Flora Guo - How to accelerate your design career with AI

How can we use AI to just really supercharge our own process as learners and thinkers and designers? What AI is really great at is giving us a map of the territory. It's like when you're

the territory. It's like when you're playing a video game and you see that there's like clouds surrounding areas of the map that you haven't unlocked yet.

AI is really good at blowing those clouds away. Basically, now you have a

clouds away. Basically, now you have a very clear idea of what is possible, but it's still up to us to walk the terrain.

Welcome to Dive Club. My name is Rid and this is where designers never stop learning. Today's episode is with Flora

learning. Today's episode is with Flora Guo, who's had one of the more impressive career trajectories of anybody that I've interviewed on this show. She's currently the founding

show. She's currently the founding design engineer at Paradigm. And before

that, GMO, the Versel CEO, personally DM'd her to get her to join the team.

So, we're going to do a deep dive into career growth, design engineering, what it's like being the founding designer at an AI native startup, and a lot more.

But I wanted to start this episode a little differently. So, I asked Flora to

little differently. So, I asked Flora to share some of her favorite takeaways from the recent Tokyo Design Conference.

>> Brian Benett's basically brought 50 of the most interesting designers in the space. So people like Rio Lou, Ryan

space. So people like Rio Lou, Ryan Leven, uh Gabriel Valumia, a lot of your guests and it was just such an incredible opportunity to learn from everyone across those two days. I'm

someone who was always taking notes, whether it's online on my website or physically in my notebook. And I just really wanted to create a place for these notes to live. And recently stamps

have been living in my head free thanks to some incredible artists. And I was also really inspired by one of my friends, Josephine Ang, who just shipped such a cool portfolio with this infinite

grid interaction, the same one that you would see maybe on like inspired by Cosmos, like public.org. And I just knew I had to like sit down and build something out myself just to scratch my

creative itch. So this is ultimately

creative itch. So this is ultimately what came out of it.

>> I was totally someone who wanted to go, couldn't make it, had incredible FOMO, and then you released all of your notes like this. And I was like, "Oh, thank

like this. And I was like, "Oh, thank you."

you." >> I made these little stamps for each talk that I had notes for. And three that really resonated with me are if I go

into like this view where I can see them more as pages. Brian Love did this incredible session about building software with AI. And I think it was

just so incredible to hear about how AI has been empowering his team at notion with prototype playground and just the way that we're moving as an industry.

It's going from creating pretty images and artifacts that are just for show to designers being able to showcase interactions and really get into the nitty-gritty of how things will display

and be experienced by the end user. One

that really stood out was Rio's talk on building the next cursor. you know,

cursor is a tool that we all use, but just getting to see the philosophies that underly what he's driving with the team. So, this idea of blackbox AI

team. So, this idea of blackbox AI interfaces versus class interfaces, how can we really surface the intent that the user has? Also, when we look back at the history of software with bolts like

Bill Atinson and Alan K, um, in the very early days, the people who were creating the designs and bringing it to life in code were one and the same. And because

of that, we just had such a tight integration of their original intention and that people actually got to see and experience.

>> Real quick message and then we can jump back into it. One thing that Dive Club has made abundantly clear to me over the last year is that the practice of design is changing and the whole process of

getting feedback just doesn't quite cut it in today's world. That's why I'm excited to announce that Inflight is officially in open beta. It's the

feedback tool that I've always wanted and it's built for a world that moves at the speed of AI. So, I can share my prototypes, give context and video walkthroughs, and Inflight makes it easy

to get the exact feedback that I need to move forward, whether it's voting on directions or maybe even getting the green light to ship a new idea. And all

of this is available in a single link that I can drop into Slack or maybe even share with power users to test out a new prototype. I use Inflight every day and

prototype. I use Inflight every day and it's totally transformed the way that I share work. So, I'm excited for you to

share work. So, I'm excited for you to try the product and if you ever want to jam about it, just email me at ridinflight.co.

ridinflight.co.

If you've been listening to this show for a bit, then you've heard me profess my love for Raycast multiple times by now. So, I want to highlight a couple

now. So, I want to highlight a couple people who started using Raycast after hearing about it on Dive Club. The first

is Rex Harris. He says, "Raycast is the tool that most shapes how he uses his computer and keeps him in flow." The

next is Greg Huntton. He called it a life-changing product and says, "Every time he pulls a thread on something in Raycast, it wildly deepens the power and experience of using his computer." I

couldn't agree more and I can't recommend Raycast enough. It's totally

free to start. Just head to dive.com/racast

dive.com/racast to check it out. Now, on to the episode.

