Leading with Craft is a limited series of articles where we shed a light on stories of designers with successful careers as individual contributors.

Curating and publishing hundreds of articles every month at the UX Collective, we have noticed an abundance of resources for designers switching careers to management, but a gap for those who want to continue to focus on their craft.

This series highlights professionals that never let their seniority move them away from their practice and their passion for what made them great in the first place, such as Lena Sotto Mayor.

Born in Manaus, Amazonas, Lena is a Lead Product Designer at Globo, designing the future of sports consumption on digital products. Previously, Lena has worked at major companies like Nokia and Microsoft. In our conversation, we discussed her career path thus far and how she keeps honing her craft skills.

Pursuing the thrill of solving problems

UX Colective: Thanks for participating, Lena! You have studied Engineering and Archicture before getting your B.A. in Design. What made you move to design?

Lena Sotto Mayor: Engineering happened by chance for me. I signed up for the college admission exams at a very young age and with no big expectations of actually succeeding. I ended up completing the program because I was driven by the challenges that presented themselves along the way. But I also missed focusing on the creative side.

I grew up with an architect mom and amongst her colored pencils and clipboards, I thought this could also be an interesting path for me. Nonetheless, as much as I appreciate the impact of an architectural piece, the physical aspect of the artifact was something I wasn’t particularly drawn to.

After experimenting with design, I discovered a real professional possibility in this intersection of rules, guidelines, and human sciences. The fact that the design process is never really over is also something that keeps me excited to this day.

Like any design process, my professional journey has been iterative. However, looking back, I can see now that what drew me to Design — and Engineering, as a matter of fact — was the thrill of solving problems.

And how was the path from a more traditional design degree to become a lead product designer at Globo?

After graduating in 2012, I wanted to pursue a career in editorial design and moved to London to pursue a Master’s degree in Magazine Publishing. During the course, I was tasked with designing a digital experience for the iPad to accompany a print publication. It was my first contact with digital design and when I discovered user experience as an actual professional possibility.

In 2015, I moved to Rio de Janeiro and continued my career as a Senior Product Designer at Globo. For the following years, I was one of the designers responsible for creating design solutions to maximize the product’s growth, strategic positioning, and user acquisition. Experiencing first-hand the ups and downs of a product life cycle was a unique opportunity to develop technical and soft skills and expand my holistic approach as a designer.

Since April 2020, I’ve been acting as a Lead Product Designer at Globo’s digital hub sports’ area, conciliating a role of technical leadership in User Experience and designing sports consumption experiences in partnership with a multidisciplinary team.

Balancing skills and influence

How do you see your career evolving in the future? Do you see yourself pursuing an individual contributor path?

I believe my professional growth lies in acting strategically with design. For me, design is a means to make strategies actionable and designers are agents of change within projects. I want to continue contributing to strategic decisions and to always bring the user perspective to the discussion, but my love for the design artifact will never keep me too far from the artboard. For now, I am not sure what particular title or role I would like to hold in the future, but I want to pursue a space that balances specialized skills, technical leadership, and influence in business strategy. I want to be able to discuss strategies, translate their applications into interfaces and contribute to their implementation.

my love for the craft of design will never keep me too far from the artboard

That sounds like a dream job! What type of company is more likely for a designer to find a role like that?

Companies with a more mature product development process can facilitate the involvement of the designer in the end-to-end process, from discussing product strategy to actually designing the solution. As designers, we are naturally drawn to questioning things, including our own environment. Because of this, even though a company’s hierarchy may impact directly the decision-making process, I believe that designers can help build a cross-disciplinary space for discussion, even in smaller or younger companies in which this dialogue is not yet a reality.

As designers, we are naturally drawn to questioning things, including our own environment.

What does a typical day look like as a lead designer? How do you balance your craft with other work tasks and responsibilities?

My biggest challenge right now is finding the balance between activities related to my role as a UX lead and the daily requirements and activities of the product team I am allocated in. Inside the product’s structure, I work alongside other designers and we have the autonomy to distribute the UX tasks according to the demands at hand and, through a close relationship with my manager, I am able to establish broader priorities for my actions of technical leadership.

