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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

#61

Post by samwillis »

malandrew wrote: post #50

I would think that the type of person that is a designgineer is likely to be informally trained, usually starting as a design person and becoming increasingly more technical over time. Because of this, I reckon they would do poorly at a lot of the types of technical interviews that are in fashion today, such as puzzle interviews and data structure/algorithm questions that you'd probably only do well with if you had a…

I think you are right, I suspect that is a drive to invent things and a passion for technology, that is at least how it works for me:

web design as a kid + DT at school + always inventing things -> Industrial Design at uni -> interest in developing product from both the user facing side and technology behind it.

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

#62

Post by funkah »

asolove wrote: post #9

I think the problem is not that one person can't have both of these skills, but that it is hard to play both roles on the same project unless you have a lot of discipline. The engineering mindset and the UX design mindset optimize for different things. Even if you are excellent at both, it helps to have someone else forcing you to get the UX right when you're doing the engineering work, and to make the engineering po…

You're probably also not making two salaries' worth for doing two roles worth of work. But I know, you guys don't go into startups for the money, right.

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

#63

Post by alexwolfe »

I've been working for startups a long time (over ten years) and I have only met one person that I would consider a great designer and developer. I don't think it is because others aren't capable but rather aren't interested or forced to. This type of person is definitely a rare breed which is good. I think a lot of people say they would like to fall into this position but in reality probably not so much.

Please keep in mind that I have met quite a few people that dabble in everything but a true professional at both is quite rare.

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

#64

Post by gruseom »

asolove wrote: post #9

I think the problem is not that one person can't have both of these skills, but that it is hard to play both roles on the same project unless you have a lot of discipline. The engineering mindset and the UX design mindset optimize for different things. Even if you are excellent at both, it helps to have someone else forcing you to get the UX right when you're doing the engineering work, and to make the engineering po…

I find the reason it's hard to do both on the same project is that the engineer by definition knows the internals of the system. It's hard to un-know that and see things afresh from the user perspective. Thus one tends to create UIs that are intuitive to someone who already has a mental model of how the system works, but seem convoluted and arbitrary to everybody else.

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

#65

Post by alexwolfe »

asolove wrote: post #9

I think the problem is not that one person can't have both of these skills, but that it is hard to play both roles on the same project unless you have a lot of discipline. The engineering mindset and the UX design mindset optimize for different things. Even if you are excellent at both, it helps to have someone else forcing you to get the UX right when you're doing the engineering work, and to make the engineering po…

There are some people that have both but it is extremely rare as the author points out. Being a hack or OK in design and development is not the same, many people can do that. I think he is pointing out the very small circle of extremely gifted individuals who can legitimately do both on a professional level.

As in any profession there will always be some extraordinary individuals that are heads and toes above the rest.

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

#66

Post by jwblackwell »

asolove wrote: post #9

I think the problem is not that one person can't have both of these skills, but that it is hard to play both roles on the same project unless you have a lot of discipline. The engineering mindset and the UX design mindset optimize for different things. Even if you are excellent at both, it helps to have someone else forcing you to get the UX right when you're doing the engineering work, and to make the engineering po…

I agree, there are a lot of people that can both very well and to be honest most contractors have to be able to if they want to get work.

I don't think that the skill set required is actually that different, but your right in saying discipline is required in order to excel in both.

Then I think the key point is those that do possess both skills and the discipline/drive to excel at both are usually either doing very well doing their own thing and aren't looking for work.

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

#67

Post by mikeryan »

scottschulthess wrote: post #14
alex_c wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

Can you name a few? I work with an absolutely brilliant designer who can't write a lick of HTML/JS/CSS however he intimately understands how his designs will translate to a browser.

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

#68

Post by amix »

The real issue is that mastering something takes an awful long time - 10.000 hours or 10 years from what I have read (Malcolm Gladwell, Peter Norvig, various research). Most people aren't willing to put in this effort and most people aren't willing to suck at something for years, therefore they focus on the thing they are good at.

Maybe we could become awesome at multiple things if we are willing to invest 10 years into learning something instead of investing a few weeks.

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

#69

Post by ootachi »

evlapix wrote: post #33

I recently applied at a YC funded startup. Their job description had the most random combination of front-end/back-end technologies that exactly matched my recent focuses, and said absolutely nothing about design. I considered myself extremely qualified. I received a call the following day and was told I was a top candidate. As the interviews progressed with each founder (3 of them), I started to get the impression t…

Sounds like you dodged a bullet. The founders probably weren't going to give their first employee the kind of equity they were going to give themselves, despite the fact that their first employee would have to be more qualified than they were.

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

#70

Post by danso »

I'd say the closest anyone has come to this was Steve Wozniak. He of course built the first two Apples but also wrote the BASIC for ][ that would be used for its thriving game ecosystem...and he wrote a few games himself.

I know the article in question is talking about front-end/back-end design...but I'd argue that software and hardware engineering are just as peripherally-related-yet-substantially-differentiated enough.

So, just find yourself another Steve Woz...

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