So there's one talk that really brought the FOMO for me which is Cleo's geometry of luck and he was teasing on Twitter and I just wish I was in the room. So

what was your experience with that one and maybe you could share a little bit of your notes there. I think this is definitely a talk that really resonated with me because Soleo proposed that luck isn't, you know, something that you're

born with or just falls in your lap, but it has a specific shape and a geometry.

And what that means is that like any other skill, it's something that we can, you know, just learn about and invite more of into our lives. So he walked us

through a few different examples, people like John Chapman or Johnny Apples Seed.

someone who from the outside looking in you're like oh wow he had so much precience and like scattering these apple seeds and planting these orchids before you know the sellers came in to the states but he was actually someone

who had just studied the maps of where you know where are the rivers going what seasons will people be coming in and then just being so aware of like everything that was happening around him

kind of like for us you know we see this constant deluge of content coming in from X just being lily aware of what the possibilities are so that you're well positioned as someone to just really

jump in and start exploring with these tools. People who just perceive

tools. People who just perceive themselves to be lucky are also able to identify the opportunities as they come to them. They're creating a greater

to them. They're creating a greater surface area of this luck whether it's being in rooms or creating those rooms where serendipity can happen. I think

it's often times just like one moment that can completely change your trajectory. This project in itself is

trajectory. This project in itself is almost an inception of that very idea because you've shared this thing that you enjoyed. You put it out on the

you enjoyed. You put it out on the internet. I don't remember how many

internet. I don't remember how many impressions it got on Twitter, but it was a lot. Like it was like almost like 100 thousand or something like people obviously enjoyed your work. This

resonated with them. And that makes me wonder how intentionally you are stewarding your own surface area for luck. And maybe you could talk a little

luck. And maybe you could talk a little bit about like the role that sharing online has played in your own career journey.

>> There's this quote that I often return to by I think either Roy or Charles Emmes which is that the role of a designer is that of a very good host.

And I think showing up in today's world where you know like you said it is ultra competitive and there is like a lot of stuff going on all the time with all these new tools. I think just really

asking like what can we give whether it's holding space for an event or creating an artifact about something that we're excited about and want to share. Really flipping the script of

share. Really flipping the script of like instead what can I ask of this person but like what can I offer them I think has been just something that I want to keep returning to in the ways

that we show up online or in person for that matter. Especially when we host

that matter. Especially when we host events, you know, inviting people into a space, thinking about like what can I gather them around? Like what is the intention that I can set around this?

The ways that we host space online is very similar. Whether it's gathering

very similar. Whether it's gathering people around a common interest or like we're going to screen a design film or whether we're inviting them to show off their own work, I think it's really figuring out like what are the threads

that connect all of us together? like

what is the reason for us to be together in this space and then figuring out like how can I pull this out of others as well. I am just incredibly grateful to

well. I am just incredibly grateful to the people that I've gotten to meet online. People who start off u maybe

online. People who start off u maybe you're just like seeing each other's projects, you're like, "Wow, this is really cool." Then you send them a DM

really cool." Then you send them a DM and it kicks off maybe a conversation IRL over coffee or a phone call and then it sparks either collaboration over

projects or even roles. When I was working as an independent designer for a couple of years, I would say the vast majority of my clients came in from Twitter. And as someone who's just

Twitter. And as someone who's just always loved experimenting, you know, trying things out for the heck of it, it's been such a great way to meet people with similar interests. And even

my current role, it just felt very serendipitous with how Anna, my CEO, found me online, on Twitter, and when I was at Burell as well. It was just

through conversations that started off in DMs. So, I think any designer who's building projects, it's just such an incredible time that we live in to get to share with it online.

