Building relationships, doing good work, and advocating for yourself: A conversation with Tamara Llosa-Sandor

Tamara Llosa-Sandor is currently a content designer with LinkedIn. She's been working in tech since Big Data rivaled YOLO for word of the year. Before that, she lived the bygone lifestyle of barista, chapbook writer, and roommate 1 of 5.

Queenie: Tamara, you’ve worked as a freelance content designer and a full-time content designer. Can you tell me a little bit about what each employment type looked like for you? What were the pros and cons of each?

Tamara: I started in tech around 2012—and I think I should transparently say that I started my corporate career much later than most people. I didn't come into this kind of work until I was in my early 30s, so you really don't have to be right out of school to get into tech.

I worked in PR at first to get my foot in the door, but that wasn’t a great career fit for me. But I worked with a bunch of people at this company and we all quit around the same time. Most of them went to creative digital agencies—this was in the early-mid 2010s—and some tapped me for freelance projects. That was the beginning of my freelance career, which lasted for almost ten years. Some of the first big accounts I was on was for Google, so I got to work with a lot of the rebranding that happened in the mid-2010s along with the shift to Material Design.

One of the skills I had to pick up as a freelancer was jumping into a fast-paced project with almost no context, having to figure things out on the fly. I imagine being freelance is like being a paratrooper, in the sense that you’re parachuted into things and get into the action right away.

In the creative agency world, the work can be really fun because it’s so expansive. You're not as bounded by a specific design system. You also get to work on a lot of different accounts—you get a ton of experience with different kinds of clients, different sectors, you get to see where new designs can stretch. I worked on a variety of projects, from education to security to cloud to work apps to fintech and sometimes ghost-writing for executives.

On the flip side, you have to be willing to insert yourself and be hyper assertive and proactive in these environments. Also, the work hours are crazy in the creative agency world—more overtime, more after hours.

Working at LinkedIn has been my first full-time in-house gig, and I love it. One of the key benefits is being truly embedded with a team. Teamwork and deep collaboration are big. You can do that as a freelancer, but it's a little harder—you really have to elbow your way in.? In-house, you’re all working within the same culture of the same company, so there’s more of a natural closeness.

Queenie: Thanks for teasing that out. I’m curious: what is it about working at a creative agency that makes the long hours and such a part of the everyday?

Tamara: I could be wrong, but I think creative agency work has really grown out of the culture of advertising and marketing. And those are just much more aggressive environments historically. It also comes from the client relationship model, where you're constantly presenting very polished work for approval. It’s not quite the same as showing work to leaders when you’re in-house—that’s often more about iterating, making decisions based on metrics, company objectives. When you're at a creative agency, a company has hired you to do a specific thing, and there’s all of this scoping and money that’s gone into it, and it has to be either on budget or under. So the demands are different.

Queenie: Got it. When it comes to working at a creative agency as a freelancer, compared to being in-house at a company like LinkedIn, are you more empowered to choose what to work on? Or are you just assigned to projects or clients by the agency?

Tamara: It really depends where you're at as a freelancer. You might get a call from someone that you've worked with a lot before, and they might say something like: "Hey, I have these three projects coming in—are you interested in any of them?" You might also end up working with creative directors who can really see where your strengths are, maybe even better than you can. They may say something like: "Oh, we're about to get a contract with so-and-so, you would be great for this." As a freelancer, you’re always building relationships and your reputation—so projects can flow to you based on that.

Queenie: I had no idea about what it’s like working at a creative agency, so that’s really helpful.

Tamara:

There are a lot of benefits to spending time in the creative agency world. Again, the variety of projects and clients, and getting to tap into levels of creativity that aren’t necessarily bounded by a pre-set design system.

I think something that I see in-house a lot is that you have so many talented designers, but at the end of the day, they’re constrained by the official design palette.? But when you're at a creative agency, you can go to outer space with your work.

