Day in the Life of a UX Designer in NYC + Honest Q&A

What does a craft designer actually do all day? How much does a designer get paid? Do you need a degree? Is AI going to take my job? Can you have work-life balance in tech? How do you deal with imposter syndrome? I'm sorry. It's not the dumbest thing. Anyway, I'm starving. I was like, filmmakers, filmmakers, filmmakers. Good morning, friends. If this is you returning, then welcome back. I'm so glad to have you here. And if this is your first time, then welcome. My name's Hannah. Today, I'm going to be doing a day in the life of a product designer, otherwise known as a UX, UI designer. That is my job. And I work in New York City. So I'm going to be taking you along today. If you are aspiring to be a UX, UI designer, this is specifically for you because I'm going to be doing a tell-all Q&A, which is basically me just letting you know if my job is going to be taken by an AI robot. But for now, I need to get ready. My husband and son are out the door and I need to be out the door too. So let's just quickly get ready together. I've got my smoothie here. Okay, I think that's it for today. It's not perfect, but it's gonna have to do because I need to head out the door. Okay, I'm finally ready. Put everything in my bag, everything ready to go. I'll show you my outfit. This top I've had for about a billion years, to be honest. I got it at an op shop probably about seven years ago. And then these jeans are from Abicrombie, like everybody's jeans right now. Yes, they are low and yes, they're baggy. Oh my God. How did we get here? And then, of course, numbers. And then just my workhorse, the bag, which weighs about 20 kilos. Excellent. All right, let's go. I just missed my train. It's about 100 degrees in the Frank station. The reality of living and working in New York City. Thank God I spent one. Hi again. Welcome back. I just meant to do a bit of a tell all Q&A. These are the type of questions that I get asked most about my job. And I want this to be informative. Is UX, UI something that you're interested in? But I also just want it to be interesting and entertaining to whoever is maybe curious about what it's like to work in the UX or tech industry in general. So the first question is, what does a craft UI, UX designer actually do all day? And that really depends on where you are in the world. The first part of it is all about collecting requirements and defining what should actually be done. The middle part is all about actually putting pen to paper and doing the designs. And in the end, it's all about testing and validating to ensure that the design, A, works the way it should, is of a high quality, and it's actually solving a user problem before you hand it off to engineering. Question number two, how much does a designer get paid? So it's going to be anywhere between around 100,000 and 200,000, depending on your experience level and depending on where you live. If you're living in New York City, companies understand that your expenses are going to be higher, and therefore your wage will be higher. Whereas if you're living somewhere more rural, then you expect a slightly lower wage for that role. You can also expect in tech, especially in growth startups, that you might receive equity. And if you can get some equity in the company, I would highly recommend it. Not only will that grow as the company grows, but it also means that you're invested in the company. You own a part of the company. And I think that's super important if we're spending all of our days doing something, to feel like we have ownership of that, to strive towards it. And honestly, for the benefit of it, you know, in 10 or 20 years time, $1,000 of equity could be worth $20,000 or even $30,000. And that's awesome if you can do that. Third question. And this is a question I get a lot. And that is, do you need a degree to become a UX UI designer slash product designer? And the answer is no, but no, you don't need a degree. I do not have a degree in design. I actually have a degree in nursing, of all things. I do have a bootcamp in design, and you need to understand the skillset and be able to execute the skillset for design. So however you wanna do that, whether that is doing the Google UX UI free design online, which is a great resource, whether you decide to do a bootcamp, or whether you just decide to do YouTube videos and just practice a lot, however you're able to get the skills and hone the skills and practice the skills, do that. Having a degree is gonna get you in the door. It's gonna be your personality and skill that gets you far. And so you might not be able to get in some doors, but I've always been able to get jobs that I love. I know that I've been valued in my workplace because of my skill and my determination, my passion, my commitment, and that's all part of my personality that I bring. So no, you don't need a degree. So the next question, and one I'm getting often, often, often, often, is AI going to take my job? And the answer is probably, but I'm not afraid of it, and this is why. So in the last year, my job has changed so much because of AI, for the better, to be honest. It has helped me so much, anywhere from the way that I synthesize and understand my research, all the way to rapid prototyping and allowing my ideas to come to life very, very quickly. But I cannot deny that it has taken parts of my job, 100%, and my job takes a lot less time. Therefore, that's the answer. It has taken parts of my job already, and this is only the start. So it will probably continue taking more parts of my job, but you've got one of two options. You can either shy away from technology and pretend it doesn't exist and let it override you, or you can be the adopter of the change and the leader of the change and be at the forefront of the industry. And that's what I'm choosing to do. So the next question I have for you is, can you have work-life balance in tech? I know that we see a lot of this kind of, what would you call it, productivity porn. You know what I mean? And I guess in some roles, that might be true, but I definitely think that we can have work-life balance. And I would say even more in tech than anything else. For example, I used to work as a registered nurse. That's what my degree has been. And that was a lot more challenging because I had to physically be in the hospital and traveling five days a week. And there wasn't as much flexibility. And one of the reasons why I wanted to get into technology, amongst many others, was because of the flexibility that offers. I, in my lunch break, if I'm working from home, I can make a quick meal for my family to have that evening and then get back to work and do really, really great work after that. That would never have happened if I had been in the hospital all the time. You can also travel and work. If that's something