Intentional Evolution: How I Accelerated My Career Pivot to Product Design

After four years as a startup accountant, I switched to product design in 2021. I now lead design and help build products at an enterprise SaaS startup.

Many people told me my method is unusual, so I’m here to share how I made my career transition work. If you are considering a career pivot, I hope this is helpful.

Those Big Questions

Besides the competitive job market, I had to overcome three main questions:

1. How do I know design is the right choice for me?
2. Where should I start? What should I learn first?
3. How can I quickly find a job?

Behind every challenge were doubts and insecurities.

1. “Should I give up my salary now, or save more before quitting?”
2. “Which course should I take? They’re all expensive.”
3. “I know nothing and need to start from scratch.”
4. “I don’t have a creative background... should I go to design school?”
5. “How do I stand out among other talented and experienced designers?”

I wrestled with these questions. A lot. Committing was the hardest part, and I wish I had better guidance. It took me a costly year to decide on software products and design. At my peak frustration, my insecurity won. I enrolled in a UX Bootcamp offered by CareerFoundry.

I quickly realized the bootcamp wouldn’t help me find a job as soon as expected. It’s too theoretical and lacks real-life feedback. One month into the course, I changed my strategy, which helped me land my first and critical project in my career transition.

My goal was to maximize the return on my time and money by growing to the max with the least time and lowest cost.

My game plan was to acquire the knowledge of a two-year-experience designer within six months. And it worked.

Sugi Framework

I summarized my process into a framework called “Sugi.” “Sugi” is inspired by Daisugi, a Japanese tree planting technique that uses an existing tree to nurture a new one. Sugi is about awakening hidden skills, amplifying them, and leveraging them for a new career in product and design.

The Sugi framework includes four steps:

• Bird’s-eye Search
• Atomic Skill Map
• Peer Interview
• Push the Needle

For a design novice and career switcher, this framework helped me quickly gain vocabulary, test my assumptions, find the bridge role and lead me to an effective transition.

Let’s dive into it.

1. Bird’s-eye search

Bird’s-eye search is a pause-check. It’s a surface-level research that challenges assumptions. At first, I didn’t understand its value. Being asked to pause felt like being told “no” before I even started. But I was wrong, and I wasted thousands of dollars by skipping this step.

Instead of jumping into a 10-month-long bootcamp, conducting a bird’s-eye search can significantly increase your odds of success.

The easiest first step: Ask ChatGPT to validate your assumptions.

Try this prompt:

Can you compare the day-to-day work of product designers in:

ChatGPT’s answer can be thought provoking. It offers vocabulary to continue exploring. Continue to ask “what” and “how”. Be conscious of its generality. The same task and skill could mean differently depending on the context.

You can also read through job descriptions for entry-level designers to understand the scope of work. The goal is to grasp what you’re signing up for—the reality, the language, the tools. Run it through AI as well!

Try this prompt:

I have a job description for Associate Product Designer at X company in United States. Could you:

The takeaway:

The bird’s-eye search is about understanding the demand, what’s needed for your next role. It lists out the standard scope of work and useful terminology. It’s a vital first step when exploring fresh territory.

2. Atomic Skills Map

As you grasp what is required, you may question how to stand out among a sea of checkboxes. Here comes the Atomic Skills Map, where my approach differs from conventional advice. Instead of trying to learn everything all at once in a bootcamp, you add, train, take out specific skills from your toolbox.

List every skill you’ve gained from current and past jobs, focusing on those that bring you joy. If you can’t verbalize each skill, describe what you did in the job, and run it with ChatGPT.

Try this prompt:

I recently worked as an accountant and need help identify my transferable skills. Here’s my background:

Combine with the skills required for an entry-level designer, based on Bird’s-eye Search, and Venn-diagram them.

Overlapped skills → amplify them with storytelling

Skill gaps → create action plans to fast-track it

You may be surprised at the number of skills you already possess!

3. Peer interview

Now you’ve got a bird’s-eye view on required skills, and atomic reflection on existing skills. It’s time to dig deeper and test your assumption.

I started by looking for my design “role models” - who can I learn from.

This is where I went wrong initially. At the beginning, I followed a lot of social media famous designers. Their polished designs were so inspiring, uncontrollably, I felt inadequate—I couldn’t see a path to get there fast enough. There was a disconnect between what I was learning in bootcamp and what I saw online.

Don’t repeat my mistake. Learn with designers who are just two steps ahead of you.

Why? Their struggles are still fresh.

Once I realized this, I quickly adjusted my strategy and started leveraging Adplist.org heavily. I looked for mentors who’ve experienced a career pivot, ideally from a similar industry or job.

For every mentoring session, I followed this structure:

1. 30 secs - pitch about myself
2. (Usually, the mentor will introduce themselves)
3. 1 min - context setting: what I want to achieve and why
4. Question 1 & Mentor answer
5. Question 2 & Mentor answer
6. Question 3 & Mentor answer

The trick for a constructive session is asking specific questions that fit the mentor’s background and make it easy for mentors to answer or ask clarifying questions.

Want a tip? Ask GPT using this prompt.

I’m preparing for mentoring sessions on ADPList to discuss transitioning from <x job> to product design. Could you help me:

The insights I gained from these conversations completely changed my approach to learning. I found that skills like system thinking, attention to detail, and presenting complex data were equally crucial to design skills, yet the bootcamp overlooked them.

4. Push the Needle

If you are like me, who is skeptical and impatient with fictional projects, now let’s throw ourselves into the water. I was desperate to get my foot in the door.

After collecting feedback from designers with real challenges, I got more clarity in skill gaps and personal storytelling. The fastest way to gain a skill is to practice it in real life. And who doesn’t like two-birds-in-one-stone?

Push the needle is an exercise on finding what skills you can offer in exchange for what skills you can learn. This is where ultra-pragmatism comes in.

Rather than aiming for a top job immediately, I chose a more specialized bridge role in product and design to gain new skills.

For me, this meant starting with research projects. I leveraged my people skills to conduct research, analytical skills to analyze research findings, and business skills to translate research into strategy.

With the same method, I found another project as an internal product and operation manager, where I optimize the internal financial reporting process while building an internal tool. I leveraged my operational skills, project management skills, and my understanding of accounting and finance. What is the skill I gained? Working with engineers to build a product solving business problems. Although I call them projects, some of them are actually job offers. In the world of business, it’s all about value exchange. Your involvement lasts as long as the value you can provide within the financial constraints. I thrive to add values to whoever I work with, most importantly, be loyal to myself.

“At work, a value exchange means that when people work with you, they feel they are getting something valuable out of it (and they are consequently able to offer value back to you as well). Value might look like a range of things including time, connections, knowledge, insight, or even just good vibes. ”

5. Rinse and Repeat

An important assumption here is continuous improvement on insufficient skills.

Just like product table stakes, there are design job table stakes. They are essential and minimum skills it takes to be considered for the job. Such as proficiency in Figma, basic understanding of visual design, commonly used product development methodologies.

In practice, it looks like this:

Intentional Evolution

Just as Daisugi nurtures new growth from established roots, your career pivot isn't starting from scratch—it's building upon the foundation of skills and experiences you've already cultivated. If you're feeling at rock bottom, reframe this moment as your launchpad: you have the rare opportunity to intentionally design your next chapter.

Success in transition isn't about completely reinventing yourself, but rather understanding market demands, recognizing your unique offerings, and strategically bridging the gaps.

With the support of mentors who've walked similar paths and communities that share your aspirations, you can transform what feels like starting over into a powerful evolution. Your past isn't a limitation—it's the fertile ground from which your future career will flourish.