Queenie: I’m intrigued by that. When you’re working with a huge client like Google, don’t you still have to create things that are consistent design-wise with their other products and experiences? Can you say more about that distinction you just made?

Tamara: In some things, yes you are tied to their design language. But often, you're working more on their advertising or marketing stuff, and that’s more edgy. For instance, the new LinkedIn commercials that are out—that's the kind of stuff I’m referring to. They’re definitely pushing the boundaries of what our brand has been about thus far. So generally, when a company is hiring an outside agency, it’s because they want to push that boundary.

Queenie: The next topic I want to dig into is: how do you advocate for yourself? How do you get staffed on projects that really excite you?

Tamara: Mainly just by asking.?But more than that, I do try to put feelers around. Before I was ever in the corporate life, and even before I went to grad school for artsy stuff, I was trying to pursue a journalism career. It wasn’t for long—I don't want to give anyone the wrong idea—but in that small time that I was a news reporter working at a daily newspaper, I just had to be sniffing around and asking: ‘What's going on? What are the questions I should be asking?’ I had to become investigative, and that vibe is something that one can bring to any situation.

So, you know, yes, you can always ask your manager: "Hey, I want to work on something really exciting." But what's even better is if you're like: "OK, I know what the business priorities of the company are. I talked to so-and-so and I hear this stuff is happening over here. So-and-so told me about these projects. And I want to get involved in them." You’re almost cultivating your sources in all the different parts of the company, and then when you get wind of something, you can be like: "Oh, OK, I could actually make a difference working on this." And then you can explicitly ask to be placed there.

It doesn't always happen that cleanly, but I think those are good skills to have. Listen to the whispers, cultivate your friendships in different parts of the org.

Queenie: Do you have any tips on how one can go about cultivating those relationships with people so that they can be in-the-know about what’s happening in different areas?

Tamara: If you're on a project—especially where you're working with a wide range of people—you end up getting to know everyone, from Product Managers to marketing folks, other designers, engineers, and even leadership. So you can reflect and be like: ‘Oh, so-and-so and I mind-meld on this thing, and I want to understand more of what’s happening in their land.’

On a previous team, I worked with several product marketing managers and we’d have weekly hangouts where I would ask them what else they were working on. They have a particular vantage point that we don't necessarily have in content design—so it was a great way to get a different sightline into projects and priorities.

When you’re working in teams, you’ll get a sense of who you’re simpatico with—that’s a good starting place to cultivate a deeper relationship. In terms of trying to cultivate a working relationship with someone who maybe is more distant, a phrase I like that someone said to me once is: "Bring me into your process." You can really use that when a designer or any partner is being more hermetically-sealed about their work. Even beyond that, if you want to find out more about projects that you’re not on, if you want to know what a certain designer is working on, it’s a good phrase to use.

Queenie: I love that phrase, ‘Bring me into your process.’ I’m going to start using it more. Let’s back up into your educational background a bit. You have an MFA in creative nonfiction. I want to probe into that a little: did your creative writing practice ever inform how you approach content design? Or are the two very distinct for you?

Tamara: This one’s hard to answer. Mostly because I think that all of the skills you have come to bear on the job you do. I think my pushiness or bossiness, as some may call it, has probably been more helpful to me than ‘creative skills.’

I will say: when I got my MFA in creative nonfiction, I was living in New York and I had friends in these other creative industries: the art world, the fashion world, the music world—you know, as one does when they live in New York. It's really almost unavoidable. I was exposed to a range of creative work—and that I think helped me develop a sensibility or intuition about why some things resonate and why some things don’t.

For me, content design work isn’t so much about words sometimes and more about the conceptual space of an experience, almost like architecture or like UX in 3-dimensions. When I’m working with designers and I'm watching them do really interesting things with interaction design or motion design or just messing with a color palette, you know, I get really excited about how that changes a person’s experience with a product.

Queenie: It’s a more holistic creative radar, got it!?Let’s chat about upskilling. How do you make sure you have your finger on the pulse of the field, so to speak? How do you make sure you’re aware of what’s shifting in the field, learning those skills?

