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Desingineer – the mythical person every startup is looking for

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Re: Desingineer – the mythical person every startup is looking for

#11

Post by sandieman »

aspir wrote: post #2

Every freelancer in my area is, by this definition, a "Desingineer." I'm in the midwest, so there's almost no other way to get work other than go full stack. Obviously, some are better at the back end and some are better designers, but they have to do it all. Honestly, this reinforces the issue that startups do a poor job of recruiting outside of their 20 mile radius. For example, its early in the office, and I still…

have built a company in the middle of the country as well, and know this freelance type. Typically they are "okay" at design and "okay" at development. They work well for local small businesses but not for startups looking for top caliber design.

Re: Desingineer – the mythical person every startup is looking for

#12

Post by badclient »

you should try splitting it into (i) a designer who does HTML, CSS (ii) a programmer and (iii) perhaps even a separate Javascript coder.

This is how the company I work for right now does it and it is EXTREMELY inefficient. I've been advocating them to go back to one person to do html/css/js/php.

I can see the above work for large orgs. But with a 3-4 person tech team, super specialization has not worked at all

Re: Desingineer – the mythical person every startup is looking for

#13

Post by systemizer »

aspir wrote: post #2

Every freelancer in my area is, by this definition, a "Desingineer." I'm in the midwest, so there's almost no other way to get work other than go full stack. Obviously, some are better at the back end and some are better designers, but they have to do it all. Honestly, this reinforces the issue that startups do a poor job of recruiting outside of their 20 mile radius. For example, its early in the office, and I still…

I agree with this, however, what constitutes a "designer?"

Defining an engineer is easy: can build systems that optimize for function. Can build a UI that the user can understand to the point that the user can gain value.

How do you quantify design? How do you quantify a designer? If we had metrics, then it would be easier to understand which freelancers actually are "Desingineers."

Re: Desingineer – the mythical person every startup is looking for

#14

Post by scottschulthess »

alex_c wrote: post #7
rguzman wrote: post #5

i don't think designers, per se, are that valuable. this line of thought just stems from the conflation of graphic design and interface design. the skill in demand is the latter. to be good at it one needs to be able to be proficient in html, css, javascript, and have basic abilities in whatever server-side technologies are in use. so, yes, these folks will be hard to find. just like any other good engineer, they'll…

interface design. the skill in demand is the latter. to be good at it one needs to be able to be proficient in html, css, javascript, and have basic abilities in whatever server-side technologies are in use. I really don't follow. A kick-ass interface designer can know nothing more than Photoshop. A front-end guru can be terrible at interface design. There's very little connection between interface design and the tec…

That's old school thinking right there. I'd never hire a designer who doesn't know front end tech as well or better than they know photoshop.

The best designers will know HTML+CSS+Javascript pretty intimately for a variety of reasons.

Re: Desingineer – the mythical person every startup is looking for

#15

Post by badclient »

alex_c wrote: post #7
rguzman wrote: post #5

i don't think designers, per se, are that valuable. this line of thought just stems from the conflation of graphic design and interface design. the skill in demand is the latter. to be good at it one needs to be able to be proficient in html, css, javascript, and have basic abilities in whatever server-side technologies are in use. so, yes, these folks will be hard to find. just like any other good engineer, they'll…

interface design. the skill in demand is the latter. to be good at it one needs to be able to be proficient in html, css, javascript, and have basic abilities in whatever server-side technologies are in use. I really don't follow. A kick-ass interface designer can know nothing more than Photoshop. A front-end guru can be terrible at interface design. There's very little connection between interface design and the tec…

There's very little connection between interface design and the technologies used to implement it.

For starters, whatever you design in Photoshop typically looks 10-30% different in the browser when converted to HTML. That is significant enough to make the concept look very different than the actual browser interface implementation.

An interface designer who only operates in Photoshop thus cannot deliver accurate-looking concepts.

Re: Desingineer – the mythical person every startup is looking for

#17

Post by rguzman »

alex_c wrote: post #7
rguzman wrote: post #5

i don't think designers, per se, are that valuable. this line of thought just stems from the conflation of graphic design and interface design. the skill in demand is the latter. to be good at it one needs to be able to be proficient in html, css, javascript, and have basic abilities in whatever server-side technologies are in use. so, yes, these folks will be hard to find. just like any other good engineer, they'll…

interface design. the skill in demand is the latter. to be good at it one needs to be able to be proficient in html, css, javascript, and have basic abilities in whatever server-side technologies are in use. I really don't follow. A kick-ass interface designer can know nothing more than Photoshop. A front-end guru can be terrible at interface design. There's very little connection between interface design and the tec…

theoretically, you could just use photoshop (or keynote, more realistically) to design interfaces. however, given that from there someone has to take over and implement it using the real technologies, it is easy to miss things and the process becomes hopelessly slow. i guess it is theoretically possible to operate like this.

contrast that to being able to rapidly iterate on the real code.

i don't mean iterate as in "code a feature, commit to the repo, send for review, do over". i mean the tweaking while coding.

Re: Desingineer – the mythical person every startup is looking for

#18

Post by scottschulthess »

badclient wrote: post #12

you should try splitting it into (i) a designer who does HTML, CSS (ii) a programmer and (iii) perhaps even a separate Javascript coder. This is how the company I work for right now does it and it is EXTREMELY inefficient. I've been advocating them to go back to one person to do html/css/js/php. I can see the above work for large orgs. But with a 3-4 person tech team, super specialization has not worked at all

What's inefficient about it? Usually this doesn't work if your process sucks. The way I've seen it work well is:

Designer starts on the project a week ahead of programmer. Gathers requirements (with the programmer tagging along). Does paper sketches which get a general a-ok from everyone.

Does html prototype, ideally already in rails.

Hands off to developer, developer wires up. Over time they iterate together on the same codebase.

Re: Desingineer – the mythical person every startup is looking for

#19

Post by redcircle »

mmcconnell1618 wrote: post #8

As a desingineer I'm always looking for the mythical startup that has cool technology, awesome people and a good chance to rocket to the moon. Probably as hard to find as desingineers.

That's awesome. Of course, if we just want money, prestige, and success, then that is what we want. But if we want opportunities to grow, then the startup should be a challenge demanding our best to achieve success --- it should not be an easy ride on others' abilities. And the same goes for finding the desingineer --- if a founder wants to address a prime responsibility of running a company, and control their culture, then part of their legacy is the people that they help grow and to flourish into the desingineer.

Re: Desingineer – the mythical person every startup is looking for

#20

Post by ed209 »

alex_c wrote: post #7
rguzman wrote: post #5

i don't think designers, per se, are that valuable. this line of thought just stems from the conflation of graphic design and interface design. the skill in demand is the latter. to be good at it one needs to be able to be proficient in html, css, javascript, and have basic abilities in whatever server-side technologies are in use. so, yes, these folks will be hard to find. just like any other good engineer, they'll…

interface design. the skill in demand is the latter. to be good at it one needs to be able to be proficient in html, css, javascript, and have basic abilities in whatever server-side technologies are in use. I really don't follow. A kick-ass interface designer can know nothing more than Photoshop. A front-end guru can be terrible at interface design. There's very little connection between interface design and the tec…

I'm not sure it's true anymore. The way something looks is important, but so is how it responds to user actions. This probably started with flash around 2001 i.e. flat graphics were not acceptable anymore but now designers don't have keyframes to tween so knowing css and javascript to manipulate user interactions is essential for UI these days. Even for mobile dev, designers should have prototypes to demo to devs about how an interface responds to interactions.
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