>> Can you go a little bit deeper into how intentionally are you nurturing that community that you've built for yourself on Twitter? Cuz I think a lot of people

on Twitter? Cuz I think a lot of people look at where you're at and it's really inspiring, but also a bit of a black box in terms of how to even get to that point where all of a sudden Twitter

really is a very big deal for your career. I remember way back in March of

career. I remember way back in March of 2022, that's when I first got onto Twitter. And it was just me sharing

Twitter. And it was just me sharing things that I was really excited about, you know, going to events and being like, "Oh, wow." Like, I just learned about X thing in design. Like, here are

my takeaways. And just showing up, being

my takeaways. And just showing up, being excited, and really down to have conversations, I think just led one thing to another. like different roles

that I think started off from a DM would evolve into inerson things like hosting an event together or eventually working together. People can really feel the

together. People can really feel the excitement that you have whether it's through a project or through notes or something that you're hosting. So just

creating things that are artifacts of what you love and what you're passionate about and putting it online.

>> There's putting things out there on the internet and being a magnet for people who care. And then there's also

who care. And then there's also proactively messaging others and being the one that initiates, how much are you doing the latter? Because I think that's like something that's so valuable and yet a little bit scary probably for a

lot of people listening.

>> Whenever there's a designer whose work you really admire, I love just like dropping a quick note of saying like, "Hey, I loved what you shipped here in particular is what really resonated with me." So I think whenever I get those in

me." So I think whenever I get those in my inbox, it really makes my day. I

would say that hosting events is also a really great way to reach out to people and to have them reach out to you as well. Whether it's hosting like a design

well. Whether it's hosting like a design film night or a design engineering PowerPoint night or something about aic interfaces. I think creating like very

interfaces. I think creating like very specific things that you can offer people. So like, oh, come into my home

people. So like, oh, come into my home or come into my office. I'd love to host you. Or, you know, sending something

you. Or, you know, sending something that you think they'd enjoy just creates moments where it feels so much more natural. you're just talking to a new

natural. you're just talking to a new friend on the internet.

>> I think the reason why I've had so many follow-up questions on this category of topics is I look at your journey and I see an incredibly steep trajectory like

how fast you've been able to really insert yourself and build momentum in this space and you know now you're at Paradigm and working this high-profile role. It's really cool, right? And so

role. It's really cool, right? And so

like a goal of mine in this conversation is to help people find little pieces of that equation that they can use to reverse engineer your trajectory. So

maybe we could even just talk a little bit more about what that journey has looked like. Starting with the design

looked like. Starting with the design engineering internship at Verscell.

>> Verscell is a company that I've looked up to for many many years. Even before

what I knew and what a deployment was, I remember being on the homepage and thinking, "Wow, this is just so beautifully built out." I actually

started this design engineering journey with Vzero. I remember back in 2024, I

with Vzero. I remember back in 2024, I was looking around and just seeing such incredible projects popping up in my timeline and having no idea where to

start. But I think the incredible thing

start. But I think the incredible thing about these tools is that you can go on with just an idea and start noodling out what does the path look like to creating something that I'm really proud of. So I

started off with making shaders, you know, things that looked like sunrise and then moving on to personal projects in Mero as well. One that I really had a

lot of fun making was this idea of a digital gift box. And I feel like this was the first project that I just sat down and was like, "Okay, today I'm

gonna make something." I really love the idea of software as a gift. And I think Vzero was just such an incredible way for me to translate that intention of

creating like a space on the internet where I could package things up for my friends, whether that's images, links, and then send it over to them and uh sharing it online. This basically found

its way to the VZero team and we would just like have these one-off conversations and eventually um about a month later, so in January, G DM'd me on

Twitter and was like, "Have you ever thought about working at Restell?"

>> No way.

>> And that was really crazy. I had, you know, messaged him in the past, I think, just saying like, "Hey, really appreciate you. Thank you for building

appreciate you. Thank you for building Vzero. Like, I'm having so much fun

Vzero. Like, I'm having so much fun using it." And

using it." And >> Okay, that's really cool. I'm just going to underline that for everybody listening. The fact that you DM'd the

listening. The fact that you DM'd the CEO of Versell just to say thank you says so much about you and how you like this is kind of what I was getting at earlier, right? Like that's a big deal.

earlier, right? Like that's a big deal.

And then you know what probably happened. I bet he forgot. There's no

happened. I bet he forgot. There's no

way that he actually remembered. There's

no way. But then he saw the project or maybe somebody sent it to him. He

clicked in said, "Okay, maybe I'll reach out to this person." And then at the top of that page was your thank you message.

And it was like, "Oh, wow. now I really want to talk to that person. So that's

amazing. I just I'm shining a light on it. I think it's amazing just the way

it. I think it's amazing just the way that you are positioning yourself in this community.

