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Teaching to UX Design
54 Plays10 months ago
In today's episode, we speak with Kashif, a former English teacher who is currently a Senior Product Designer at Hagerty and concurrently works as a Lead Product Designer at LearningFuze (with a few other career steps in between).
Kashif shares strategies for working efficiently and producing high-quality work. He emphasizes the superiority of reading books over articles for learning about UX, discusses his trial-and-error approach to job hunting, and underscores the importance of inclusivity in the workplace.
Check out some of his work here.
If you have any questions for Kashif or myself that could be answered on a future episode, please email me at [email protected].
Interested in finally taking the plunge by starting your career in tech? How does $1500 off a Springboard Career Track Course sound?
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Transcript
Introduction to Kashif's Journey
00:00:14
Speaker
Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Life After Tech Bootcamp. I'm thrilled to share yet another incredible success story from one of our alumni. This individual made the transition from the field of teaching, a profession that I've noticed many are trying to navigate away from, to UX design. And we met through a mutual springboard alum, and it's always just great to see where our networks end up. So today,
00:00:44
Speaker
I'd like to introduce you to Kashif. Kashif was an English teacher before studying UX design at Springboard in 2019. He's currently working as a senior product designer at Haggerty and contracting as a lead product designer at LearningFuse. Hi, Kashif. Welcome. Thank you for being here. Thank you for having me.
00:01:07
Speaker
So I'd love to talk about, you know, how we got connected. I worked with a fellow alum through her IDP. And when I reached out to her to see if she'd be on the podcast, she sent you to me, which I'm very grateful for. And I'm also a little jealous because I tried to get her a job at my company and that didn't work out. So you got her and you guys got really lucky. She was a really great designer.
00:01:37
Speaker
Yeah, Jenny is a gem. That's for sure. I met her through springboard when I oftentimes will hop into the alumni channel and let people know that I'm willing to help or mentor anything that they need. She reached out to me and I just saw her style through our communications and some of the work that she had previously done.
00:02:02
Speaker
When my boss started hiring, I realized that he could just, he was looking at a senior design role and I encouraged him to stay away from seniors because I hate hiring seniors, even though I'm kind of a senior product designer, but I hate it because there are just so many people that come in after many years of experience and they've been burned. They have high egos. They don't want to do the grunt work. And I always find myself.
00:02:30
Speaker
doing the grunt work. I do Jenny's grunt work happily because she is someone who was always applying that extra effort. She's someone who will motivate you to be better. And you see that your junior is putting in so much energy and that's the beauty of juniors. They're bright eyed and bushy tail. And yeah, I think that Jenny is probably the top 0.1% of them. So I'm happy to have
00:02:56
Speaker
Oh, yeah, I completely agree. Um, I loved working with her at my part-time job and I'm so happy to see that she is doing well, but this episode's about you. Jenny, we love you, but Kashib, I would love to hear about how, well, let's talk about the before times. What were you doing before UX was even in your orbit? You were an English teacher. So what made you think English teacher, let's get away from that. What was happening?
Motivations for Transitioning Careers
00:03:24
Speaker
I was broke. So you have to get away from being an English teacher. So at the time we had just moved back from Abu Dhabi. My wife was teaching there and I was already trying to transition out of teaching. So that year while we were in Abu Dhabi, I stayed as a stay at home dad with my two boys at the time. I have a girl now as well and raised them for about 10 months out there.
00:03:50
Speaker
They ended up having some allergy issues. They're allergic to dust and Abu Dhabi is made of dust. So we immediately flew back and waited for mom to come back when she finished up her contract. Once I returned, I took the first job I could. I am from Los Angeles, but the first job I received was in Las Vegas. So we moved there and it was just hard. I was making about $45,000 a year.
00:04:20
Speaker
I had a background in other things. I had a background in research. I consider myself a professional boot camper because Springboard is my second one. I actually did a 3D character animation boot camp years before with iAnimate, which is like some people who came from DreamWorks, they moved over and did that. So after recognizing, I tried doing CompTIA, getting into cybersecurity.
00:04:44
Speaker
I realized I wasn't enjoying that. I tried getting into developing. I really hated that. And once I learned that UX was a thing, I realized if you look at my art background, I'm a storyteller. So I love writing novels and my research background, working in prostate cancer research laboratories, then it was just kind of like the combination of everything. So I decided to take the leap and switch careers.
00:05:10
Speaker
That's really interesting. So it sounds like you really had a multidisciplinary background. And I can see why teaching, for what you said, you weren't making anything, which that sounds brutal, and that's not an easy job. But I can see it sounded kind of like you wanted to really explore the other interests that you have. So does that sound kind of accurate? Oh, for sure. I wanted to dive into something that I could
00:05:37
Speaker
It's hard to say be more passionate about I think the thing I'm most passionate about is teaching but I definitely wanted to explore different avenues and what would be exciting and I always wanted to be in tech like when kids were talking about what colleges they would go to when we were in high school I was like DeVry which I didn't know how bad DeVry was at the time but
00:05:58
Speaker
I didn't go to Defry, but I definitely ended up wanting to be in tech eventually and it was a good return to that original, like, younger me. I see. Okay, so then what was it about UX that caught your attention?
Intense UX Bootcamp Experience
00:06:15
Speaker
What about that profession made you think this is right for me?
00:06:18
Speaker
Everything was me, everything aligned. Like even I actually, at the time it was only the, the only program that existed was the UX career track. The UI UX career track was created as I was exiting the program. And I actually attended that one too. I tested that program for I think an additional two months or something like that for them. And I just found myself like loving both. And I use that going forward, obviously.
00:06:47
Speaker
burned through the program in three months. I think the yeah it was a six-month program so I completed it extremely quickly because it was everything that was me. I think that was the tie-in that I was supposed to have there. Essentially with my background and research I was really able to just breeze through those lessons and art background. I was the best visual designer at the time. I'm not the best now
00:07:11
Speaker
but I was still able to really learn the program swiftly because of how long I had been in other programs that are much more complex and not as well-designed as Figma. So yeah, it was the sum of everything that I am. Interesting. So I'm really fascinated about how you burned through the program. I'm wondering, were you still teaching while you were doing the program?
00:07:36
Speaker
Yes, I taught full time and my philosophy was I didn't want to end the school year early for my students. So I didn't want to start the next class in August and end up having to leave them in December by getting hired somewhere in between there. So I wanted to end the program as quickly as possible, which I finished in, I believe, April or May.
00:07:59
Speaker
And that gave me enough time to look for work so that I didn't have a need to start over. I would still be getting paid through the summer. And since that was like my central focus, then any opportunity I had, any extra minute I had, I would read up on one of the springboard articles. So if my students were writing their papers, I would sit down and read for 60 seconds. And then I would kind of mark where I was.