Tamara: This is one of those double-edged sword type of questions because I'm like: ‘Do I have my finger on the pulse of the field?’

I think because we’re in tech, we have the advantage of being very close to the latest in different kinds of advancements—just in the last ten years, the big buzzy things have been cloud, mobile, cypto, and now generative AI.

It’s hard to predict or say what the pulse is, but if we use genAI as example, I try to think about how the ‘old’ and the new will mix together or how the new might supersede the old. How are generative AI and the regular UI interface going to merge together to shape what the future of UX even looks like?

You have the chat experience and then you have the regular screen experience where you're wayfinding and navigating. Does this ‘intelligent’ chat follow you around? How much does it know about you? Does UX become less about wayfinding and more about things being brought to you?

Overall I try to ingest different resources. My go-to’s tend to be things like Kara Swisher’s podcast, and I really like what the Robinhood Snacks guys do with their newsletter. I’ll use those to springboard into hyperlinked articles or other podcasts. It’s not really systematic. Again, just kind of following my nose, letting ideas percolate and guide me.

Queenie: Moving on to collaborations: can you share your best tips on how to collaborate—both with design and cross-functional partners?

Tamara: Just the stuff I said earlier—if you feel a sense of simpatico-ness with somoene, really cultivate that.

For example, the product marketing managers I mentioned earlier—I wrote an article about collaborating with them, a ‘story’ about content design and marketing in collaboration. But it’s really about 3 awesome people I just love working with.

I try to move intuitively through things, and I don't think the word ‘love’ is too strong to describe that. I just really love working with certain people. And when that chemistry is real, you're able to get into that creative, interesting space with people and push work forward or in new directions.That's the sweet spot of collaboration for me. You can really nerd out with people you enjoy working with!

Gravitate towards where the energy already is, and just try to grow that circumference.

Queenie: Do you think that effort is at all hampered by working with a distributed team?

Tamara: Not sure I’m a good person to answer this because I've been remote for almost 99% of my career. I really leverage tools to work collaboratively with people—Figjam, Miro, etc. You can still cultivate close relationships and collaborative projects over Zoom. You just need to bring the right attitude to it.

Queenie: Let’s look ahead a little bit: where do you see yourself going from here career-wise? How much intentionality vs serendipity marks that dream career journey for you?

Tamara: I’m working my way towards Principal or Senior Principal—whatever that highest IC [individual contributor] level is. I'm really not interested in management. Some people get really interested in people management and switch over into that. I have zero—maybe less than zero—interest in any of that. For me, it’s all about getting to work collaboratively with people to build things. That’s what holds my interest.

I’m interested to do more prototype-building—almost like an experimentation lab, so we can see how things work outside of design mocks—I’d love to be part of something like an old school R&D department, a creative experiments lab. I want to see how far we can push the technology, how far we can go to create meaningful experiences for people.

Queenie: That deep self-awareness is great to see. It’s definitely something I want to work on cultivating more.?Have you had any mentors over the course of your career?

Tamara: Sadly, not really. I would really like to have a mentor, even a few mentors! I feel like I’ve had a lot of great peers, though. Even folks who are a couple of levels above me, who I’m working with closely, who I learn from but aren’t official mentors.

Queenie: I see. What about sponsors?

Tamara: I don’t know if I’d call them ‘sponsors’—maybe allies or advocates, something like that.

Queenie: How have you gone about nurturing those relationships? To get an army of people behind you who rally for you?

Tamara:

I would say it usually comes back to the work itself—being excited about a project, cultivating that simpatico-ness with people, and just putting your all into what you’re doing, going beyond what some might consider your lane. You don’t need to confined to ‘just words.’ It’s about design-thinking, content strategy, UX as a whole. When your partners and stakeholders see all that you bring to the table, it’s an organic step to them vouching for you.

