Figma: Product Design & UX Writing Career Levels

Product

• You ask good questions to understand who you’re building for and why. You push for clarity and seek help if you don’t get it.
• You’re starting to flag dependencies and edge cases and question requirements when you’re unsure how they support real user needs.

Research

• You’re building your knowledge of the competitive landscape by spending time with other tools (e.g. conducting audits).
• You have a basic understanding of when and how to validate your work through research.
• You ask about success metrics.

Vision

• You participate in vision activities by generating ideas and helping mock up/frame concepts.

Visual

• You reference industry patterns in your work and are building your knowledge of Figma’s design system.
• You explore multiple solutions for problems, leveraging our design system for components and styles.
• Your designs strive for consistency with patterns throughout the product.

Interaction

• You start to prototype your ideas to bring work to life and illustrate flows more clearly.

Systems

• You methodically investigate or audit part of a system, and summarize findings.
• You operate within a well-defined part of a complex system given documentation, and you ask for help when you need it.

Content strategy

• You can articulate key user needs for your features.
• You clarify messaging goals when kicking off a project.
• You use relevant messaging frameworks to shape copy.

Copywriting

• Your writing is concise and clear.
• You understand Figma’s voice and can shift your tone depending on the situation and audience.
• Your final work is always free of typos and grammar issues.

Content systems

• You audit Figma’s features and borrow copy patterns and terminology to ensure consistency.
• Your work adheres to Figma’s UX writing style guide and the company-wide style guide.

Product design

• You’re actively learning about core Figma UI design features.
• You use elements from Figma’s design system (ex: visual bells, confirmation modals, tooltips) to show copy options in context.

Communication

• You’re responsive, pleasant, and proactive in your communication across all channels.
• You present your work in crit clearly in a way others can understand.
• Your design documentation is easy to follow, and you participate regularly in conversations at the team level.

Process

• You share work regularly and ask for feedback on your working style and on the work itself.
• You triage feedback on your work and ensure follow-ups.
• You work to resolve situations when you’re not looped in at the right times.

Mindset

• You’re eager to help with whatever needs doing on projects—no job is too small.

Effectiveness

• You’re building an understanding of the business and its goals. Your work aims to solve key user problems, and you’re starting to connect your work to business goals.
• You follow up post launch to assess your work’s impact and effectiveness.
• You file bugs when you spot quality issues.

Leadership

• You help others by giving actionable feedback.

Citizenship

• You volunteer to help out with team programs, like hosting warm-up.
• You participate in company culture activities, like ERGs, Maker Week, or Show & Tell. You attend FigNation to stay up to date on company activities.

Product

• You handle very complex and ambiguous projects, defining requirements and prioritizing the most impactful workstreams even in the face of multiple competing demands.

Research

• You know when data and research are missing, and garner them where appropriate to inform your work and the work of others.
• You’re an expert in Figma’s product space; someone others on the team learn from and seek to emulate. You surface new trends, patterns, and tools to the team regularly.

Vision

• You set the vision for your area—solo or with another senior designer/writer—and it’s inspiring and motivating to others.
• You advocate for your POV at all levels of the organization (e.g. to executives) and can leverage data, storytelling, and visual design to bring stakeholders along.

Visual

• You work is thorough and complete with edge cases fully thought out—a model of accuracy and precision.
• You consider how your work and patterns can be utilized by others.
• You are the owner for the design system of your focus area and effectively partner with the design systems team on the standards.

Interaction

• You prototype with intentionality and know when to utilize prototypes to effectively communicate your ideas.
• You are well-versed in common industry interaction patterns and their nuances across platforms.
• Your prototypes help teams make business decisions.

Systems

• You aim to simplify and unify systems when appropriate to tame complexity—you can justify exceptions to the system and understand/explain their consequences.
• You are comfortable making decisions without the system being documented.
• You proactively bring up IA improvements opportunities across Figma.

Content strategy

• You identify and drive content-led projects (ex: experiments around language, terminology overhauls).
• You evolve the way Figma talks about itself and its products. You document your approach so writers and marketers can learn from you.

Copywriting

• You define Figma’s voice and extend it where needed.
• You create voice resources that help writers find the right words for different product moments.
• You evangelize the value of great copywriting in the design org and beyond.

Content systems

• You’re working with writers outside of design to shape Figma’s writing standards.
• You’re making measurable improvements to one of our content systems (ex: onboarding, notifications).
• You’re knowledgeable about content tooling, and advocate for products that would improve our process and boost consistency.

Product design

• Your interaction ideas consistently shape the final designs.
• You’re able to do more complex design tasks in Figma design (ex: building copy components, adding auto layout to mocks).
• You’re expanding your UI design skills into more advanced realms via classes, tutorials, or design mentorship.

Communication

• You’re a strong storyteller and able to influence and persuade at any level of the organization (e.g. to executives).
• You’re able to communicate candidly and kindly, and build rapport with all kinds of work partners—even difficult stakeholders.
• You coach other designers/writers on written, verbal, and interpersonal skills.