00:08:25
Speaker
Come back, I read for three minutes. I do that at work. I come home. I take care of my kids. I read with them in my lap. I do the assignments with them in my lap. I didn't care. And then I would work until one in the morning. I was used to doing that because I was an Uber driver two years before that and I would have to work
00:08:44
Speaker
you know, teaching all day and then come back home and then, you know, put my son to bed and then go Uber for until one in the morning. So I was always used to being up late at night and waking up early in the morning. And I just continued that process of just any spare time. So when people say like, you should spend, I think you're supposed to spend like 20 hours on the course. So if I spent 40 on the course, I would finish it in half the time. I ended up spending like 60 hours on the course per week and just finished, I technically finished under,
00:09:14
Speaker
three months, but I think my IDP ended up like holding me back. That's incredible. Thank you for sharing all that because I think a lot of students, a lot of people in general trying to make the switch are in that situation where they can't just quit their jobs. Some are parents and navigating all of that, I am like
00:09:37
Speaker
amazed that you were able to pull all of that off. That sounds incredibly hard. And working through all of that, I am speechless.
00:09:50
Speaker
I want to tell everyone don't do it. This is what happened a lot when I finished the course. A lot of people reached out to me. They found out that I was the fastest to finish the course. How did I do it? And I would tell them. And they'd say, I'm going to do that too. Please don't apply the pressure.
00:10:11
Speaker
that you don't need. My kids are homeschooled. 45,000 was four people on one check. And I also love my students. So I did not want to apply pressure in their life where it wasn't necessary and just quit on. It's not quitting on them midway. Like honestly, you're a teacher, you're not quitting on them. Don't have that philosophy.
00:10:30
Speaker
But I shouldn't have even had it. I should have just continued going to work and not even applied that pressure to myself. But technically, we were still going in the hole living off of credit cards. So my credit card was almost maxed out. I needed to make a quick change. And that's the reason I did it. Don't do it. I've seen a lot of people who told me they were going to finish early actually dropped out of the course. It sucks to say this, but I'm a special case.
00:10:59
Speaker
I had a special situation. My background, if we get into it in a little bit, I grew up in a different lifestyle, so we don't have the same kind of trajectory. If you can take your time finishing the course, take your time, it is better. Certainly. Thank you for sharing that. I do think that is a very profound thing to think about. If you don't have to put the pressure on yourself, don't.
00:11:27
Speaker
And yeah, like I think there is something to be said, like I'm sure some people are in similar situations to you, but I would love to kind of hear your summary of all of these answers, people saying like, oh, I want to finish like you did, but I know you were saying like, don't put that pressure on yourself, but was there anything else you elaborated on to get them to follow the path that they should take instead of following exactly what you did?
00:11:56
Speaker
Life was the best teacher in those situations. A lot of people came back and said like how how did you because once you get into the program you start recognizing the workload that's there again I had come from a boot camp and I knew with
00:12:13
Speaker
I do things quickly anyway. My son won't slow down. I have been telling my seven year old for five years, he is moving far too fast. The reason he won't slow down is because he has my DNA in him. I've done this since I was a kid. When we were doing assignments in class, I always tried to be the first to finish.
00:12:34
Speaker
There was a kid named Bryant at my elementary. He was always the one raising me and he would put his paper up first. He didn't know I had two objectives. So if I lost to him and put my paper up second, I always wanted to have the higher score and I always did. So I have two objectives running and my second objective wasn't just finishing the course quickly. My second objective was
00:12:58
Speaker
I wanted to make sure that I was of the highest caliber. And I proved that in many different ways. I was featured on the website when I was done. I had a lot of compliments on my work effort. Everyone from Springboard knew me. That was what was important to me. It wasn't just, hey, I have to pay these bills. I need to pay these bills, but I also need to be good at what I do. And so if you come out of the program and you're better than me, this is what I told them,
00:13:25
Speaker
then isn't that better than finishing it quickly? Your objective, your primary objective should be to be featured on the website. Your primary objective should be to be hired as soon as you're done or even before you're done. Those should be the things that you focus on. Focus on what makes you the better person. I wasn't competing with anyone on time for this. I was against my own time. I can see that, yes. And I also agree with
00:13:53
Speaker
So I'm kind of the opposite. I love to give myself all the time I can because I really do. It's kind of interesting. I also wanted to have high caliber work as well. And I also wanted to get hired. So I'm curious. It sounds like you were just really efficient. So I'd love to understand how you were able to
00:14:17
Speaker
do things incredibly quickly but also reach this high caliber level of work. Are there any tricks? What made you just be that efficient but produce high quality work?
Strategies for Learning and Growth
00:14:32
Speaker
So the very first thing is practice. I did it from the time I was a tiny tot. Like my kid won't slow down now. He's going to be just like me. He'll be extremely efficient because I always work with him to tell him, but are you doing it at a high quality? And so I remember my wife used to always say like, oh, I'm not creative. And I would tell her, that's not a real thing. I don't know why people think creativity is something you're born with.
00:14:57
Speaker
Creativity comes from the person who was drawing all the time who was writing poetry. You can start that at the age of 65 and then become just as gifted. So that's the first part. If you want to be extremely efficient, you have to practice efficiency. How do you practice efficiency? The next thing that you need to do is you need to get rid of perfectionism.
00:15:16
Speaker
I put out things to get feedback from them. I want to hear what I was doing wrong. One of the problems with my 3D animation bootcamp was I wasn't getting feedback when I got to my second course. These courses were extremely expensive and I got to my second course and I realized the quality of my work did because my instructor wasn't giving me the feedback I needed.
00:15:40
Speaker
My initial instructor for Springboard was the same way. He wasn't giving me the feedback that I needed because I had completed I want to say a month of work and I was already on the presentation the week we started. So they let you in the course early so I wasn't just going to sit on my hands. I started doing all the work that first week and that also gave me that huge boost which just if they're letting you in the course early do the work and so I did. I didn't wait on anyone to tell me I needed to do it.
00:16:07
Speaker
And once I did that, I presented it to another instructor. And he said, man, so how's the course going for you? I can't believe that you're this far in. And this is John Mayer. He's a beautiful human being. He said, I told him like, it wasn't going too great. My mentor, I was having a hard time understanding his accent and he wasn't giving me any feedback. I turned in a month of work and he was like, great, that's cool. It's the easy stuff anyway.
00:16:32
Speaker
and i'm like okay cool but has anyone done all this easy stuff yet i was just upset about it so my mentor said well i mean if you're working that hard i'll keep up with you you could see if they'll let you switch to me so i switched to him and that was a big change so the first thing is you practice efficiency the second thing is
00:16:51
Speaker
You have to make sure that you don't worry about your work because the work that I was turning out to John, he was giving me back incredible feedback telling me this is right, this is wrong, and I just wasn't being a perfectionist. And the last thing is really to make sure that you understand the material. So the best way to understand it is actually just to do it. You can hold on and think like, oh, am I going to put this design here or move this button here?
