April 26, 2023

🚌  Roadtrip Nation After Job Elimination: What I Learn From 75+ Coffees



During the end of my time in undergrad, with a ‘meaningless’ liberal arts degree, I somehow came across a series on PBS called RoadTrip Nation. As one of those kids without a plan after college, this docu-series was my lifeblood — I practically memorized each episode. It chronicles 3 grads, who drive around the country interviewing people that inspire them. It could be a lobster fisherman, Basketball GM or clothing designer — they get to pick. When I lost my job at Amazon, I conducted my own RoadTrip Nation ... below is what I learned.

In total I interviewed 75+ people.

Top highlights:
  1. “Being in a job you hate is soul sucking, take your time finding what is next.” Adam, Designer
  2. Knowing what I don’t want to do (ex: BeReal app), helped solidify what I wanted to do next. Ciara, Recruiter
  3. “Amazon and Google don’t need you, we actually need you, come here”. Karin, Chief Design Officer

INTERVIEW 1

Richard, Product Manager


What I learned:
  • If you want to become a Product Manager, you just have to start doing it (like learning design thinking)
  • Reason he worked at IBM and not Amazon: Amazon shy on remote work and IBM had a 3-month Bootcamp Program
  • Product Manager at all times has to run-the-business, you can hand over building product to design & engineering

INTERVIEW 2

Ciara, Recruiter


What I learned:
  • Asked great questions: What is the one distinguishing factor I am looking for in my next job?
  • She loves working with designers cuz the conversations are always interesting
  • Knowing what I don’t want to do (ex: BeReal app), helped solidify what I wanted to do next

INTERVIEW 3

Hillary, Project Owner


What I learned:
  • How you handle getting let go is how you will handle a breakup ... and it says a lot about your stability, character, etc. 
  • Our spouses don’t know what we do, which is wonderful & infuriating
  • Job role names at each company are going to be slightly different in what they want you to do

INTERVIEW 4

Naveen, Designer


What I learned:
  • Every job I apply for I cater my portfolio, I include nothing from X company.
  • I was refreshing hearing someone say “You are a talented designer.” 
  • Being ex-Amazon means something. What does it mean to be ex-Mars?

INTERVIEW 5

Charlie, Finance


What I learned:
  • Practical advice was very helpful ... sign-up for unemployment, linkedin professional and mark yourself open to work
  • Product managers make the most (mid 200’s), followed by engineers and designers last
  • You’d be a great product manager, gotta be forceful without being annoying
  • Small company great, less alignment and more decisions being made
  • Work for a company where the cofounder still is employees and is doing the funding

INTERVIEW 6

Ryan, Designer


What I learned:
  • Great to have some give perspective that not in my immediate circle of friends or work circle
  • Practice telling your story

INTERVIEW 7

Laurel, Design Director


What I learned:
  • AF is organized around the three in a box all reporting to the chief digital officer
  • Weekly calls regarding metrics but no qualitative data
  • Short development cycles (ex: had an idea in summer, a few months coming up with idea, launched in the fall, etc.)

INTERVIEW 8

Monica, Designer


What I learned:
  • Heavy writing culture at Atlassian
  • Thought leadership is expected tool to move up
  • Product teams are more organized because it’s  clear what they are working on ..(ex: confluence a tool for onboarding)
  • Service teams are much harder since you cut across and no one knows who “owns” what
  • To apply for a job: back channel with an internal person for a rec … don’t fill out an application (like being setup by a friend vs swiping right)
  • I also get worried that we aren’t showing are partners enough “tangible value”
  • Zone a, b, c salary
  • She’s realized she’s more detailed focused … realizing what you are good at

INTERVIEW 9

Aaliyah, Recruiter


What I learned:
  • Can you do B2B or B2C … both. Starbucks internal app for store managers
  • She is sniping time with designers to make “profiles” for lead generation
  • Market is more contract positions to eliminate long salaries without flexibility

INTERVIEW 10

Esteban, Designer


What I learned:
  • No one is starting their dream job with 2 kids thinking “here’s what I’ll do next” … you need time to process what happened
  • No consistent reason people are being fired … 1 year stay … 20 years gone
  • I want to do parenting and work at 100%
  • Hiring manager / process decides if you join or not

INTERVIEW 11

Kate, Operations


What I learned:
  • HEB Design: happy hour tues, wed, thurs
  • 80 designers total with 15 in San Antonio
  • Design ops accelerate design inside HEB
  • She agress that her customers are internal employees 
  • No single design executive, three leads

INTERVIEW 12

Vernon, Recruiter


What I learned:
  • I can’t tell you the name of the company I am hiring for … reasons below
    • Confidentiality - they may want to keep the hiring process confidential
    • Competitive ad - they don’t want competitors to know
    • Pre-screen - recruiter can pre-screen to ensure they are a good fit
    • Market research - they may want to gather information about the job market and expectations
  • Product or service which are you leaning towards?
  • This org has a commitment to service design

INTERVIEW 13

Jerry, Designer


What I learned:
  • Punchcut is doing research for the credit builder program and leading concepting workshops
  • Navigator card “semi-affluent” … rolling out … end of Q2 … low risk investment at the beginning, slow roll-out
  • Anna Deleon - knows design and has became a director … little green. Didn’t have the 1:1 attention like Jarrod.

