61. Taking a strategic approach to your UX career with Dan Winer

How does a UX designer transition from tactical tasks to strategic thinking?

This week, I had the pleasure of chatting with Dan Winer, a UX leader, a prominent voice in the LinkedIn UX community, a surfer, and an all-around swell guy, currently based in beautiful Tarifa, Spain. Dan’s unique career trajectory, from teaching windsurfing to becoming a UX leader, sets the stage for our discussion.

Dan and I talked about the critical shift from tactical to strategic roles in UX design, emphasizing the importance of this evolution for career growth.

Dan shared insights on starting with strong technical skills and gradually stepping into strategic roles. He stressed the significance of soft skills and the idea that sometimes we need to follow first before we can lead, supporting leadership visions to build trust and prove our place on the team. Our conversation also highlighted the critical role of professional relationships in growing into more influential UX roles.

Finally, Dan talks about some of his practical career strategy templates, which you can find linked below, offering everyone listening a valuable tool for career growth.

Topics:
• 05:34 – Dan’s origin story
• 11:07 – Strategic vs Tacitcal work
• 17:59 – Some new designers are more focused on the most valuable skills
• 21:20 – Over time you should move from tactical to strategic
• 24:39 – Leverage your technical skills to build trust to get to more strategic work
• 27:38 – As you progress, the soft skills start to be more similar to other functions.
• 29:39 – The design process straddles many points in the process, so it overlaps with • product managers
• 38:00 – We’re often missing a sense of followership
• 42:14 – Relationships are important for your career
• 46:16 – Dan’s templates for career strategy

Helpful Links:
• Connect with Dan on LinkedIn
• valdelama.com
• designcareer.guide

Dan Winer
Head of Design @ PandaDoc

About Dan

Dan has been designing professionally since 2007. During that time, he has run a small agency, contracted for enterprise clients, been the founding designer at startups, and worked as a data visualisation designer and engineer. During the last few years, he has led small design and research teams and helped designers around the world grow their careers via his mentoring and content creation.

Connect with Dan on LinkedIn

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