00:17:14
Speaker
you know, put screens next to it. Copy, this is something that I swear no one does, but take a screenshot of the page that you're looking at, put it into your Figma file. Now, go over like skin, drag that screen out so it's the exact proportions of the screen that you need to create.
00:17:33
Speaker
It's not going to look exactly like that screen, but all design is are patterns. This box is here with an image in it. This box is here with a color in it. We all are using the same exact design. I don't know why anyone thinks this is a creative job. It's the same. So outline those boxes, make sure they're the same size. What are the proportions of that hero? Make your proportions similar. What's the proportions of the button with the text in the middle? Do you have the right size text?
00:17:57
Speaker
Adjust your text until it overlaps perfectly. See if you can eye what text it is. Is that enter? Is that Helvela Kanu? Like, what do you need to do to train your eye? So I was doing those things in a way to where I was putting out quality work that you could see on the same stuff that you would see on Apple, on Verizon's website. I'm looking to mimic these different websites in a way that was best for me to grow and make sure that I'm putting out good material.
00:18:27
Speaker
Thank you for sharing all those tips. I will definitely take heed in that because I personally could be more efficient, I think. So going forward, you're in the course. It sounds like you're just working doubled. You're working overtime in this. Was there anything outside of the course that you did to kind of prepare you for this career?
00:18:48
Speaker
I read a lot of books. I read books constantly. A lot of people will read articles. I don't trust articles. I think that they are, anyone can write them.
00:19:04
Speaker
And the reason why that is a problem is because it's not tested with time. A book is going to be something that you've seen, you have to go through and have your peers review it. It has to be something that everyone is like, oh, okay, this is a good idea. So I read those and I grew. I mostly read psychology books. I didn't necessarily just pick up a UX book. UX books were good, but I wanted to understand the human that was behind the design. And so that's what I focused on.
00:19:33
Speaker
I practice design. So like I said, even if I didn't have an assignment, I would copy a screen. I would try to make sure that I understood the proportions. And I made sure to question things outside of what I'm creating. They said I needed to make a landing page. OK, how do I know what size a button is supposed to be? So I would research.
00:19:57
Speaker
What size is the best size for buttons? Oh well you come to find out that having 32 space left and right, 16 up and down, really good size for a button. So now my buttons are looking a bit more professional than if I were to have created that button just by saying this should be like 37 pixels high and
00:20:16
Speaker
That type of stuff is simple mistakes. Don't just do the assignment. Think, why do I put this button here? Why do I put this box here? I learned to develop those questions through practice. Then the last thing was, and it's more so what I did after the course, but just getting a ton of certificates. I wanted to make sure that
00:20:41
Speaker
like employers knew that I was still learning. And so I got on, we had that free LinkedIn learning. So I just hopped on there. I don't know how many certificates I got from there. Every UX certificate that was possible essentially, it had to be like 20 or 30. So I just got them all and I practiced their assignments. So that's everything I do outside of the course. I wanted to make sure I always had this new knowledge coming into. Fantastic. Well, I have two questions on that. What are some of your favorite books?
00:21:10
Speaker
into what were some of your favorite certificates? Quiet is the best book I've read. Quiet is a book about introverts and how to draw out your power. When you get into tech, everyone is going to make it seem like you need to have this big voice. You have to defend, especially if you go to a startup, you might have to defend your designs because no one truly understands what design is.
00:21:34
Speaker
So quiet helped me to realize I don't have to say anything. I'm just going to sit here and my whole thing now is like, I will let you fall on your sword. I'm an introvert. I don't really want to talk. Doing a podcast is hard because I'm talking so much and it's really, I ramble when I'm nervous. So what I learned from that book is that we process information differently as an introvert. So developing that soft skill was helpful for me.
00:21:59
Speaker
User Friendly was the big UX book for me. It really just gives you scenarios about how design works and why it's important to think through your decisions. The next books are Flow and Subliminal. Flow and Subliminal. They are both really about how we subconsciously process things through habitual human behavior.
00:22:26
Speaker
I mean, I read a ton of other stuff. You have to definitely read Thinking Fast. I'm sorry, not Thinking Fast and Slow. I read that. That one, that's a tough psychology read. But I was just thinking, don't make me think. That is the standard book that we all have to know. So any of those standard UX books, just crank them out. They're written in a way you can just digest in a day and be done. But psychology books are big to me because
00:22:51
Speaker
When I make a design decision, people say, but why did you do that? And I'll say, well, it's in human nature to do X and here's Y, we need to change this up. So that just gives me a lot more credibility and it's something that just helps you be conscious that there's a human behind the word user.
00:23:08
Speaker
Yeah. And you also kind of highlight designers need to defend their design. So you having all of this psychology background is just extra ammunition and your rationale of why you're designing things the way you are.
00:23:22
Speaker
So I'm very intrigued by this book, Quiet. I'm an extra, I will talk to most people about most things. I love talking and I'm actually consciously working on stopping talking because I'm not the only person in this world. I want to hear about other people, but Quiet sounds really interesting. Okay, so what about,
00:23:49
Speaker
the certificates you got. What were some of the ones that you felt helped you the most?
00:23:55
Speaker
Uh, none. This is weird. So they, they all collectively helped when a recruiter would hop on and see they, they were amazed. They were like, dude, why do you have so many certificates? It's like, I like learning and I need to make sure that I'm staying active during this job search. So that was what helped the most, but I honestly didn't learn anything exceptional from the certificates. The best things I learned were from the book. So it was more to flaunt on. I even took them off a LinkedIn.
00:24:23
Speaker
They're deleted. It took a long time to delete all of them, but yeah, they weren't that helpful internally. Two books, one book that I read called How to Make Friends and Influence People, that one book by itself could replace each one of those courses.
00:24:45
Speaker
Interesting. That is one book that's on my list. So I'm guessing the courses you took were also psychology-based, design-based. Because when I think LinkedIn courses, I think learn Adobe analytics or something. I'm not surprised that there are other types of courses, but
00:25:07
Speaker
Yeah, they were mostly UX courses and then some psychology courses mixed in with them. But the UX courses are the things that Springboard teaches you. So it was more so just like a good refresher to make sure that I was staying on top of it. But yeah, like I definitely took the Adobe Analytics course and I haven't used Adobe Analytics at a single job that I've been in. I've asked them to open it. I've asked them to show me and no one at my job has known what the analytics meant.
00:25:33
Speaker
and because the links were so complex. So it'd be like, hey, isn't this the homepage? Or like, no, that one has, I think this one comes in from this direct traffic. So yeah, those things don't necessarily, like understanding the tech, the tech isn't as important as understanding the human for sure. I completely agree. And also if your job really wants you to learn Adobe analytics,
00:25:59
Speaker
you will probably be asked an interview or you will be put in a training course. I looked it up too because I'm doing a project that has a lot of analytical assessments. And I thought maybe I have time to learn it. And it takes a good three months to master it. It's not easy. It's not intuitive at all. Not at all. Not at all. So you've done the course in record speed. You've read all of these books.
