Working in a product company is way more fun than working in software house for UX Designer
I’ve work in the software house as a UI/UX Designer for a couple years and move to fintech company that create a mobile app, and it’s been a hell of a ride for me. And let me tell you why
For those of you who want to start a journey in UX Design/Product Design career or as a UX Designer who want to look for a whole new perspective on your career, i hope this article can give you a glimpse of what’s the pros and cons working in a totally different environment, management system and business model.
What’s the difference?
On a oversimplified terms, Software house is a company who create website and/or mobile app for clients (emphasis on clients *wink *wink) and product company is… well like it’s name, they create product, whether it’s digital or non-digital product. So software house is selling a service, product company is selling a product. That’s all you need to know before you read everything else forward, if you want more contextual and thorough explanation, just go to wikipedia or something, coz i don’t think i’m the right guy to tell you so lol.
How does each company runs and when the UX Designer role get involved
On a software house company, they create a website or app for clients within a certain period of time, and in that time the company were bond to a temporary contract. Usually UX Designer is going to boil their brains out in the early session, we need to understand the client’s business model, client’s goals, client’s customer/user pain points, and help them to create the digital product that can solve all of their problems and trying to craft the client’s idea into something that can be executed by engineering team. Sounds a lot right, but don’t worry it’s actually very fun, it’s the moment where you need to pour ideas, having a lot of discussion, and so on.
Usually UX/UI Design is the one who’s gonna get their hands dirty first, we design all of the flows and interfaces thats gonna be presented to the client to get a feedback, then when it’s been approved, the developer team start to executing our design, the hard part of UI/UX Designer is done, that’s it. Seems easy right? Well i need to remind you that software house is always have more than one client, so after your job is finished on setted time period, you gotta move on the next one, or you have to go back and forth to work on multiple project at the same time.
Ok, that’s for the software house company but how about the product company tho? What happened after they create the product? Does the company fire all the UI/UX Designers, and the developer there or what? Well there’s one thing that we need to know, business model is always evolving or even branch out multiple times, take a look at tiktok for example, they only a platform to share a short video right, but look at them now, you can put ads on them, and even buy and sell things from tiktok now, isn’t that amazing. A good product, is the one that always evolving, that’s why UI/UX role will never stop grinding.
So, what makes it fun?
imagine you working on one product but each day you always trying to improve that particular product, you perfecting a product basically, I always see the product that i’m working on just like my (imaginary) son, i feed them with nutritious food, proper clothing, teach him a life lesson, and so on.
you’ll have stronger ownership feeling when you only working on one product, you’re not gonna break your focus on any other product so you can give all of your attention, ideas, time, and effort to it
that way you’ll get analysis data of the impact from the design that you’ve made, is it successful enough? Or it make the product even worse instead? And if it does, how can you fix it? What’s the pain point that the user feels? All of these questions can be executed immediately.
If you work on software house, you can’t do anything… well, it depends on the contract of the project itself, if the clients wants a long term relationship it’s great, you can improve the product and see what it’s like to be used by the customers or users, but sadly most of the software house company has multiple clients in the same time period, they just coming in and out, and sometimes you have to work on multiple project. That’s why you’ll have a difficulties to gain an ownership feeling towards the project that you’ve been working on.
So, was it worth it working in Software House?
Hell yeah it does, can you imagine working on multiple clients, trying to solve a multiple problems, i feel like i’ve gain 5 years experience for only working on 1 year at software house… well, i think it depends on which software house you work on, if what you need is:
- Getting a wild and innovative ideas
- A bunch of experience
- Habit to work in fast pace
I think getting a job in software house might be the perfect place for you, it’s perfect for beginners, and UX Designers who want to expand their ideas and experience.
As a UX Designer in a product company, i feel more attached to my work, every little improvements I made has been thoroughly analyzed, it made every detail has purpose to the product, and the best thing is being able to see the impact from your work, that is the best feeling ever, it make your work more meaningful, and for me it worth more than a salary to know that your work has a positive impact for other people.