that your employers allow, you can work from home. I obviously choose to work in the office too because I love being in a work environment. I feel like I get more work done. But being a knowledge worker that works primarily on a laptop offers so much flexibility and therefore so much work-life balance. My caveat is that we have to really understand what we want out of our lifestyle and what we want out of our job and make sure that we're only applying for jobs that fit that criteria. For example, when I was entering back into the workforce after having my son, I was having conversations with companies who wanted me to be in the office five days a week. And I fully respect that, that's fine, but that just doesn't work for me. Like I said, I'd like to be able to make a meal for my family in my lunch break. I would rather do that than take half an hour in the middle of the day in the office. It's just not as efficient for me and I want to be able to maximise the time that I'm spending with my son and my husband. And so having a job that was more focused on work from home was important to me. Does that mean that I had to say no to certain opportunities? Yes, but I didn't see that as a negative. I saw that as me shaping my life the way that I wanted it to look and owning my decisions and creating a life that worked best for me. And I really encourage you to do that. If you are looking for flexibility and work-life balance, this is definitely a role for you too. Okay, so the next one is a question that I myself ask all the time to other people and that is, how do you deal with imposter syndrome? Ooh, and I'm still dealing with it. Like I said, I haven't had the most traditional path to my position right now and so I feel sometimes that maybe I'm not worthy of it. And the one piece of advice that I can give you is create evidence for yourself all the time. So what this looks like is starting off small and really honing your skills and showing yourself that you can do it. Through effort and perseverance, you're gonna create a portfolio, hopefully an actual one, but in your mind too of all of your success and you can use that as a barrier when imposter syndrome starts knocking at your door. You can say, look at everything I've done. I can do this. My work is valuable and that really helps. Also realizing that you are your own worst critic, that you see your failures far more than anybody else does. Being kind to yourself, being gentle with yourself and just accepting that, yes, you're probably gonna have that feeling, especially if you're getting into a new career and you're testing your boundaries. I always say, the thing about bravery is that if you're doing it right, it feels like fear. And so if you're feeling fear, you're probably just being really brave. So continue doing that. Okay, so on that note, they are all of the questions that I wanted to answer today. If you have any other questions about UX, UI, product design, whatever you wanna call it, please let me know in the comments below. But I hope that this has been interesting for you. I hope that this has been informative for you and giving insight into what UX and UI design is for a job. I know it wasn't super detailed, but if you do wanna know more, I'm happy to go into more detail about anything. But let's get on with the day. So I just finished a very, very, very busy morning. I swear to God, the harder you think, the hungrier you get. I actually do think that, I've read somewhere that using your brain burns calories. It's not the dumbest thing. Anyway, I'm starving. Oh my God, look at this view. Look at that view of Manhattan. Isn't that beautiful? Literally never gets old. I love working in this area. It's so special. Being an Australian gal, it really makes me feel like every day of my life is a little bit of a movie. And then you've got the bridge up here. Oh, it's just gorgeous. Let's just get the deconstructed meat and rice salad and I'll have it for you, please. I decided to eat in the restaurant and to do some work while I'm eating. A little bit of a change of environment, you know, enjoy this beautiful sunny day in New York. So I'm just gonna do this for the next half an hour and I'm gonna head back to the office. Just walking back from lunch and whenever I walk around this area, you can see the bridges in the background. It just kind of like strikes me how, I guess like lucky I feel that I'm here, but also that I'm genuinely living a life that I couldn't possibly have imagined when I was growing up. I grew up in a little country town in Australia and I just, I can't believe how lucky I am to be able to work exactly where I wanna work in New York City, doing exactly what I wanna do, living a life that I really, really love. And I know it's because I've been brave and obviously lucky at the same time, but it just, I just feel so grateful and it's such a, yeah, it's a great reminder when I'm walking around and seeing everyone on holidays, enjoying themselves, like they've obviously had to work so hard to come here on holidays and I just get to be here on a regular Wednesday working in a place that I love. And yeah, I guess, I know I talked about this in my last video, but I just feel like it's a reminder that obviously I worked particularly hard to live here and I've made decisions in my life intentionally to live here. It wasn't an accident that I lived in New York City. It wasn't an accident that I moved from nursing to UX Design, so I'd had the flexibility of being able to live and work somewhere like this, but yeah, this is just a reminder that if you wanna do something, you can 100% do it. And in three years from now, you could be there. You could be doing it. Like if I thought three years ago before I moved to New York that I was gonna be able to live here and do this, I wouldn't have imagined it and I would have looked so huge, but now I'm here and I'm so grateful that I made that decision and I'm back at the office. So I'm gonna spend the afternoon getting everything that I need to get done for the day and then head home. All righty, it's me done for work for today. I had a few meetings this afternoon, so I really didn't feel many of it. It was just boring, me chatting the whole time with stakeholders, so nothing to see there, but I just hope that you enjoyed spending a day with me as a UX Designer living in New York City. I hope it's been interesting, entertaining, relaxing, all of those things. So I'm gonna leave it here and make sure to, if you have any follow-up questions about UX design, product design, tech, working in New York, anything like that, let me know in the comments below and I'll make sure to answer them. And yeah, thanks so much for spending the day with me. I thoroughly enjoyed spending it with you. As always, have a wonderful day, have a wonderful week and have a wonderful year because you deserve it.