Exploring a UX -> Product Talent Migration Pattern

Recently, I stumbled upon an article discussing the growing trend of UX professionals transitioning into product management roles as they advance in their careers. Although I couldn't find the article today to reference it, I found it interesting because my own journey has followed a similar trajectory. I thought I'd share my thoughts on the common threads that may lead to this phenomenon while preserving the general structure and length of the article.

My Roots

My fascination with making mundane tasks more engaging began during a trip to Disney World. Disney managed to make waiting in line fun, with attractions like the interactive Space Mountain video games and the immersive Pirates of the Caribbean queue. This led me to study Industrial Engineering at Purdue University, where I accidentally discovered a path into UX and service design through a human factors engineering sub-specialty. Along the way, I developed a diverse set of skills and perspectives, which provided a strong foundation for understanding the tech landscape and, ultimately, product management.

Advocacy and Buy-In Skills, Including Value Measurement

At Allegient, I had opportunities to make my goal a reality—making boring things more engaging to help people make the most out of their time on Earth. Whether it was internal or external tools, I could talk to people, identify ways to improve their lives in or out of work, and see those ideas come to life. However, I noticed that the ideas didn't always get implemented. I learned that the best solutions for users don't matter if you can't get buy-in from the business. This realization led me to develop skills in advocacy, sales, measurement strategy, and prioritization frameworks. For those in UX roles before the discipline boomed, advocacy and articulating the business value of design were crucial skills needed to justify their existence. This exercise in sales and gathering buy-in and alignment is a critical skill for product managers, which positions seasoned UX professionals well for the transition.

Maximizing Impact

As my career progressed, I reached a point of diminishing returns on efficiency. No matter how good of a designer I became, I couldn't build any more screens in a week or conduct any more interviews in a day. I felt I couldn't broaden my impact further through the technical delivery of design activities. My mentor encouraged me to step into more formalized leadership roles. He pointed out that focusing on strategic decisions instead of tactical ones could increase the value impact of my decision-making skills and allow me to pass down my perspectives to the technical contributors around me, significantly multiplying my value. This is a compelling reason for designers to move into product management roles. Many want to maximize their value, and a strategic decision-making role allows them to do just that.

Limited Design Leadership Roles

You may wonder why those looking to maximize their impact don't simply move into design leadership roles. One main challenge is that these roles are fairly limited. With limited growth potential, designers can find themselves stagnant and eventually look for other avenues. A LinkedIn search reveals a higher ratio of product leadership roles compared to design leadership roles. In fact, many product leadership positions include overseeing product design functions, with product design leads often reporting to product leaders.

Recognizing Opportunities for Improvement

In the enterprise, there's a challenge with businesses investing more in digital products without fully understanding the role of product management. Strong business stakeholders are often placed into product leadership roles, hoping their domain expertise adds significant value to the product. However, these individuals can struggle to remove personal biases from decisions, fail to grasp technology nuances, and prioritize business stakeholders' opinions over users. This leads to lackluster product performance, and designers working alongside these product leaders recognize opportunities to improve the role's performance.

A Perfect Storm

This context creates a desire to increase impact, a supply-demand problem for roles, a recognition of a differentiated value proposition for product management, and a skill set that positions UX professionals well to succeed. It's a recipe that makes me somewhat surprised that we don't see even more UX resources moving into product roles after around 8-10 years of practice.

Of course, there will always be designers who prefer to lean into the artistic aspects of design and don't want to give that up, or those who live for research and mining insights and are happier in roles that allow them to focus on those tasks. I know people like that, and I love that they are passionate about their craft. This observation isn't a "call to arms" or an attempt to urge people to change their paths or career vision. It's simply an exploration of a pattern I've noticed becoming more common in the industry.

My journey as a consultant moved into broader through leadership, solutioning, and selling UX alongside roles like Product, AgileOps, Business Architecture, and technical roles for all the same above reasons, but I think in another life, were I in a different company, I'd have landed in a Product Leadership role by now. I'd love to hear if other people have other perspectives on the phenomenon and why it does or doesn't make sense.