00:26:28
Speaker
now you're ready for a job. So I'd love to hear what that getting that first job was like because you had a couple cents.
Early UX Career Challenges and Learning
00:26:37
Speaker
My first job at Rider Duet was, okay this is my second job technically, my first job was at a freelancing gig from Upwork. So I had given away my job guarantee, I just told them I'm really someone who doesn't
00:26:56
Speaker
I'm fine under pressure, but I don't like people pressuring me to do things. So I told them, I'll find work, don't worry, keep my job guaranteed. They're like, sign this document, we don't believe you. So I did. And my first job, I got on to Upwork and I
00:27:14
Speaker
I found this one person. It's really hard to get work on there, but I found someone who had bad reviews and she was someone who wouldn't give you the last payment. She also didn't really listen to the designs and they say she's adding on way too much. She's getting away from what good design is. Horrible reviews. I read them. I was like, I need money and experience. Let's do it. So I took that role from her and I
00:27:42
Speaker
I knew she was shady because she asked if we could get off of Upwork and she could pay me under the table. It was good stuff. So I took that role.
00:27:52
Speaker
And it was really just about I researched learning how to write messages to people on Upwork and bid. That was the only one that worked for me. And I stopped after that just because it was a bad experience. And I started concentrating more on getting hired. I made sure to look on websites that weren't as popular as LinkedIn because LinkedIn competition is so heavy. So I hopped on AngelList, which is now called Wellfound.
00:28:16
Speaker
And I started applying heavily on there. I also research how do you get people to review your resume on there? What do you write? You write these personal letters that show your interest. I just so happen to be a writer and I just so happen to use this software called WriterDuet years before so that I could get my script to someone at the WB through some connection. And
00:28:42
Speaker
That was what I put in that the software helped me. And I also noticed at the time they used to tell you when someone was online. So I caught that person right when they were online, they read my resume and responded. So it was really just trial and error of learning how do you write these things? How do you write cover letters? How do you really get people to pay attention to you? And I updated my resume constantly, updated my portfolio constantly. I think my portfolio went from Wix to Squarespace to UX Folio.
00:29:09
Speaker
And my resume had maybe over 50 drafts to the point where it looked completely different. I learned about ATSs and the fact that if you put your resume inside of these boxes, if you put them inside of columns, which a lot of us do, that the ATS can't read it at all. So everything was trial and error. I would search for something. Why am I not getting higher?
00:29:34
Speaker
What's wrong with my resume? I know my name is Kashif and I know that me being an African American male, that people are going to automatically look the other way. They see my name, they see my face. So I took my face off of my website for a while. I got a huge boom in responses and people starting to get on the phone with me. But then I started realizing they were most likely to ghost me. So I put my face back on my website.
00:30:01
Speaker
or yeah, but getting that first job was just a huge trial and error system of how many times can I update and draft my portfolio and resume and how do I perfect storytelling
00:30:17
Speaker
as an orator so that people never forget who I am and they talk about me amongst their group of people. Because whenever I was getting far in the process, someone would always say, oh man, so-and-so was talking about you. The hiring manager was talking about you and we really wanted to meet you. And that was all through learning about who I am and how to communicate my skills best. Interesting. I love how you discuss kind of that trial and error of
00:30:44
Speaker
playing around with different resume formats, understanding the ATS systems. I think a lot of people are a bit naive to that, to be quite honest. And I would love to kind of hear some of the top things that you think worked for you. The top things that worked for me were asking people for their resumes. Anyone that got hired at Springboard, I would say, can I see your resume?
00:31:10
Speaker
I took that resume and I would mimic a different piece of it. The other thing that really worked for me was hopping online and looking to see what senior designer portfolios look like. So I started mimicking their portfolios instead of other people who were my peers.
00:31:29
Speaker
Then what started happening was I would never get a single call back for any junior roles, associate and senior level roles. I would actually get within the first or second step from a recruiter and then maybe the team would turn me down. But just those two were key. And then third was recognizing that my UI skills were poor. Unless you've come from graphic design, my personal opinion, probably not true.
00:31:58
Speaker
You most likely, your UI design coming out of Springboard is garbage. I like to think of things as tiers because I'm an anime watcher. I'm also a big fan of some video games. I might have played Elden Ring recently. And when I think about my UI skills coming out of Springboard, it was D tier. Even when I got hired, it was D tier. Even to this day, I'm actually B tier on my own, but I'm a thief. I believe in theft.
00:32:25
Speaker
horribly so I've learned to steal people's work and adjust it to tweak it so that it looks like my own and that puts me my UI skills in the A range but only on occasion, only if I find the right stuff. So yeah, it's just a matter of like really recognizing your strengths and weaknesses and that's kind of what helped me the most.
00:32:48
Speaker
And I actually think that's a great way to go about it. I'm not a big UI person and I wouldn't say that's my skillset. I'm definitely more of a UX designer. However, UI, one thing that tripped me up, like I came from fashion design where we all just copy each other. I probably shouldn't say this out loud, but every, you know, Balenciaga puts out something
00:33:12
Speaker
every brand below it's going to knock it off. And it's kind of the same with UI, but on top of that, UI shouldn't be unique. UI needs to function for the user. Like in fashion, we could put a button somewhere ironically, but we can't do that with a button on a user interface. So I actually think that's totally fine to steal UI. Why?
00:33:41
Speaker
It all has to work together. You're not reinventing checkboxes. It just has to work. Yes, it does. And once you realize, the thing that I'm stealing is the pattern.
00:33:57
Speaker
I don't think you can create it, you possibly can create a unique wireframe, but a hero looks like a hero. There are just probably 10 heroes out right now that are extremely popular and they're all the same. And if you just took off the image and you just put the gray boxes on your favorite websites, they're the same, especially competitors.
00:34:16
Speaker
State Farm travelers, like any overall gecko, they all have the same type of call to action for a very specific reason. One of them realized it was working for the other. They did user testing and realized their conversions are working there. So there are just certain things that you can't escape. And once you realize you need to steal those patterns,
00:34:36
Speaker
then everything is easy from that point up. I think it was the same in 2D animation. Well, I did 2D character design. So in 2D character design, it was a huge aha moment for me when I realized everything was a shape. Like Bart Simpson is like a, Homer Simpson is a bulb, right? It's like a, his body is like a light bulb. And so when you realize like it's just a basic shape,
00:35:03
Speaker
then it's so easy to draw but before that I'm thinking like oh man I have to figure out the way to put this eye in there. Nope that eye actually has a very specific proportion and if it's not three fourths of the way there if it's not far enough on the head then it's going to look awkward so even art is very limited because
00:35:23
Speaker
It is human biology. You can shift the proportions to break them. I think in animation, the first thing I learned was you had to learn the rules to break the rules. So you can't break animation rules until you learn them.