>> I think G is also someone who's just incredibly proactive with reaching out to people online. So many of our hires at Versell were just people that he saw like on the internet and it was like we

need to talk to this person. Um he has a channel called like Rash G or like G Brain where he just like puts all these little notes and then it's like okay now what's recruiting? Let's follow up. just

what's recruiting? Let's follow up. just

being the type of person that he is. He

creates like so much serendipity both at PCL and in the world as well.

>> I'm sure you're freaking out. You get

this DM. It's like unbelievable, right?

You end up joining the team. You spend

this chunk of time earlier in in your career surrounded by some of the best makers on the planet. And my assumption is you're probably thinking a little bit about who you even want to become in the

space. So, how did that experience shape

space. So, how did that experience shape your mental model for the type of designer that you wanted to grow into?

>> I think it was such a surreal experience to get to work alongside people James Clemens, Matul Sha, and Ronaldo. I think

just seeing the level of care that they put into their work, whether it's crafting interactions for a marketing site or really diving into the performance of the app, it really shows

you that design engineering goes much deeper than the surface of how something looks. It's really having the context

looks. It's really having the context and the ability to take an intention and translate it into what the user is actually experiencing. At Paradigm as

actually experiencing. At Paradigm as well, it's something we're always thinking about like how can we make sure that the vision that we have is what people actually get to play with in prod. And I think there's just so much

prod. And I think there's just so much to learn from the designers who are always picking up new technologies and tools as well. People who are just doing it because they're really curious. I

think something that really stood out to me about Ronaldo is how he's always cooking on side projects, whether it's devouring details or his personal websites. I think it's so inspiring to

websites. I think it's so inspiring to be surrounded by people who make for the love of making. Not because you're looking to wrap a specific project or, you know, just get something done

because that's the finish line. It's

really appreciating design as this journey and this practice that never ends. And I think there's a lot of

ends. And I think there's a lot of beauty in just walking that path.

>> I was clicking through to D to Ronaldo's website randomly the other day and it was different again, you know, just a completely different everything. And you

know the joke as designers is we can never find the time to update our portfolio. And this dude has a new

portfolio. And this dude has a new personal website that is dripping in craft every six months. And you can tell it's like it's not even about the end output for him. like it is that act of

creating which I don't know has always been something that I aspire to grow into as a designer is just being somebody who creates because it is life-giving for my very soul you know

>> and I think especially when we're like just testing things out just having people online that we can look towards that's like oh wow they built this really cool project they're talking about how they built it here the stack that they use the tools that they're

playing with it just gives us that extra nunch to be like okay today I'm going to sit down and figure out how exactly this paper MCP works or like today I'm going to sit down and set up my cloud code files. Just having you know role models

files. Just having you know role models like that I think has been incredibly powerful for me.

>> Before we move on, just take us through a few of your favorite experiments as an example of what it looks like to just create for the sake of creating and putting it out there on the internet just because I think your Twitter feed

is beautiful. So, I don't want to move

is beautiful. So, I don't want to move on quite yet. One that I thought was really silly was my friend's favorite movie is Wallace and Grommit and I

wanted to make him just a little artifact that he could play with on his home screen which was you know his favorite character which is Feathers

Mcgra and you know having little things of the plot details. This is just something that more of like a visual artifact that you can hook up, you know, create like a 3D model and then create

like a 3D model viewer and just give something to people as a gift. I think

that's an idea that resonated with me.

This is a project from way back when where basically when I was starting off with making projects, I wouldn't really know how to approach it. So just a very

simple web app that you take any idea and it breaks it down for you in terms of like here are things that you might want to think about on the front end like here what what you can learn about for the back end just to serve as more

of a mapmaker for me. I think this was a project that I really enjoyed just returning again to this idea of software as a gift. Like what are ways that we can create things that feel tactile and

uh create things that you can send to people and just say, "Hey, this made me think of you." Recently, what I really love as well has been like what are ways that I can play with things like

animations, whether it's in a product or the Tokyo project. It was really figuring out like what are cool effects I can play with. This one I really have

to shout like Daniel Pito. He put out this um CSS like little snippet of how can we create these like 3D moving like a 3D infinite canvas to explore like

things coming at you. And when I was playing with the 2D canvas as well I think just experimenting with like performance. Max Peekle with a friend

performance. Max Peekle with a friend who's just an incredible design engineer and you know I sent it over to him. He's

like, "Oh, by the way, if you change the CSS class to transform, it'll be a lot more performant." So, I think um just

more performant." So, I think um just always playing around with like what are new things that had been sitting in my cache and I now want to translate into a

project that I'm actually working on.