INTERVIEW 14

David, Director


What I learned:
  • Startup you will be doing more pixel regardless of how they sell the role. 
  • I see you as a connecter of strategy and people at a higher level
  • Look for jobs with design not in the title
  • We became a digital company and not operations .. founder was operations
  • Look for amazon type company that still operates like a startup
  • I was starting to get dumber at last job
  • David presents options to people … you could do x and lose trust or y and it not be ideal but earn trust
  • People are burned by design taking 3 months to uncover problems they already knew existed
  • Employers will say they want a player coach but they really want a player
  • Got his job through a connection

INTERVIEW 15

Adam, Designer


What I learned:
  • Doug was doing the Doug show is how I came to IBM (New Orleans conference)
  • Job search is disorienting did it at the pandemic
  • Being in a job you hate is soul sucking, take your time

INTERVIEW 16

Karin, Chief Designer


What I learned:
  • Turned company down 3 times and they came back with “they don’t need you at amazon or google”
  • Company is 26 proof of concepts held with gum and string
  • Best job I’ve had in 10 years

INTERVIEW 17

Joel, Product Manager


What I learned:
  • Still the Wild West for product development … the guy who took the agile course last week is now the expert 

INTERVIEW 18

Tori, Recruiter


What I learned:
  • It’s always good to see what the market is doing even when you have a job

INTERVIEW 19

Stacy, Recruiter


What I learned:
  • Very genuine with the recruiting process, I sincerely hope that I hear back from you.

INTERVIEW 20

Ploy, Designer


What I learned:
  • I hope you give yourself from gratitude during this time
  • You made a big impact on me regarding design facilitation.

INTERVIEW 21

Nick, Design Director


What I learned:
  • What is your unique skill set you bring to the team?
  • You have to double dip in the people management and individual contributor when you want to transition to manager

INTERVIEW 22

Courtney, Recruiter


What I learned:
  • Look at salary ranges before hoping onto an interview

INTERVIEW 23

Liqing, Design Principal


What I learned:
  • UX has been a desert inside AFT … 100 products that don’t work together

INTERVIEW 24

Rachel, Design Researcher


What I learned:
  • Hand written interview notes

INTERVIEW 25

Mohammad, Product Manager


What I learned:
  • Technical question : how u writes features ... who cares?

INTERVIEW 26

Lia, Product Manager


What I learned:
  • Measures sucess by ... I want to win awards

INTERVIEW 27

Martin, Design Director


What I learned:
  • Design is going through an identity crisis

INTERVIEW 28

Nora, Design Director


What I learned:
  • You are clearly seasoned

INTERVIEW 29

Michael, Recruiter


What I learned:
  • You need to pass a security clearance and come into the office

INTERVIEW 30

Brandon, Design Director


What I learned:
  • Service designers should be providing good service to their partners
  • Meetings verbs, outcomes nouns
  • We told our design partner … no problem we can do that offsite for you
  • Our team works at the initiative and epic level

INTERVIEW 31

Bri, Product Manager


What I learned:
  • The product manager left and their was I hole and someone said I’d be good at it

INTERVIEW 32

Brian, Product Manager


What I learned:
  • Senior leaders wanted to stop investing in Last Mile … just keep the lights on
  • Design has a high bar … y’all work too hard

INTERVIEW 33

Janessa, Recruiter


What I learned:
  • Do I have a preference in design from scratch or existing?

INTERVIEW 34

Hannah, Recruiter


What I learned:
  • Kroger cares deeply in discovery work

INTERVIEW 35

Ciara, Recruiter


What I learned:
  • Companies think deeply about the design founder

INTERVIEW 36

Stewart, Recruiter


What I learned:
  • Product - what we build
  • Service - how and why

INTERVIEW 37

Claire, Design Director


What I learned:
  • This role as e2e service design principal has been hard to find

INTERVIEW 38

Bruno, Design Director


What I learned:
  • Most teams are focused on design delivery
  • Pushing on squad … alignment on OKRs
  • Tech, Product, Design and Data — QUAD
  • Hired Silicon Valley Group — Marty Cagan, Inspired
    • 80% discovery, 20% delivery
  • Takes a strong product-leader to take the strategy and make it consumable
    • Take current roadmaps, strategy, current ticket items and build epics out of them
    • Take each epic and align each of the user stories
  • Get people aligned and making them feel like they are part of the process

INTERVIEW 39

Troy, Design Researcher


What I learned:
  • Everything starts and ends together

INTERVIEW 40

Wazza, Design Director @ Atlassian


What I learned:
  • What makes good design?
  • Tell me a project you were most proud of?

Atlassian Process:
  • Portfolio
  • Craft x 2
  • Value interview

INTERVIEW 41

Zillow, Behavior Questions


  • Tell me a time when you were given a complex problem with a tight timeline.
  • Tell me a time when you could have delivered a better result — what would you have done dfferently.
  • Tell me a time when you proposed a big idea that failed — what happened, what did you learn?
  • Tell me what you would do with an unlimited budget. What would you do? What would you learn?
  • Tell me a time when you worked with another team to work through obstacles … what were the obstacles? How did you overcome to make connections.
  • Tell me a time you delivered a difficult message at work. How did I deliver?
  • Tell me a time when what a customer wanted was in conflict with an internal message.
  • Tell me a time when I gave a service design deliverable that was not a service blueprint. How did I go about building it & what challenges did I encounter.

INTERVIEW 42

Wazza, Design Director @ Atlassian


What I learned:
  • What makes good design?
  • Tell me a project you were most proud of?

Atlassian Interview Process:
  • Portfolio
  • Craft x 2
  • Value interview

INTERVIEW 43

Michelle, Zillow Recuiter


What I learned:
  • Comes down to the recruiter … some companies they have a policy
  • We really deliberated a lot … a difficult decisions
  • 3 candidates … all had different strengths
  • Strengths
    • Strong in discovery, research, synthesis, stakeholder
    • Value prop definition
    • Buy-in from stakeholders
    • Strong communications
  • First formal role as a service designer .. we have never had a dedicated service designer
  • Came down to passion in service design … didn’t hear it from me

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