00:35:38
Speaker
heavily. And that's the same thing with UI design is that you have to learn how these patterns work. And to do that, what do you learn to do when you draw you trace, so you're tracing all of these patterns. And then that's really what gets you into that point of okay, if I'm going to make something creative, then here's a part that I can break. Certainly, I remember, you know, in my settings of art, it was constantly just drawing the human figure.
00:36:06
Speaker
or doing studies based on certain paintings and recreating things to learn technique. So it's patterns within patterns. So you got your first job. What was that interview like? Oh, so bad.
00:36:23
Speaker
It was so bad. We got the job, so something had to have been good. I did great. So the job was really a chaotic place to work, and I should have figured it out from the hiring process. Essentially, I moved to Austin. I drove down there because it was where all of my job interviews were coming from. They were coming from Texas. So I just drove out, moved my family. We bought an apartment. We were going to figure it out. We were running out of money, but it would be fine.
00:36:50
Speaker
So I interviewed in Dallas. You had to be in public or in person. Yeah, to be in person is better, right? Well, no, I think because when I was interviewing, everything was remote. So it's just while it's here, you actually had to move for something. Yeah, yeah, that happened literally three months after. So for sure, I had to move because they were hesitant. I could tell Ryder Duet really they were thinking about me.
00:37:18
Speaker
But they were super hesitant to commit. And so I drove out there and I'm like, I'm here. I think that's the reason you guys haven't hired me yet. So they were like, hey, we'll put you on a contract. I said, great, put me on the contract. I think even as I was driving out there, actually, they put me on the contract. And I said, OK, I had to let them know I was on my way out and that
00:37:38
Speaker
I was like, I'll meet you guys in about a week. So I met him in a week, and then I drove up to Dallas to interview for that job. And I realized, nah, there's no way I'm staying in Dallas. I don't like it up there. So I drove- Dallas is awful. Again, it's awful. Don't go to Dallas. I didn't even wait for the rejection. I didn't care. I just drove back to Austin, got an apartment. I was like, we're just going to make this work here. I'll go back and teach if I have to.
00:38:03
Speaker
So I got that place. And the reason the interview was so bad is because when I got there, when I did that first drive up, you could feel the tension. There was half of the group that wanted to hire a designer and half thought, oh, we're fine with developing. We do everything perfectly the way we do it. And that was the reason they hadn't hired me initially. It was because there were so many arguments. That place encouraged
00:38:34
Speaker
you to contest every idea. And even when I worked there after a week, I think a month, I convinced the CEO to go down one UX pattern and I got there the next morning and no joke, the person who hired me, the person like over HR convinced him to go in a different design pattern.
00:39:00
Speaker
And I was like, what happened, bro? He said, oh yeah, there's a thing where it's like, whoever stays the longest really has the strongest opinions. So that's normally what I go with. And I just thought to myself, this is really twisted. And that was the type of workplace it was. But I could see that in the interviews. I kept doing really well. I could tell just from the two people who were interviewing me, they really liked me, the CEO and the hiring manager.
00:39:27
Speaker
But they were arguing every single day with the developers to not hire me. And so when I got there, there was this developer that literally put a roadblock in front of me every step along the way. So if you asked me what my interview process was like, it was a huge challenge. But I had developed my story to such a degree that again, there are people carrying my voice for me, arguing on my behalf to say, no, we need to hire this guy.
00:39:54
Speaker
Interesting. That sounds quite stressful and maybe a bit annoying, but in some ways I feel like you were in the right person for this because you just love pushing through difficult situations and just the constant level of learning.
00:40:12
Speaker
felt like this, even though that's not an ideal situation, and I'm hoping your situation now is a lot more respectable. In some ways, I kind of feel like that's something you might thrive in. Am I off base on that? It I think you're hitting it on the head. Like I probably was right for the role. They probably don't think that the CEO definitely does. I was
00:40:37
Speaker
I would be one of the only designers that would have tough it out for two years for sure. In fact, when I got there, I want to say we were at 13 people and we immediately, and I mean within months, we immediately dropped to eight people. So five people quit as soon as I got there. They were all just hired, like all hired within a year. Yeah, yeah. It was a really stressful work environment.
00:41:03
Speaker
And even just learning to adapt and to change my personality. Like I'm someone who will go into work and be a different person entirely if that's what it has to be. So there was just one day I came to work and I stopped talking. And someone asked, they said, man, it seems like you're really not enjoying yourself. You seem stressed. Is everything okay?
00:41:24
Speaker
And I just hid from him everything that was happening to me, but I still made sure to do my job to the best of my ability and
00:41:36
Speaker
I knew that I had to behave in a certain way around people who viewed me as aggressive in an environment where arguments were literally how we got through our day. I was stressed out. I have so many more gray hairs because of that. Most of my grades came from teaching, no doubt. But the other 25% for sure came from that role. Certainly. Oh, gosh. Well, and you lasted two years there.
00:42:04
Speaker
Gosh, I'm tired thinking about it. My mentor told me he said hey It was especially during that time. It's easier to jump around now, but he said you're gonna be stuck there for two years He said just put up with it and figure out a way to get around it Because you just started and people are gonna want to see that you have experience before moving on and that was kind of a big thing I kept interviewing as much as I could I ended up getting a
00:42:29
Speaker
a contract role doing user research with Mirth UX and that's honestly where I grew the most. Even to this day, I don't think anyone has changed me as much as them. The two ladies that run Mirth are exceptional researchers and they are super patient and they also think about things like diversity and inclusion.
00:42:56
Speaker
they weren't a diverse group, but their first hire, right? Their first hire was someone of a completely different background than them. And so that was what was great about it was I was struggling so much in that role, I needed to figure out how to develop better habits as a human being because the habits that I developed at Rider Duet carried with me for at least a year after I was still
00:43:21
Speaker
And they call me aggressive, which it sucks because that's a word that they use for you as an African-American male. That is definitely something you will hear as a critique if you fight back. And the funny thing is, they also told me I was talking too little at one point, which is... How can you be aggressive but quiet? That sounds very... It can be both of those things at once.
00:43:48
Speaker
It was amazing. And I was like, I guess no one remembers the thing that you called me like a month ago, but yeah, it was that way. But that's what happens when you carry an identity with you that is kind of portrayed in media and that sticks with you.
00:44:03
Speaker
I didn't have that with Mirth. I had people who heard me nervous when I sat down for my user interviews. I was nervous because it was the first time someone was watching me conduct a user interview. I'm normally, I'm an introvert, but I will sound this way. I'll sound casual as though my heart's not beating or something like that. So in that instance, I was still just like, ha, I wanna impress them.