>> It's clear that you're learning a ton about even just front end, you know, like just the more you build your ideas.

I'm seeing a lot of examples of like little technologies or you had that 3D render for walls and grommet kind of thing. Like I have no idea how that

thing. Like I have no idea how that works, you know, but you're figuring it out for each individual project. And

it's obvious that those are helping you reach that next ladder of learning which then kind of makes me wonder like where was the starting point for all of this?

Like how much technical understanding did you have when you first opened V0ero? and then maybe we can use that as

V0ero? and then maybe we can use that as a launching point to understand what some of those mile markers of understanding have meant for you.

>> I remember when I first started ticking around with Vzero, I had like a very basic grasp of HTML, CSS, JavaScript.

I'm also someone who loves picking up internet courses. One was UI engineering

internet courses. One was UI engineering 101 by Mariana Castillo and >> Oh, cool. Yeah, I went through that. I

loved how they walked me through like here's a component, here's how you translate it with just HTML and CSS and a little bit of JavaScript. And

eventually along the way, I was reading, you know, a lot of React documentation trying to figure out like ah when are React frameworks, what's next? Yes. And

the way that I think about it is that there's always a minimum viable amount of learning that you need to get you to the next step and then you backfill a

lot. I think what AI is really good at

lot. I think what AI is really good at doing is giving us artifacts, but they're not necessarily grounded in understanding of the system, which I think can be really great with making

prototypes, little one-up experiments, but the moment you need to debug something, you're like, "Oh man, I don't even know where to start." And I think that's when you know it's really helpful

to push yourself to feel like you don't have a complete grasp of these tools and then step back like okay what do I need to zoom out in or what do I need to zoom out on and really deepen my

understanding of now for me I know when I started off playing around with these different tools I just didn't grasp how components should be structured like

when should we break things down into modules or when can they passed down props versus like sharing context. And I

think just learning by building and like learning by asking has been such an incredible way both like looking up reference material online and just you know asking your friends who might be good engineers or people who have done it before.

>> There's a tension that I think a lot of people experience that hits on some of the things that you're talking about where it's like how much do I actually invest in my own knowledge that like

exists in my brain? Maybe some of that is like syntax, you know, like code level knowledge versus just improving the way that I work with AI. And maybe I

abstract a lot of the details, but I'm going to focus all my attention on that front. And with everything changing, you

front. And with everything changing, you know, that's like an interesting spectrum to think about like how you view learning and where you want to concentrate your efforts. How do you think about where you want to fall on

that spectrum? For me, I think this is

that spectrum? For me, I think this is something that I experienced very acutely last year because I was making a bunch of personal projects. I'm like,

"Oh, cool. Like, look, it's a demo." But

when it actually came down to debugging something, if I was playing like with a map API and all of a sudden it wasn't loading well or everything's crashing, I just felt like I didn't have the

necessary foundational knowledge to like actually hone in and dive deep into the levels of implementation. What AI is really great at is giving us a map of the territory. It's like when you're

the territory. It's like when you're playing a video game and you see that there's like clouds surrounding areas of the map that you haven't unlocked yet. A

guy's really good at blowing those clouds away. Basically, now you have a

clouds away. Basically, now you have a very clear idea of like what is possible, but it's still up to us to walk the terrain. It's one thing to see

what we can make and another thing to understand it in its like full entirety.

And I think with AI, we're also moving up the layers of abstraction. So we're

not writing every function by hand, like no one's doing that. But the more context that you do have about how it works under the hood, so how React works, you know, how are props being

passed through, we're much better equipped to actually debug and build things are resilient. It depends on the level of abstraction that we're working at. So if we're say someone who's

at. So if we're say someone who's working with a very strong team of engineers, what's most helpful for them is maybe like here is a prototype in

code of like exactly how I want it and the engineer is you know hooking up all of the data layer for you. Maybe they

start off with a PR that's just like the skeleton of like all the API calls and how the back end talks to the front end.

