Today, I’m talking to Catt Small.

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Catt, on this day of posting, is on a work sabbatical. Before, Catt worked at All Turtles. an early-stage startup studio, as the Director of Product Design. Before All Turtles, she worked at Asana, Etsy, Soundcloud, and other companies. Also, in 2016, Catt co-founded Game Devs of Color Expo, an organization with a mission to amplify the creative power held by people of color in games.

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I first discovered Catt through her wonderfully playful website. And what I discovered was a treasure trove of her blog articles, talks, and resources! To this day, I am still amazed by her willingness to give back to the design community. So, naturally, after spending hours consuming her content, I was like, “I have to reach out to her!” And lo and behold, we’re here! And it was an absolute blast. We focused on solely one topic - junior designer. So if you’re a junior designer, you’ll love this one. So, without further ado, here was my conversation with Catt Small.

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Highlights

⭐ What makes a junior designer stand out?

⭐ How to speak up in meetings

⭐ What is one thing that you wished you knew before entering the “real world”?

⭐ How to grow as a junior designer

⭐ Should junior designers specialize or generalize?

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Links

🔗 Catt Small’s website

🔗 Games Devs of Color Expo

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Not Just Pixels is a student-led UX Design podcast that strives to help you grow as a designer and get that next design internship or job. This is the podcast I wished I had as a design student, and I hope you’ll get something valuable from this show.

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Have a great day! :)

Today, I’m talking to Meagan Ryan.

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Meagan currently works at Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI for short) as a Senior Design Manager. Before CZI, she worked at Coinbase as a Senior Product Design Manager and at Facebook as a Product Design Manager.

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In this conversation, we chatted about a variety of topics including design culture at Facebook, what’s it like to design in the crypto space, portfolio, and so much more. If you’re interested in designing in the web3 crypto space or want to get some practical portfolio tips, this episode is for you. So, without further ado, here was my conversation with Meagan Ryan.

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Highlights

⭐ Design culture at Facebook

⭐ What to consider when designing global products

⭐ What’s it like to design at a crypto company

⭐ How to break into crypto as a designer

⭐ Tips to improve your portfolio

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Links

🔗 Coinbase intern 1 - Rose Kuan

🔗 Coinbase intern 2 - Anna Asgaraly

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Not Just Pixels is a student-led UX Design podcast that strives to help you grow as a designer and get that next design internship or job. This is the podcast I wished I had as a design student, and I hope you’ll get something valuable from this show.

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Have a great day! :)

Have you ever wondered how to land a UX Design internship at Microsoft? Well, today we’re gonna try to answer exactly that.

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In this episode, you’ll hear from three design interns who worked at Microsoft last summer:

🎨 Favour Adeniyi - Graduate who studied Information Technology at Marymount University

🎨 Sushanth Hegde - Master’s student studying Human-Computer Interaction at the University of Maryland

🎨 Karis Wang - Senior studying Industrial and Product Design at Georgia Tech.

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Highlights:

⭐ What’s the application process at Microsoft?

⭐ How did you prepare for the interview stages?

⭐ What do you think Microsoft looks for in design interns?

⭐ Any advice for future applicants?

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Not Just Pixels is a student-led UX Design podcast that strives to help you grow as a designer and get that next design internship or job. This is the podcast I wished I had as a design student, and I hope you’ll get something valuable from this show.

===

Have a great day! :)

Have you ever wondered how to land a UX Design internship at Adobe? Well, today we’re gonna try to answer exactly that.

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In this episode, you’ll hear from three design interns who worked at Adobe last summer:

🎨 Stephanie He - Senior studying Computer Science at Georgia Tech

🎨 Ivy Kang - Senior studying Cognitive Science at UCLA

🎨 Sparsh Paliwal - Master’s student studying Human-Computer Interaction at the University of Maryland

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Highlights:

⭐ What’s the application process at Adobe?

⭐ How did you prepare for the interview stages?

⭐ What do you think Adobe looks for in design interns?

⭐ Any advice for future applicants?

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Links:

🔗 Sparsh's YouTube channel

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Not Just Pixels is a student-led UX Design podcast that strives to help you grow as a designer and get that next design internship or job. This is the podcast I wished I had as a design student, and I hope you’ll get something valuable from this show.

===

Have a great day! :)

Hi everyone! Just three quick announcements!

1️⃣ I’ll be taking a quick break 😴 Next episode will be on 1/17/23!

2️⃣ From the bottom of my heart, thank you all so much for listening to the podcast 🙏 What started as a passion project has turned into something I want to do as long as possible! 🔥 I really hope these episodes are helpful to your product design journey! ✨

3️⃣ I’ll really appreciate it if you can give any feedback on the show! I’m super open to any feedback that can make the show better! So don’t hesitate! https://forms.gle/NggymWNEo9yCzQPf7

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Not Just Pixels is a student-led UX Design podcast that strives to help you grow as a designer and get that next design internship or job. This is the podcast I wished I had as a design student, and I hope you’ll get something valuable from this show.

===

Have a great day! :)

Today, I’m talking to Gina Doyle.

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Gina currently works as a Product Designer designing the testing and runner aspects of the CI/CD features at GitLab. Before GitLab, she once worked as a contract designer at Instacart and Hera Realty Group and worked in-house at Red Hat for multiple years. Also in October of 2021, Gina started a design consulting company, SVG consulting group, with her brother and mom, which I found super fascinating.

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During our conversation, one pattern that I realized in Gina’s career was that she was always designing in highly technical areas, primarily in developer and internal tooling. Thus, we delved into pretty technical stuff, and Gina shared valuable advice about working with developers, GitLab’s product development flow, and tips for any designers about to enter a technical field. If you want to improve your collaboration skills with developer, this episode is filled with goodness for you. So, without further ado, here was my conversation with Gina Doyle.

