank you so much for your time. If people would like to reach out to you, can they just reach out to you on LinkedIn? Sure, yeah.

Anytime. Awesome. So you can just type Darryl Tan, D-A-R-Y-L-T-A-N. And you can easily find Darryl on LinkedIn and reach out to him, letting him know that you listened to this episode.

And for the rest of you, I hope this session has been useful for your career. And thank you for attending. And I'm going to let Daryl off so he can go have dinner because he literally went to skip dinner for this podcast session. So thank you so much. And thank you, everyone, for attending. I will see you next month in our next Working in UX Design. Thank you so much for having me, Daylon. Thank you, everyone. Have a good rest.

I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, please let me know what you think. Get in touch with me over email at mail at curiouscore.com. I would love to hear from you. Do also check out our previous interviews and other free resources at curiouscore.com. And until next time, I'll see you on the next episode. Take care and keep leaning into change.