Designers Need to Stop Being Product Managers and Shift Back to Design

:::tip I've been working in product design for over 9 years, and for the past 6 years, I've been hiring designers. Here are my thoughts on what designers are currently lacking and why they need to flex their creative muscles and stop being product managers.

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\ Today, in 2025, strange things are happening in the market: a global crisis in the IT sector where tens of thousands of skilled and experienced professionals are being laid off. Meanwhile, companies that continue to hire receive thousands of applications within the first few days of posting a job opening. Obviously, it's becoming increasingly difficult for them to conduct quality interviews, so they complicate the selection process to filter out most candidates early on.

\ At the same time, there’s an abundance of articles, webinars, and courses on how to ace interviews and secure job offers in the current climate. As a result, talented professionals are forced to master a new skill - the skill of passing interviews.

\ In all the companies I've worked at, we’ve always aimed to hire great people: talented individuals who aren’t afraid to take responsibility and come up with new ideas. During each interview, I try to uncover the person’s genuine interests and passions. But with each passing year, this becomes more challenging due to the sheer volume of educational content on how to pass interviews. Designers simply memorize scripts of what to say and how to say it, hiding their true thoughts and ideas.

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What I Look For, What I Ask, and Why I Reject Designers After Interviews

“Tell me what you love about design or life, what makes your eyes light up, what you can talk about for hours?”

I love it when candidates' eyes truly light up when answering this question, and I have to stop them because they could literally talk about it for hours. There is no right answer to this question; I’m not here to judge their interests and classify them as right or wrong. The only correct answer is to have something you’re passionate about, not lose that inner fire, and be able to share it. This is really important to me. I only want to work with people like that.

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“If you had to choose just one key quality for a designer, what would it be?”

Again, a question with no right answer, but I’m interested in how willingly a person accepts the rules of the game and is ready to dive into an adventure. I understand it’s a “very difficult question” and “there can’t be just one key quality because a designer’s role is so multifaceted.” - Please, let’s just play along with the rules, as constraints and limitations often help unleash creativity and find the best solution.

\ When I hear complaints about the difficulty and unfairness of the question, I can already imagine the designer explaining to me why it’s impossible and wrong to complete a task in a short time during a crisis. Of course, it’s wrong and shouldn’t happen; we’ll certainly think about how to prevent it in the future. But for now, let’s roll up our sleeves and get the job done together.

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I love asking designers to explain why a certain feature in well-known products is needed from both a business and user perspective. One of my favorite questions is: Why do taxi services increase prices during peak demand times?

This question actually reveals a lot about a designer:

• How they understand business, what the business earns from and spends on, and the key metrics of products.
• How they think about the world. Sometimes, candidates say, “Businesses raise taxi prices during peak demand just to make more money because they can and like to earn more.” An interesting viewpoint, for sure…
• How they can reason, build logical assumptions, and explain complex things in simple terms.

These are my three favorite questions that I always ask everyone. In theory, I could eliminate all other questions and interview stages and just keep these three, as they would tell me most of what I need to know about a designer.

Many designers don’t pass this stage: their eyes don’t light up, and they don’t understand the connection between product metrics, even at a basic level. Most often, they get lost and are afraid to think out loud if they don’t know the exact answer right away. And this is even though we put a lot of effort into creating a truly trusting atmosphere during the interview, positively reinforcing every answer, and frequently emphasizing that we care much more about their thought process than the right answer, because often there is no right answer.

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It's Time to Stop Being Managers

One of my favorite practical tasks for designers is to imagine what the process of learning 3D design would look like in an ideal world—a world without development constraints, sprints, ROI, and other barriers. This exercise quickly reveals a key issue many designers face: the loss of the ability to dream big, propose bold solutions, and create ambitious concepts.

\ I’m not saying designers shouldn’t know metrics and consider business needs. On the contrary, it’s essential. But it’s time to view this as basic hygiene. It’s important to remember that we are, first and foremost, creators capable of changing the world, offering daring and innovative solutions, and creating beauty.

\ Understanding business processes, development constraints, and the work of product managers is undeniably crucial. However, let’s not forget our primary purpose. Our main mission is not only to solve business problems but also to create innovations and beauty that inspire and propel the world forward.