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Highlights

⭐ GitLab’s product development flow

⭐ How Gina managed 3 jobs at the same time

⭐ Tips for designers entering a highly technical field

⭐ Best practices for designer x developer collaboration

⭐ How Gina found contract design opportunities

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Links

🔗 GitLab’s Product Development Flow

🔗 Patternfly - Red Hat’s Design System

🔗 Red Hat OpenShift

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Not Just Pixels is a student-led UX Design podcast that strives to help you grow as a designer and get that next design internship or job. This is the podcast I wished I had as a design student, and I hope you’ll get something valuable from this show.

===

Have a great day! :)

Today, I’m talking to Andy Braren.

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Andy currently works at Red Hat as a Senior Interaction Designer. Similar to Catherine from our last episode, Andy also graduated from Tufts! And don’t be surprised if our next episode guest is also a Tufts grad!

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I was extremely excited about this conversation because Andy is a prolific maker, a term describing one who likes to build to solve problems. And it surely did not disappoint. Just to note a few of his creations, Andy created an assistive tech device company in high school, started a web development consultancy, started the Tufts MAKE club, and created multiple applications at Tufts. In short, the conversation was a total blast. And if you want to start building but don’t know where to start, this episode is perfect for you. So, without further ado, here was my conversation with Andy Braren.

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Highlights

⭐ How did you develop your maker spirit?

⭐ Andy’s philosophy of making

⭐ Importance of communication in design

⭐ Andy’s favorite Steve Jobs quote

⭐ Difference between design in college vs “real-world”

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Links

🔗 Rugrats

🔗 MythBusters

🔗 Tested

🔗 STEM vs STEAM

🔗 Andy’s design portfolio

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Not Just Pixels is a student-led UX Design podcast that strives to help you grow as a designer and get that next design internship or job. This is the podcast I wished I had as a design student, and I hope you’ll get something valuable from this show.

===

Have a great day! :)

Today, I’m talking to Catherine Armistead.

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Catherine currently works at Wayfair as a Senior Product Design Lead. Before Wayfair, she worked at Publicis Sapient, a digital consulting company, as an Experience Designer. And, she graduated from Tufts.

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In our conversation, we talked about a variety of topics including her people-first approach to job search, designing at a consulting company, accessibility, and so much more. I had a great time chatting with Catherine, and I hope you will too listening to this episode! Without further ado, here’s my conversation with Catherine Armistead.

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Highlights

⭐ What it’s like to design at a consulting company

⭐ What to focus on in a job search

⭐ Product lifecycle at Wayfair

⭐ Importance of accessibility

⭐ Mobile-first approach to designing interfaces

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Not Just Pixels is a student-led UX Design podcast that strives to help you grow as a designer and get that next design internship or job. This is the podcast I wished I had as a design student, and I hope you’ll get something valuable from this show.

===

Have a great day! :)

Have you ever wondered how to land a UX Design internship at LinkedIn? Well, today we’re gonna try to answer exactly that.

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In this episode, you’ll hear from three design interns who worked at LinkedIn last summer:

🎨 Madhumita Elan - Senior studying Interaction Design at California College of the Arts

🎨 Yuhan Xie - Masters student studying Human Centered Design & Engineering at the University of Washington

🎨 David Mai - Senior studying Interactive Arts and Technology at Simon Fraser University

🎨 Huge thanks and apologies to Taylor Speed for helping to record. However, due to audio issues I figured editing very last minute, I wasn't able to include our conversation in the episode. But, we had a fruitful conversation, and I'm extremely grateful for her time. It's my fault as a podcast host that I did not address this early on, and I will not make this mistake again for the show 🙏

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Highlights:

⭐ What’s the application process at LinkedIn?

⭐ How did you prepare for the interview stages?

⭐ What do you think LinkedIn looks for in design interns?

⭐ Any advice for future applicants?

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Links

🔗 Book - Solving Product Design Exercises

🔗 Apply for LinkedIn’s 2023 Product Design Internship!

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Not Just Pixels is a student-led UX Design podcast that strives to help you grow as a designer and get that next design internship or job. This is the podcast I wished I had as a design student, and I hope you’ll get something valuable from this show.

===

Have a great day! :)

Today, I’m talking to Jordan Kolasinski.

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Jordan currently works at Netflix as a Product Design Lead on the Studio Product Innovation Team. Before Netflix, he was the Principal Product Designer at Hulu.

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I first met Jordan when he was one of the five panelists in one of my school club’s Product Panel last year. And since I started this podcast, I’ve always wanted to invite Jordan to share his expertise in designing in the streaming industry and his product design journey. And this episode surely did not disappoint. We talked about a variety of topics such as the influence of Adobe Flash on his career, his favorite project as a freelancer, challenges designing in the streaming industry, and much more. So, without further ado, here’s my conversation with Jordan Kolasinski.

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Highlights

⭐ How Adobe Flash impacted his design journey

⭐ Should a junior designer do freelancing full time

⭐ Challenges designing in the streaming industry

⭐ What blew Jordan away about Netflix’s personalization system

⭐ Design culture & maturity at Netflix

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Links

🔗 Artwork Personalization at Netflix

🔗 Apply to Netflix’s Product Design Intern Position (Summer 2023)!

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Not Just Pixels is a student-led UX Design podcast that strives to help you grow as a designer and get that next design internship or job. This is the podcast I wished I had as a design student, and I hope you’ll get something valuable from this show.

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Have a great day! :)