Process

• You influence process at the team level, and delegate well.
• You handle high volumes of feedback on your own work effectively.
• You’re a model for stakeholder management, effectively managing executive involvement when necessary.

Mindset

• You’re consistently solutions-oriented, and are acutely aware of your impact as a leader on the team, even in private settings.
• You encourage others to maintain a healthy open mindset.

Effectiveness

• You push to make the highest impact possible with your work, and you can make a successful business case for it.
• You start to take on projects outside of your core responsibilities.
• You help your pillar with overall improvements to its quality control to be sure work is high quality and reliable.

Leadership

• You lead by example—never hesitating to get your hands dirty (e.g. riffing where helpful and guiding others toward action).
• You've implemented and sometimes defined team processes like critiques and team meetings.
• You are regularly sought out for mentorship even outside your team.

Citizenship

• You represent design as a leader to the rest of the organization, by giving feedback on process and culture or taking a leadership role in FigNation, Config, or other events.

Interaction

• Your prototypes start to feel more like the “real thing” and are higher fidelity overall.
• You go beyond click-through prototypes and incorporate animations and transitions across various interactions.
• You are familiar with common industry interaction patterns and reference them in your work.

Systems

• You consider edge cases when designing for complex systems.
• You document part of the complex system and onboard other people.

Product

• You notice overlaps or dependencies between projects and escalate conversations to resolve them.
• You build confidence in a direction with your eng/PM partners before acting.

Research

• Your industry knowledge and understanding of our users starts to deepen and guide your own work.
• You partner with research to define the questions to ask and problems to explore.
• You’re able to interpret metrics and make data-informed decisions.

Vision

• You assist PMs and more senior designers/writers in bringing larger strategic vision work to life (e.g. by creating mocks, designing decks, and writing documents).

Visual

• You explore a wide breath of design options and articulate trade-offs with each.
• You use industry patterns but know when something doesn’t work and can be pushed further.
• You are building your understanding on where our system can flex to accommodate certain needs.

Content strategy

• You work with marketing to craft clear, compelling value props for your features.
• You can always define what matters most in complex product moments.

Copywriting

• You explore a range of options—from plain to playful—when drafting copy, and can articulate trade-offs of each.
• You know when your copy still needs a few more passes.

Content systems

• You’re familiar with industry copy patterns, accessibility guidelines, and localization best practices.
• You flag Figma’s content patterns that need improvement or make our products harder to use.
• You contribute to the UX writing style guide.

Product design

• You’re familiar with industry interaction patterns and give designers feedback on interaction and visual design.
• You troubleshoot moments when poor information hierarchy hinders readability.
• You flag situations when copy can’t fix underlying design issues.

Communication

• You’re growing your storytelling abilities; your presentations have a clear narrative, good context setting, and you’re building your skills at leading meetings confidently and effectively.
• Your written communication is clear and concise.

Process

• You have a clear process: it’s easy for work partners to know your priorities and predict the cadence of your work.
• You’re starting to work more independently. You know how to manage bandwidth, and speak up if your plate is full.
• You triage feedback diligently; nothing falls through the cracks.

Mindset

• You maintain an open mindset toward changes and challenges, looking for how you can help and grow.

Effectiveness

• You understand how your work contributes to the business and prioritize accordingly.
• You participate in roadmapping and planning conversations.
• You address post launch issues and make suggestions to improve your impact.
• You host bug bashes for your projects.

Leadership

• You routinely help other designers/writers on the team grow, through your feedback or through skill shares.
• You offer suggestions on how our product and processes can improve and help implement solutions.

Citizenship

• You suggest and implement team culture improvements.
• You participate in some hiring activities, like interviewing candidates and sourcing jams.
• You help plan team cultural initiatives, like offsites.

Product design

• You’re comfortable building and rewiring prototypes in Figma.
• You contribute design riffs to features.
• You’re skilled at interaction design problem-solving and can troubleshoot common UX issues.

Product

• You proactively address and resolve dependencies across team boundaries.
• You drive your own team toward clarity on what you’re building, why, and for whom.

Research

• You can do research to validate your own work if necessary.
• Data guides your work, and you’re able to suggest and question how to measure your work’s success.
• Your comprehensive knowledge of industry design patterns deeply impacts your work.

Vision

• You’re starting to develop your own POV; you’re trusted to own parts of larger strategic vision, working independently or partnering with others to bring the vision to life.
• You proactively organize sprints or other processes to further define vision if it’s otherwise lacking.

Visual

• Your work has few visual issues.
• You start to form tenets as you design and fall back on them to help make decisions.
• You consider all constraints (like dark mode and localization).
• Your work is thorough and complete when it comes to all interaction details (like hover/focus and shortcuts).

Interaction

• You prototype fluently and quickly and you get helpful feedback from collaborators with them.
• Your work is thorough and complete when it comes to all interaction details (like hover/focus and keyboard shortcuts).

Systems

• Your designs are holistic and consider complex cases of existing systems.
• You can recall internal properties/style guides of systems and explain them to stakeholders.
• You are comfortable collaborating with engineering and PM to understand a system completely and improve it.