Queenie: I love hearing this from you because there’s so much rhetoric out there about how just doing good work isn’t enough and that you have to cultivate all these ancillary skills to get more visibility. It seems like you’ve really let your work speak for you.

Tamara: It can be a bit of both. I run into all of the same weird corporate stuff that I think anyone does, where it's like: how do you do the ‘visibility things’? I don't have a solution for that, really. When I get into a weird place in my mind about it, it always just comes back to the work and the relationships.

It’s like this: if I'm doing work that I really like, and I'm working with people that I'm really excited about, and I keep pushing that, something good is bound to happen, you know?

Those are the two pillars for me. It's always about collaboration. It's always about the work that I feel excited about.

Queenie: And finally, my last question for you: what do you think is the future of content design?

Tamara: I’m not sure—it’s hard to predict these things.

Just in terms of the evolution to now, I wrote an article about how the language shifted from ‘copywriter’ to ‘content designer.’ ‘Copywriter’ is more editorial in a sense, since you’re working on static websites where the copy format is the same with the big header, then the body copy, and so on. ‘Content Design’ made more sense when things moved to mobile and became more interactive—Google’s Material Design did a lot for this. When things become interactive, the stronger the need becomes for content and product design to work together, because that’s what leads people through an experience—the words, the information architecture, the visuals, and the interaction design.

Again, there’s a big shift happening with things like generative AI. What will the future be like when you have a technology that can grab results very, very quickly and bring things to you or surface them to you in a particular way? Generative AI is all about language and that exchange between machine and human. Content design has a big role to play in how the technology evolves.

Content design is capacious. You have everyone from the UX writer who’s tinkering with the exact wording of an experience—the poetry for capitalism, if you will—all the way to the strategist, who is thinking in wide scope about the business priorities and larger business environment. Content design can hold all of this. We also have aspects like conversation design coming into the fold. But all that will evolve too, because conversation design through legacy chatbot experiences was about crafting manual exchanges. With genAI, we have to train the technology on the back-end and we don't always know how genAI is going to reply to a prompt.

Another thing I’ll say is this: we can look outside of our particular industry to see how unpredictable things really are. This might be a strange example, but it’s one I always think about. When Starbucks was becoming really big—when it was really taking off in the late 90s-early 2000s—people were seriously hating on it and predicting the end of cafe culture. "Starbucks is going to ruin coffee shops!" And that wasn’t untrue for awhile. A lot of independent coffee houses did go out of business in the early 2000s. I was a barista back in the day, and I remember being really depressed about all this! But then something kind of weird happened—what you see today is way more artisanal coffee shops than ever before. Now Starbucks’ key competitor isn’t all the indie shops, it’s McDonald’s. This evolution of coffee culture in America, artisanal shops, and Starbucks’ ascendency to highbrow fast food—you just couldn’t have predicted that arc or new economic ecosystems.

Maybe analogously, genAI does, for a time, introduce a new wave of content production—mostly because it can put together material so quickly. But then there becomes a renewed need for ‘artisanal craft’ where people more deeply gravitate to singular, human voices and sensibilities in content, and there’s a renewed focus on human authorship.

It kind of makes me think of the slow food movement or this book from the early ‘80s called Megatrends, where one of the concepts was something like ‘the higher the tech, the higher the touch,’ which meant that the more advanced technology becomes, the more we’ll see countermovements in societies that embrace ‘high-touch’ non-tech elements. Not in a Luddite way, but you can see it in the past couple decades—the rise of very personalized tech and the internet coincides with an explosion of yoga studios, farmers’ markets, people getting into ceramics, textiles, making their own kombucha, beekeeping, and so on!

Again, it’s hard to predict things. More than anything, I think it’s important to always come back to the user experience and ask: what is it that we, as human beings, need to do in the world and how do these technologies help us do that? Words, written or verbal exchange, aren’t going anywhere, and most likely will become even more prominent in UX. No matter what technological revolution is happening, content design should anchor on stronger, better, more meaningful UX.