00:44:29
Speaker
But they were there to give me feedback. The feedback I wanted to hear and the feedback I didn't want to hear, they were willing to do that for me. And yeah, they're just two wonderful people. And so I grew a lot from that instance. And I really want to point out to anyone who's looking for work, when you are doing work, there are like these little, I don't know, there are gaps and places
Networking and Community Building
00:44:53
Speaker
to find work. Like when I said I jumped off of LinkedIn and I found my work on Well Found,
00:44:59
Speaker
I would say you can still look for those now. If you can find a Slack group that's local to your area, I found that Mirth UX job because it was posted in the Black UX Austin group in Austin. And so I was in their Slack channel and someone says, my friends from Indeed are starting up their own agency. I can recommend you. Who's interested? So I reached out. She recommended me. She didn't even know me. She met me at two of the events that happened before the pandemic hit.
00:45:28
Speaker
And then she just said like, hey, here's a referral. I know this guy a little bit and he's cool, so give him an ear. And yeah, if you can look for those little things, if you can look for those local events, even if you're not local to the area, if you have a friend who's local to the area, like you could pretend like you live there, a lot of those meetings will be online. So join the Black UX Austin if you're a Black person in Los Angeles.
00:45:51
Speaker
you never know how to work out for you. A lot of people in there say I'm thinking about moving to Austin and I would like to join this group. That's one way to get around it. And if you ever visit Austin then go to their events or if they have events online do that. But it's just a good way to build your network is to find things that are niche. They have groups for women, they have groups for all sorts of minorities, and they have the larger UX groups. There's even an ATX group
00:46:15
Speaker
Austin, Texas group, um, UX that, you know, they post jobs within the Slack channel too. So look for those instances to find hidden gems that aren't posted where you're going to be competing against 2000 2000. That's a great tip. And yeah, I, I think I'm going to look for some New York women in tech Slack groups after this.
00:46:38
Speaker
Um, but one thing that I would love to ask, so you're saying this Mirth job, like those two people you worked with, they seem to be the most inclusive and that was the place where you learned the most. I would love to know maybe a bit about why they made you feel welcome. Like why they were like what, you know, obviously everyone should be open to diversity, but I was wondering like what traits about them made them a bit more authentic. I remember I swear in my interview, so
00:47:09
Speaker
I have a problem with interviewing. So if you ask me what my weakness is in interviewing, there are all types of honest. There's blunt and let's say unnecessarily honest. I am that ladder. I am for sure unnecessarily honest. I will tell you things that you don't need to know because I'm me and why the hell not? So I was
00:47:30
Speaker
interviewing. And they were asking me about my background and what my struggles were in UX, because we were mentioning, you know, we went from talking about how I was in the black UX group and how it's difficult to be a black male in tech. And yeah, we ended up getting into those conversations and I told them
00:47:50
Speaker
On the call, the interview that I know what I look like, for those that can't see me because everyone listening, my eyes hang low and I have red eyes. I have friends that would never believe that I don't do drugs because I look like
00:48:07
Speaker
that's what it is but the problem is I suffer from insomnia so I'm a black male that looks like he's high but I just can't sleep so um yeah and I mentioned that I said I know what I look like I know why it's difficult for me to get jobs especially when people see me but I'm still gonna do the best me that I can
00:48:26
Speaker
And Margaret, she wanted to dive into this. She's like, no, I want to hear more about this. What's it been like for you? And that's just the type of person. She's an interviewer at heart. She's a researcher at heart. And she has a big heart, just in general, as a human being.
00:48:43
Speaker
So she wanted to talk about that during the interview and they were nervous. Molly was like, I was really nervous that we took the conversation too far in an interview. So she was like, I was reprimanding Margaret. I was like, no, it's the best interview I ever had. I appreciate you both for even being curious about me.
00:49:01
Speaker
to that degree. So yeah, that's the type of stuff that made me feel comfortable with them, is they will ask those questions. And so when people are that authentic, you know they're telling the truth when they say, hey, when you're doing a user interview, you can't talk about yourself. You have to ask the question in a more neutral way. So when you hear that, you know that it's not a hit on you. It is they want to see you do better. And any type of feedback they give you that's like that is beautiful.
00:49:28
Speaker
And I mean, you know, I've worked with really great people. The most diverse group I actually worked with was a company called Circulo. And with Circulo, they were mandated to hire diversity. Now the company crashed and that was because the CEO really did a poor job of running both of his companies and he didn't know how to focus on one. That's a whole different story. But the people that I worked with, our specific group of designers were the most adamant about hiring diversity. There was like
00:49:57
Speaker
I'm a Chicano Latino member, there was an Asian, African American, like three white guys, mostly like split half women. Like it was just this beautiful mix, LGBT. And so we had this mixed perspective and my boss is, he would love for me to describe him this way. He's this tall white guy with tattoos down his neck and on his knuckles.
00:50:22
Speaker
He's a surfer that's a couple miles from me right now in Huntington Beach. And we're really good friends. In fact, when that company crashed, he brought me over to the next company that we're working at now, Haggerty. So being in that diverse setting and listening to people have these different perspectives, I always saw our designs growing. And that's the beauty of diversity is that it really just helps you to evolve. So I've had beautiful experiences and I've had some garbage ones as well.
00:50:49
Speaker
Certainly. That's incredible. And yeah, I, I also had kind of a situation we were in. So along the lines of diversity, we were in an accessibility summit. I remember all the panelists were saying, Hey, I am Alyssa and I'm wearing a gray sweater.
00:51:08
Speaker
And I'm a middle-aged woman with brown hair. I was like, yeah, I know, I see you. And then immediately I was like, oh my gosh, accessibility, not everybody can see. And to be fair, I don't have a disability. And it was just very, very humbling to have myself checked. And I also, you know, I've never had to work with a blind person, but if I do, or not necessarily blind, but vision and hair, but if I do, now I kind of know how to make them feel included.
00:51:38
Speaker
I completely agree. And just being around people who are different than you, I do feel people, good or bad, if you really let them, they have something to teach you. Oh, for sure. And you also understand it gives you a chance to even open your eyes and like your, your team can feel more comfortable, you know, like
00:52:05
Speaker
I've worked at a place where I can't say anything about my struggles because I can't say anything because there's no one to say it to. There's no one there. If you want to improve representation and make employees feel comfortable, like the one black person on your team, you got to have another person for them to go to to even just vent.
00:52:34
Speaker
It's it's crazy because like there's so many roadblocks that get in the way and it's not just for me but for the company One company I'm not gonna say which company but a company just probably well over 90% white and they're starting to run into like all these roadblocks and it's because Their systems aren't working and if you're like, well, why aren't their systems working? It's because everyone
00:53:01
Speaker
that worked there for the past few years was afraid. Afraid of the CEO, afraid of the director, afraid of the manager, afraid to report up and contest an obvious flaw. And if you're like, all right, why is, you probably know why that's bad, but like, why is it that they do this? It's because of the banana.