And then as a designer, you can go in and like polish everything using cloud code and make sure that it's just exactly how you want it in terms of the micro interactions and the animations.

or if you're someone who wants to be deeper down in terms of implementation, like understanding how should this component be structured to be the most performant. I think really just going

performant. I think really just going back to the basics and studying has been like something that I've returned to much more lately as well. There's one

question that I can't stop asking myself. What if companies applied to

myself. What if companies applied to talk to you rather than the other way around? And that question is the

around? And that question is the foundation for the all-new dive talent network. And it's working. Like right

network. And it's working. Like right

now, I'm helping many of the most exciting startups that I know to hire the designers and builders who listen to this show. So if you're curious what

this show. So if you're curious what might be out there, and maybe you want to get on my list, or maybe you're even looking for your next design hire, head to dive.club/talent

to dive.club/talent to join today. You're someone that takes learning seriously. just listening to

learning seriously. just listening to you talk that is something that's very clear to me. So I want to ask a little bit of a in the weeds question here

which is if you would throw up how you work with AI on a daily basis when coding and you look at the version of yourself 6 months ago versus the version

today where do the biggest deltas exist?

I think one of the biggest differences has been creating explainers as I go with clot. For example, in the past when

with clot. For example, in the past when I was learning about how React works with React hooks, I would be building a deployment and think like, oh wait, like this is totally something that can be abstracted out into its own custom hook.

So then I would, you know, pull up some documentation, have a conversation with Claude, and then at the end say like, okay, what are the key points that we should remember for next time or even just for my own learning? Because with

like skill files, you know, you can give cloud context, but I also think about how as we work with AI, these mental models that we're building up like skill.md, full.md, it really encourages

skill.md, full.md, it really encourages us to think about like what are ways that we can build up our own context or what are ways that we can define our own invarian. So something I really love

invarian. So something I really love doing is like after I feel like I've tried something new or I learned something that I didn't know before, I'll like quickly write up a markdown file and just save that for next time for my own reference. And like sometimes

I'll post these notes to my website, but just creating artifacts that I can continually return to. I think that's been one of the biggest unlocks.

>> Is there an example that you posted to your website that we could look at?

>> If we go into notes, um I remember like monor repos is something that we use a lot at Versell. Like everything that you see from the Versel marketing website to

the app to all those ship conference websites is hosted in this like massive repository called Front. And I remember, you know, poking in for the first time and I was like, "Wow, there's so many

subdirectories." And for my own personal

subdirectories." And for my own personal website, it's hosted on a Nex.js app, but I wanted to create like a shared component system that I could use across projects. Figuring out like how do I do

projects. Figuring out like how do I do that with Turbo Repo, like how do I set this up? And then uh debugging things

this up? And then uh debugging things and just writing down notes for next time as well. I think that's been really helpful. I think the part of this that

helpful. I think the part of this that actually is the coolest is just the timestamps. Like how often you are

timestamps. Like how often you are contributing notes from your own learnings to your own website.

>> I love to think of websites as like living artifacts. You know, being able

living artifacts. You know, being able to just jot things down if there's a cool link that you saw, something that you want to save for next time. I think

just creating things that you can return to uh has been like such a theme and I love. any other mental models that

love. any other mental models that influence the way that you collaborate with AI that you feel like you've refined over the last year or so that you think might inspire other people?

>> I really love thinking about AI as this infinitely patient tutor. I think it's one thing to ask for it to do something for me and not, you know, question anything about how it works or what

assumptions building off of, but really adopting this posture of now we live in a time where I can ask any question and I can ask it to break it down into as

fine of a fidelity as I need. I would

really encourage people to just think about ways that they can use AI to scaffold their own learning and then to flesh it out by building projects trying to understand like what are ways that we

can prompt ourselves to become better at learning. One of the ways that that

learning. One of the ways that that inspires me is just looking at your own role right now. Like you are a design engineer and yet correct me if I'm wrong, there's not like a traditional

designer at Paradigm, right? Like you

are kind of the designer, but you're also owning a lot of the front end. It's

a journey that in theory a lot of people that are listening to this could go on.

I actually think that I'm going on it myself. Maybe not as quickly on some of

myself. Maybe not as quickly on some of the engineering concepts, but like I'm the designer, but I'm just owning more and more of the front end. It can be scary, you know, for people who have had

a code aversion historically. And yet

the blueprint and and some of the ways that you are leaning on the AI and and leaning into your own curiosity, I think is ultimately like like that's the

scaffolding that allows people to progress in this direction, which even just from, you know, the comments from people listening to the show, I can tell is inspiring. like it's a journey that a

is inspiring. like it's a journey that a lot of people want to go on, but they're like trying to figure out like what are the right footholds to grab on my own journey.