Where do you find more opportunities to practice your craft: in your initiatives as a UX lead or in the projects you are allocated to work?

I guess it depends on what we understand as ‘craft’. In technical terms, regarding design, typography, and interaction principles, I would say I have more opportunities to focus on that in the projects I’m allocated. But looking at design from a strategic perspective, as a UX lead I have more opportunities to influence vision and concept definitions. But there is no clear division — I find it impossible to disassociate the technical craft from the strategic reasoning. What I try to do every day is to understand at which point each opportunity falls in this strategic-technical ruler and how I can contribute in the best way possible.

What were the biggest differences you noticed in your work and craft as you advanced in your career?

As conflicting as it may sound, now I give myself more time to understand a problem so I can be faster in proposing effective solutions.

I have always been fond of the craft of designing and, at the beginning of my career, several times I hastened the design process and made the mistake of not stressing the problem enough before reaching for the artboard. This sometimes disrupted the UX process, making it necessary to reevaluate and redesign a solution while it was already being implemented. Now I recognize and advocate for the necessity of discussing and understanding a problem in-depth before sketching a solution.

Also, with the accumulation of a visual and interaction repertoire earned through a lot of practice and research, I am now faster in envisioning experiments. This doesn’t make the problems easier to solve but speeds up the process of validating hypotheses, learning about user behavior, and building design solutions.

Practicing and observing keep you inspired

How did you get your design repertoire? Where do you find inspiration?

Practice and experience helped me grow my repertoire organically but it’s still constantly evolving. Studies, critiques, user research and benchmarks helped me understand the most common patterns and what new things might be worth trying out. Gathering references for visual and interaction ideas is a great way to broaden perspectives on what’s possible and looking at literature for guidelines and heuristics is never too much.

But for me, the biggest contribution comes from trying to keep an active eye on my day-to-day interactions with products and services, whether digital or physical. The amount of unexpected connections you can make when you try to understand the intention behind every experience decision is quite incredible.

Do you feel like your craft is evolving with you?

Absolutely. Julie Zhuo, former VP of Design at Facebook and author of “Making of a Manager” recently wrote about this in a particularly insightful Twitter thread. Although my reality is a bit different than what she described, I agree with a lot of the points she made.

At this point in my career, I find that focusing on evolving my design vision can be more impactful than studying the latest tools and software. Although I really enjoy developing the technical side, learning about business strategy and product development has made the biggest impact on my contribution as a designer. Now I’m more comfortable handling challenges that involve a holistic approach and larger product ecosystems. I use a combination of the skills I’ve learned throughout the years to make the solutions tangible to our stakeholders while articulating design decisions.

I believe I have always designed with a purpose but now I am able to discuss and influence not only the design but also the purpose behind it.

Looking back, what would you have done differently in your design career so far? What advice would you give to a designer starting their career?

I’ve experimented a lot at the beginning of my career, trying to understand which area of the Design industry to focus on. Although I ended up investing a reasonable amount of time and effort into things I ended up not pursuing, I wouldn’t change anything in this process. I believe that the best way to learn is by doing and everything I’ve done has contributed to my professional development so far.

One thing I would like to tell my younger self, though, and this might be helpful for young designers trying to find themselves in this hectic industry, is to believe in their own hard work.

I learned that one of the best ways to move past your own self-doubts is to arm yourself with knowledge and dedication — work hard and soon confidence will follow.

I struggled with my own insecurities early on in my career and found the pressure of getting it right paralyzing at times. I learned that one of the best ways to move past your own self-doubts is to arm yourself with knowledge and dedication — work hard and soon confidence will follow. Don’t worry about failing. Failure is the fastest way of learning what doesn’t work and improving upon it. The only failure is not learning from it.

Check Lena Sotto Mayor's portfolio to learn more about her work.

More about this series on craft.uxdesign.cc