Content strategy

• You establish content principles for your product area, and use them to make better writing decisions.
• You’re able to navigate situations when user needs and business goals are in conflict.
• You resolve moments when design or engineering constraints are interfering with effective messaging.

Copywriting

• You use vocabulary, variety, and cadence to make your writing more compelling and memorable.
• You know when and why to break writing rules or take risks with bolder copy. You’re able to explain the rationale for riskier copy to stakeholders.

Content systems

• You’re fluent in platform-specific copy conventions.
• You work with designers to fix content patterns in our design system that make Figma harder to use.
• You know how to use different kinds of notifications (ex: email, in-product) in effective, user-friendly ways.

Communication

• You present work with polish and confidence.
• You lead meetings effectively, and could represent Figma well externally.
• You’re growing skills at conflict resolution.
• Your written communication is compelling and clear.

Process

• Your process is adaptable and efficient. You generate and maintain momentum.
• You handle feedback thoroughly and gracefully, and know when to change direction vs. staying the course.
• You’re becoming proficient at managing stakeholders and regularly work without close oversight.

Mindset

• You lead with resiliency in the face of challenges, and routinely help manage change for other team members.
• You’re a model for growth and resiliency on the team.

Effectiveness

• You help drive roadmapping and planning conversations and have a deep understanding of how your work connects to business goals.
• You work with appropriate urgency, consistently pushing projects forward.
• You file bugs not only for your team but for other teams as well to prioritize quality.

Leadership

• You’re starting to uplevel other teammates skills through more formal coaching and mentorship (e.g. interns or more junior designers/writers). Others actively seek your feedback, and listen to your guidance.
• You drive initiatives that improve our team’s workflows and the lives of other designers.

Citizenship

• You’re an owner of our team culture, suggesting new rituals and activities to bring us together as a team.
• You actively participate in hiring, whether through interviewing, sourcing, or suggesting improvements to our processes.

Product

• You set the gold standard for problem definition; your ability to frame and scope projects are consistently clear, thoughtful, and compelling.
• You coach other designers on prioritization, managing dependencies, and requirements definition.

Research

• You partner with our leads in data and research to identify ways of improving Figma’s overall practices around them.
• You leverage your knowledge of the industry to define new patterns and norms when needed; your work has impact beyond Figma.

Vision

• You uplevel other designers’ and writers’ vision work, and are entrusted to drive vision for the broadest, farthest-looking projects in the organization.
• You help define what’s next for Figma—as a product, a business, and a company.

Visual

• You see gaps in how our visual system works and help uplevel it. When necessary, you define new patterns and changes to the underlying system.
• Your peers look to you for your help and guidance on visual design, and you regularly offer feedback to improve work outside your own.

Interaction

• Your interaction work defines the bar not just at Figma, but in the industry.
• Your peers look to you for guidance and feedback on improving their interaction work, and you proactively spot interaction issues and offer corrections.
• You create frameworks and prototypes that inspire other people to do the same.

Systems

• Your work defines and documents new complex systems for others to use, while retaining systemic simplicity.
• You see connections between systems (e.g. design systems and typography) and can lead projects to bring them together.
• You uncover systemic IA interaction issues and advocate for specific improvements.

Content strategy

• You lead content strategy initiatives that have a large, measurable impact on Figma’s success.
• You actively mentor junior writers on content strategy, helping them understand and connect with audiences in deeper ways.

Copywriting

• You’re building processes or guidelines to uplevel writing across Figma.
• In a pinch, you can write flawless, flowing copy without input from other writers.
• Your peers rely on your wordsmithing guidance, and you work directly with writers and cross-functional partners to improve their writing abilities.

Content systems

• You’re reimaginging one of our larger content systems in a way that dramatically improves usability or helps Figma address new opportunities or challenges.
• When needed, you oversee the design and adoption of new messaging components for our design system.

Product design

• Your own design work is complete and well-crafted enough that you could serve as the designer for simpler features or flows.
• You uplevel the writing team’s UI design skills.

Communication

• You’re an exceptional storyteller, and able to uplevel other designers/writers in this area and the team as a whole.
• Interpersonally, you deescalate conflict effectively and can smooth out thorny projects and push teams to alignment.

Process

• You coach other designers/writers on their process and uplevel the team as a whole.
• You help create and influence our feedback culture at the company level.
• You coach other designers on stakeholder management, especially with executives.

Mindset

• You have a toolkit for managing change for other team members, and can help turn around significant morale issues on teams.

Effectiveness

• You help others understand the business.
• You identify opportunities for design to create new value for the business and garner resources to act.
• You frequently suggest and execute extra projects outside of core responsibilities.
• You own the bar for quality at Figma.

Leadership

• You’re a leader at Figma, with impact on the business and culture across the organization.
• You uplevel other designers’ leadership skills, building more design leaders within the organization.

Citizenship

• You represent Figma externally whether through conferences, blog posts, or other channels.
• Your work and presence attracts top talent to the organization; some people join Figma because they’re excited to learn from you.