00:53:24
Speaker
All right, so here's a fun fact. Did you know that the bananas that we eat all recruit from a single individual seed or a gene of a parent plant? So we're essentially eating these cloned bananas. But what happens if you keep doing that for years? Essentially, this disease comes by and it will wipe out a whole farm just in one go. And so we are now in danger of
00:53:50
Speaker
a banana. Bananas are endangered. They're getting wiped out by this disease. And the same thing happens with a lack of diversity is that fear rises and wipes out this great product because there's no different gene in the pool that wants to approach the problem in a different way. So everyone there is suffering because there's no one who has had an experience that will make them say, oh, I'll talk about this.
00:54:17
Speaker
And if you the more people that are there to make someone who is talking to feel comfortable the better it is Like I'm not gonna speak up at this company. Like if I see something going wrong, I might say it I might say it to my boss I'm not really taking it further than that. But the reason I won't speak up is because then I'm just a sore thumb like I'm just at one
00:54:41
Speaker
little nugget just sticking out and you just you see a turd walking down the street you're like it's a whole neighborhood it's nice but there's one turd and that's him and so like I will stick out like that when I bring things up I did when I first got to that role and I I remember it being
00:55:00
Speaker
So bad, like it was me thinking I'm speaking up, but it was more so like people were feeling good as now you're being aggressive again. So I had to like sit back and go like, Hey, no one here is passionate about these things. So maybe it's me. Maybe I'm just, I'm tripping.
00:55:15
Speaker
But if there were diverse thoughts, diverse people, I hate that term, diversity of thought. That's a term that's used so often. It means that you think differently, but if you come from the same background, how can you think differently? I grew up in a neighborhood to where when I was on my way to college,
00:55:35
Speaker
Like this summer on my way there, I literally
Diversity and Workplace Environment
00:55:38
Speaker
heard gunshots every single night. And I was reading in the newspaper people being killed like every other week. There was one week where someone died every day, seven days, gang war, someone died. I have a different level of fearlessness in an approach that someone else might not have, but someone who grew up in a nice neighborhood has a different level of fearlessness where I'll get timid.
00:56:02
Speaker
And we need those different perspectives in order to make sure that we're advancing. That's what diversity is. You're not going to meet a lot of people with backgrounds like mine. And that's what matters. Put someone in there who's completely unique and as many as possible so that we feel comfortable in being ourselves. I'm sorry. That was a full rant, but I feel that way. Really? But I think it needs to be said. I think also, too, there's a lot of people that
00:56:29
Speaker
Blanket wise, they think diversity is important, but they're not quite sure the talking points as to push for it. And I think you gave a lot of those, like it gives other people comfort in the sense of security, having people who are like, find it around you to share that with people who might not have that same understanding.
00:56:50
Speaker
And I think a lot of people sometimes even are afraid to ask, how can I make my team more diverse? What are the talking points to talk to someone who has the power to make things safer? So I think it's very important that you shared that. And I don't think it's a rant at all. I think that's very, very important, especially as we all advance in our careers and have more power over the teams that we bring in.
00:57:15
Speaker
I'd love to hear about your current job now. What's your day in and day out like? My current job now is really chill. That's because a guy I worked for, Willie, hired someone that I worked for as my director, Glenn, and then everybody else on the team, they're just all chill.
00:57:37
Speaker
All right, you could possibly ask like, what is the UX like? But there's a really interesting question is what is the mental health like? And so I'm just in an environment where your mental health is key, your mental health is...
00:57:49
Speaker
you should take off today. We heard that you guys still have a bunch of hours on your workday or we just noticed that you haven't been taken off, go take off. So it's that type of environment where you go on to work and you know that mostly everyone there on the design team are going to take care of you.
00:58:11
Speaker
As a company as a whole, I would say it's a little bit of a bigger struggle because it's just so slow. I want to do designs and I want to grow as a designer and I want to crank out designs, but I've been working on a project for a year that hasn't even gotten close to a developer.
00:58:31
Speaker
I'll probably be working on it for another three months and it's already design I'll go through a few more iterations and It might they might start they might start doing the back-end work on it or something like that So it's just it's a very slow process
00:58:49
Speaker
to the point where like, man, I really wish my career was moving in this direction. But I know my mental health is here because of what some good people have established. So you kind of you take that and take pride in it. Yeah, I love to hear that. And I love to hear how they care about just your well being because that truly does impact your work. I remember when I worked in fashion, it was
00:59:15
Speaker
just constant overtime. And I remember my boss at the time was like, why can't you work 4th of July? Like I was here last year and I generally was moving apartments that weekend. Like I wasn't, I didn't even have fun 4th of July plans. I was moving in New York City and I was getting crap for not wanting to work a holiday unpaid, of course.
00:59:36
Speaker
So, and I didn't really do that good of a job there because I didn't care. So it absolutely makes a difference and I'm happy to hear that. And you get to work with Jenny, so bonus.
00:59:48
Speaker
I know. She's one of the people that make it the best. I had my one-on-ones with her weekly. My director will pull in one-on-ones and he just wants to see how he's doing. He always asks about my kids. He knows how I feel about kids. It's that type of good energy and vibes. One person I'm working with right now,
01:00:08
Speaker
I've literally been, I'm a spiritual person, so I've been praying for his daughter regularly because he's willing to share that she had to be in the hospital. It's that type of connection that you're just like, I didn't even talk to him that often, but he came from my other job and we've always been cool. So yeah, it's a good vibe. But it takes a good person to establish that and from our leadership to the second leader in command and even our third, Tim, it's all there and it all feels good.
01:00:38
Speaker
Certainly. Yeah. I was about to say that it sounds almost too good to be true in a way. I know like my company is great. Really. There's nobody I dislike at my job. There's definitely people I get along with and I'm more chummy with and other people I'm more surface level and professional with, but I generally wonder like how that tone is set. Like I'm sure people squabble at work at my job.
01:01:05
Speaker
But it sounds like everybody there truly likes each other. So I wonder how the leaders there bring everyone together and just know you will be harmonious with each other. So for my, if I were to summarize Willy's techniques, he is giving a lot of rants about how he loves you.
01:01:27
Speaker
And it's just real, like he will go on, I just love you guys and I love you because of this. And then he also doesn't want to leave anyone out. It's really funny because he's complimenting one person and then you can see almost in his eyes like, oh no, I don't want to leave out anyone else. Like he really has to mention everyone. So then he'll start naming off multiple people. And Kashif for doing this, I'm like, dude, just keep complimenting this person.
01:01:51
Speaker
Yeah, that's his flaw is that he cares too much. So when you have someone who is your VP who's caring like that, then you're solid. But to do that, you have to put in other people who want to be just as chill, to be just as kickback. So the people that he put up in the highest positions, he made sure are just as kickback.
