Should I switch to design from Software Engineering?
I am a computer science student, really good programmer and I had an internship at Google as a Software Engineer. I love programming but at the same time I am very talented in UI/UX design and I can't help but do both in every job I get (I just can't stand the look of ugly products even though it's not my responsibility as a developer). I really enjoy design but as far as I can see, software engineers get the higher salaries. Has anyone made the switch from SW to design? Are you satisfied with your switch (not being able to code / salary / lost school years) ? And what are the prospects for UX designers?
You are at Google, go learn a few things about product design first. I am sure you won’t hear them talking about how they can’t stand ugly products, trust me.
I did take a few design courses at Google but I haven't encountered any technical language that would require me to get special training to qualify for the job. From what I've seen it's more about having the talent and mastery of the software which I both have (I am using Sketch / Principle / Photoshop and have a portfolio of designs I made over the years). I would totally love to learn more about the technicalities of the job and the benefits of having formal training / going to design college.
Dude, you sound extremely naive. Technical mastery of intentionally simple design tools has so little to do with actually designing products it's not even in the same ballpark. Any monkey on dribbble can make a cool looking UI in sketch, but can they actually end-to-end design an excellent product? And I mean like being able to answer big overarching product strategy questions, designing to create business value, understanding how features impact the business, designing things at scale, interaction design at the highest level, prioritizing edge cases to support and ignore, designing bulletproof user flows, selling your work to stakeholders, being extremely diplomatic, being a people person and excellent communicator, facilitating implementation, being able to take and execute feedback, being able to iterate rapidly based on data. Design isn't just sitting with your headphones on pushing pixels around, especially at the highest level.
I don’t think your statement about comp is accurate at Google, Facebook, other companies I have context on. Aside from comp, my sense is that designers who are committed, passionate, and skilled can sometimes have more opportunity to distinguish themselves because of the visibility of their work and size of their function. The downside is that designers are asked to do a bit of everything, have a lot of stakeholders to please, and everyone has opinions about their work.
(You’d need to also have enough experience as a designer to be a professional designer — @pandd makes a great point)
Please see my comment on @pandd 's post
How things look is the least important aspect of design.
Agreed, but it matters—if Square used a 70s-era color palette with Times New Roman and misaligned everything, even if the flows and overall composition was the same, it’d suffer.
Your life will be less stressful as a designer
(False; Both anecdotes and data make it clear that designers are typically more stressed)
We need good designers so if you feel passionate and have the drive go for it. Maybe we all will enjoy some great software and apps. You can still satisfy your coding needs if you do freelancing or other projects or even teach
I've gone design -> eng -> design + eng. Comp in design is lower, but impact and flexibility if you can do both is high. Either way, as @pandd and @anon1848 said earlier you don't seem to get it and your attitude is questionable. Stay humble and keep learning.
Curious why is everyone asking OP person to be humble? I do not see anything offensive.
The language he’s using make it seem like he’s operating under some false assumptions about what design is that color his impression of where he is as a designer. Folks that assume they’re great too early in their design careers usually get stuck at lower/mid-levels for longer.
As I said, I was reiterating what my coworkers at Google have been telling me (and actually the constant pressure from peers is what's making me think about design...)
Go be a ux engineer
You could use some humility.
All I've said is what my peers say about my work... It might have sounded arrogant, I'm sorry for that.