Design Better

The Brief: Afraid of losing your job? Become irreplaceable

Mar 20, 2025

In a challenging job market, discover strategies to become an irreplaceable designer. Embrace lifelong learning and cross-disciplinary skills to enhance your value. Transform your career by learning coding, enabling you to create prototypes and collaborate with engineers. Explore the harmony between design and technology, and learn how AI can bridge gaps in your expertise. By adapting and evolving, designers can not only thrive but also lead in a rapidly changing landscape.

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Quick takeaways

Designers should enhance their skill sets beyond traditional design by embracing coding and research to become indispensable team members.

AI tools enable designers to seamlessly integrate coding into their work, facilitating innovation and collaboration across disciplines.

Deep dives

Becoming an Indispensable Designer

To thrive in a contracting software industry, designers should focus on becoming indispensable by expanding their skill sets beyond traditional design capabilities. Successful designers are those who cultivate additional skills, such as coding and research, enabling them to collaborate more effectively across teams and tackle complex problems. By navigating the intersections of various disciplines, these designers earn respect and become valuable assets within their organizations. Embracing this multidisciplinary approach is further enhanced by the tools provided by AI, which can help designers integrate diverse skills into their workflow.

Intro

4min

Empowering Designers Through Coding and Technology

2min

Becoming an Irreplaceable Designer: The Importance of Continuous Learning

2min

The Power of Lifelong Learning

2min

Becoming an irreplaceable designer

By Aarron Walter

The software industry is in a tough contraction phase. Teams are downsizing, and companies are prioritizing efficiency. It’s a stressful time for many.

But it’s also an opportunity—to reflect on your work, your skills, and the unique value you bring as a designer. What could you do to make yourself indispensable to your team?

In my career, I’ve worked with a number of truly irreplaceable designers, and they all share a common trait: they became more than just a designer. They bring additional skills in coding, research, or business that expand their value, make them better cross-team collaborators, and help them solve problems more effectively.

Irreplaceable designers thrive in the blurry space between disciplines. They adapt their language and perspective as they work across teams, earning respect from their peers.

These designers are rare—but they shouldn’t be. AI is making it easier for all of us to bridge the gap between disciplines. While there’s a lot of excitement about how AI can help designers improve their craft, the real opportunity lies in designers learning to build as well.

Continue reading this issue of The Brief on Substack