01:02:14
Speaker
And he also intentionally hires. He hires either through recommendations or he hires through, like you got to go through the application process, you got to pass through, but he's hiring word of mouth most of the time. So everyone on the design team knows each other. He brought in a full set of developers that he didn't hire. And he was like, I don't even know how to work with developers like that. That's not my key. So all he does is he just goes in there, listens,
01:02:38
Speaker
listens to their needs, listens to the tech stuff that goes over his head sometimes, and he loves on them too. He compliments them in larger meetings. He compliments them in smaller meetings. He pulls you to the side when you realize he hasn't talked to you. He sends me pictures of his son and serve competitions. I have that text message on my phone now. You do that by being a genuine person. Amazing. Yeah, I absolutely agree. I think it was funny when you're saying he was saying how much he loves everyone. I definitely worked for a company.
01:03:09
Speaker
where the owner did that and definitely did not treat people the way you just described Willie does. Yeah, that's very admirable of him. I don't even know this person, but just hearing about who he is, I want to be more like him. He sounds like a really great guy. He is a whole surfer vibe.
01:03:28
Speaker
I love that. Well, I would love to ask, we've had an amazing conversation, but is there anything that we didn't talk about yet that you wanted to share with everyone?
Balancing Tech Career with Personal Life
01:03:41
Speaker
I would say, I think it's important for you to always find something that you're passionate about, find something that you know you want to do. Don't let tech be
01:03:57
Speaker
your value. A lot of people get into tech and they say like, oh man, I want to get into this role, have this much money, do this thing. I want people from my job to acknowledge me in this way. It can't be your first, second thing. It needs to be your third or fourth.
01:04:14
Speaker
you have to make sure that when you place tech is in a low system and your values. And the reason for that is Spotify. Spotify is booming in the stock market and they just laid off 1700 people.
01:04:30
Speaker
Amazon did the same exact thing. In fact, I was supposed to work for Amazon instead of Haggerty. They got my pay really high. They got me a lot more pay because of their offers. I appreciate them. But I was supposed to work for them and a bunch of people that were getting me hired at Amazon.
01:04:46
Speaker
got fired. So I would be let go too. But they were doing just fine. Their stocks were up. They were thriving. And they just let go of so many because it's all about profits capitalizing on those profits. So if you put your values in tech, you're going to find out that it will crash on you. And that can't be your dependency. Your dependency has to be whatever is getting you through Springboard.
01:05:09
Speaker
There's some friend, some family member, some partner that is helping you get through. And if you don't have that, you need to find it. You need to find what it is that you value that you cherish, whether it's a long time with a book.
01:05:23
Speaker
or whatever, but whatever your primary thing is. And so for me, it's always been writing. I have been, I've published, self-published, not published, self-published probably like six, seven books. I took them all down from Amazon. I'm starting to transition into a place where I can actually publish my books on my own website.
01:05:43
Speaker
I just came up with the URL today in the title which is Faith from the Hood which is really about a fairy that was an ex-gangster and I'm having such a good time knowing that that is my URL.
01:05:55
Speaker
I've just been on cloud nine. So I don't put my value in tech. I'm designing my own website, designing a book that you can read online. That's fun for me. And that's my secondary, my primary, my kids. There's nothing without that. I thought about what I should, what I would be or where I would be if I didn't have my kids right now. It's like, Oh, probably.
01:06:14
Speaker
No lie, make $300,000. I'd either have multiple jobs or I would redo my portfolio and get it a harder job. But I would be so broke. I would be so broke if I didn't have them because I get paid and I love yous and my son wanting to learn more about the story that I'm writing, sitting down with me and learning about mythological creatures so I can add them into my story. That's the true value that I have. So I would just recommend that you find your value and you stick to it.
01:06:43
Speaker
I love hearing that. I definitely did not do what you told everyone else to do. My first career was my identity and just how volatile that industry is.
01:06:59
Speaker
I literally call it, I broke up with fashion. I remember there was a really tough period in my life where I just knew I was done with fashion. I couldn't do it anymore. And my boyfriend broke up with me. And while both were tough, I knew that
01:07:15
Speaker
losing fashion was the hardest part. And I was like, that's kind of sad. Like, shouldn't I be more upset that someone I thought I was going to be with long term broke up with me, not my career? Yeah, I completely agree. Like with tech now, like I do love UX, but it's not my identity anymore. And it feels a lot better. Agree. It keeps you whole.
01:07:38
Speaker
Yeah, well with that, you know, I'd love to put your URL in our footnotes. So when this episode is published, if people are interested in reading your books, I would love to include that here if you're open to it. Definitely. I have to finish up designing the website, but once I have it, I will send it over. Certainly. And then the last thing I wanted to ask is, you're here, you're doing all of this, you've come so far. What do you see yourself doing next?
Future Aspirations in UX and Writing
01:08:07
Speaker
Leadership, probably I want to raise my ranks in UX and be able to mentor and hire because I think I could hire a pretty boss team. I mean, we've spoken enough about Jenny, so I'd have people like Jenny on my team. Our ears are ringing right now. She's like, what is going on?
01:08:25
Speaker
But yeah, like I want to for sure get into leadership and writing. So those are my two things. I'll keep writing, I'll keep, that's my therapy and I will see how people feel about my books. That's probably the biggest thing going forward and getting closer to my kids. That's been a goal for a long time and I feel like I'm getting a lot closer. I drifted away from it after being a stay-at-home dad
01:08:52
Speaker
and transitioning into tech. And now I see myself still having like forming those bonds. Oh, the big thing was having a toddler. So having a toddler pulled me away from my two boys, but I'm starting to figure out how to really get back in with them and how to connect with them and make them both happy. So yeah, that's my next point in life. Based on past precedent, I'm sure that will happen. And lastly, are you open to listeners connecting with you on social media?
01:09:21
Speaker
Please do, especially if anybody needs mentoring, definitely reach out. But if you just want to connect and follow each other, that sounds great too. Certainly. So I guess LinkedIn would probably be the best platform unless there's something else you had in mind. Yeah, LinkedIn is best. I have an Instagram, but I'm never on there. So yeah, let's go to LinkedIn. All right. Well, would you be able to spell your name first and last so that people can correct or connect with the correct Khushif?
01:09:48
Speaker
Yes. So you find me at the LinkedIn slash N and it's K-A-S-H-I-F as in Frank and Ross, just like the store, R-O-S-S. Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for your time and sharing your incredible story. For anyone who's listening, if you have questions for
01:10:06
Speaker
myself or Kashif. We might be answering these questions on a future episode. Actually, we probably will be. Please email me at alumnipodcast at springboard.com. Kashif, thank you so much. And I'm so excited to stay in touch. It was a pleasure.