>> At Paradigm, I'm very very lucky to work alongside some extremely experienced and just knowledgeable engineers like Resh, our lead front end engineer, Jiren, our CTO, I think I'm always learning from

them. And as someone who still feels

them. And as someone who still feels relatively much earlier in my engineering journey, I think a lot of it has been figuring out, you know, as someone who's filling out this design

role at Paradigm, what does it look like for me to enable engineers who are working across all layers of the stack versus like what are PRs that make the most sense for me to make myself. I

think it's really figuring out like what is the right level of abstraction and boundary to straddle. And for some designers, you know, they really just want to tunnel deep into how things

work. And I think some designers are

work. And I think some designers are incredibly skilled at just specing out this exact vision that they have and then working closely with engineers or whoever they're working with to bring exactly to life.

>> Can we talk a little bit about your practice then? Maybe we could even look

practice then? Maybe we could even look at, I don't know, a recent release or even just hypothetically how you work on something that feels a little bit meteor, more ambiguous. Like how much

are you exploring in code? How much are you owning like all of the front-end implementation details? And you know,

implementation details? And you know, what are the steps in between? Like for

somebody that can reach for really any type of tool, how do you think about the way that you work and maybe if there are certain ways that that has evolved over the last six months even? I think

something that we've are in the process of figuring out are what are the intermediate artifacts that you can collapse and what are the things that you should spend your time like really

figuring out higher fidelity versions of and sometimes that doesn't even look like a strain. It's like sitting down with the team and having a conversation of like what is the right mental model.

So for example at paradigm we recently shipped a workflows feature and for us know it's figuring out how do we define the primitives of a workflow. It's

zooming all the way back out to like asking what are the objects that we're concerned with here like what defines a workflow what are the workflows that users are building out and then from there like what are the integrations that we want to have like what are the

actions that we want to have and I think it's so important to really be aligned at a conceptual level before we even start moving into like visual experiments and prototypes because I

think one trap that we can fall into as designers is coming up with like a bunch of options and then picking one too early. I think it's also figuring out

early. I think it's also figuring out like what is the right thing to create when our paradigm once we're aligned on like what exactly to make then we can

hop into tools like cloud code or Figma and I recently been playing around with taper a little bit as well to just like put down a bunch of screens sometimes in varying levels of fidelity like

sometimes all you need for a meeting is to like draw things even as rectangles to be like conceptually like here's the dialogue that they want and then uh progressively getting just like more

alignment as a team before you move into like a coded up prototype. Something we

recently played with was what are ways that we can show this like one specific workflow and then working with our engineers to put up like prototype PRs playing around testing them and then

eventually uh converging into what we seem proud today. for something like the workflows.

I'm just going to ask you to even go more specific into what were the main types of artifacts that you were exploring like once you were aligned

with the team, what were those first few visual artifacts that you made and why?

>> For me, I still like to use Figma to, you know, visualize what are the different ways that we could display this interaction. And then sometimes

this interaction. And then sometimes what I like to do as well is like take a few of the versions I'm working with and they'll put them into variant UI and to see like oh what are some other ways

that I could explore this and what I really love about variance product is that it works as a scrolling feed. So

once we've like defined here are the constraints of what we need to see in this interaction like there might be a pattern that like I completely did not have in my realm of understanding and

then just thinking like oh okay like that's interesting like why what might be a fitting use case for this cuz I think it's understanding like what should the user be doing and then like

what are the different form factors that can serve this up in the interaction now so after we play around with some kind of like static shots of like okay I want

this button to open up like this entry toy into a workflow dialogue then it's playing with a prototype that can either be in cloud code directly in a

repository or sometimes we have people on the team who are more product focused and like to play around with other tools like directly in cloud to just show the interaction that they're thinking about

and we'll take like little spoon recordings and like little snippets and give each other like GitHub PR our links to just test on staging and then see what feels right before eventually we're

like okay like working backwards like this is how we want it to feel in the final final version and now we have like this little graveyard of PR links of prototype

>> let's talk a little bit more about your role as the designer startup very AI native product a lot of

unique challenges there so talk to us a little bit about how even the nature of the product has shaped your design practice.

>> So at Paradigm, we work on a way for new to prompt basically a thousand agents at once. There is this interface of the

once. There is this interface of the spreadsheet which people are so familiar with as knowledge workers. But it's just a completely different model of thinking where in the past you know you define a formula and the spreadsheet fills it out

for you. But now we see it as a way of

for you. But now we see it as a way of interaction with just a swarm of agents, right? So like how can you define a set

right? So like how can you define a set of steps in your workflow once and then have these columns each columns as a prompt execute it now across like tens

or hundreds or thousands of rows. So for

us something that we're always thinking about is scale and how can we bring this to an interaction that like feels good when you have like 200 agents versus

just 20 running at once. And I think a really great way that we've been dog fooding it as well is just thinking about like what are things to parallelize. So for me like I love

parallelize. So for me like I love building lists. I love collecting lists

building lists. I love collecting lists whether it's resources I love or learnings that I have. I'll put them in like one column and then I'll create prompts to say like oh what are other

ideas I can pull up related to this or what are other resources that you would recommend? For example, if I'm trying to

recommend? For example, if I'm trying to learn animation, like let's first build up a list of like animation resources and then like what are threads I can keep pulling and really using the AI

tool as a way to prompt myself to figure out like okay, where do I want to move next?

>> I want to double click on the scale piece for a second. Like what are some of the design possibilities that you find yourself exploring or reaching for

to solve that type of problem?

One thing that we've really honed on is what are ways that you can represent things that scale in a very structured manner. And when we return to this idea

manner. And when we return to this idea of like grids, uh, rows and columns, it makes a lot of sense because this is a paradigm that people are already

familiar with. So for us, it's figuring

familiar with. So for us, it's figuring out like if I want to have something at scale, what does it mean to first like generate that list of items? So like

using an agent to scrape the web and help me build this list and then from there it's like what do I even need to extract or like what is the most optimal way of like interacting with this like

body of knowledge now. So for us like something we're referencing is looking at like other very data heavy um products. So like what are ways that

products. So like what are ways that we've represented like vast flaws of data in the past whether it's in a spreadsheet or you know maybe at some point looking at graphs and documents and things like that. I think it's

identifying with structured data like what are the invariants what are ways that you can pull out something that is constant across all them whether it's like a field that you want to have or a

shape of the data that you can define so that the AI can really help you build it out as you scaffold it. you're working

on very cutting edge tech workflows, mental models, like just the way that you are empowering humans to work is so different than what we're used to even

as as a society where my assumption is given your role as a designer at a startup, you're having to keep a bit of a pulse on like what else is happening

around and how do we think about the ways that this shapes our own product roadmap and patterns to pull from. I

know the answer is scroll Twitter, but like go a little bit deeper into what you're doing as a designer to healthfully stay up to date with

everything that's happening in the world and hopefully being able to like identify the signal from the noise. You

know, Twitter can definitely get very overwhelming, but I think a pulse check on here's like what everyone's been talking about, putting it on my list of

like things to explore. And then for me, a really great filter is just chatting with my designer friends or design engineer friends. Like I have a backlog

engineer friends. Like I have a backlog of products and tools I want to try and just comparing notes with each other. I

think makes it a much more bonding experience to just do it together as a collective or as a community. I really

love inerson events for this. Whether

it's hosting them myself or going to ones that my friends put together, it just creates places for people to share little snippets of their curiosity and demo to each other as well. Like, here's

something that makes me really excited and that I've been diving down this rabbit hole lately. I think sometimes it's a matter of picking one thing that you want to dive down into for a weekend

or two and just trying to vlog things out for that period while you choose to go deep. So staying broad, keeping all

go deep. So staying broad, keeping all this context and then when something really got your attention, you're like, "Okay, now I have to build it. Now I

have to try it out." And then it's just continuing to return to like go broad and then go deep and repeating that process.

>> I did that yesterday with a friend just kind of catching up. I we hadn't talked in I don't know 6 12 months or something. It's another designer and he

something. It's another designer and he was sharing his workflow with pencil and I was sharing my workflow with paper and it was so interesting to just see the different things that he was tinkering

with and experimenting with. And both of us had arrived at this similar point where it's like gosh in the last two months how I'm exploring on a campus is fundamentally different than it's ever been at any point in our career. And we

were both like so excited about it. And

then he's like have you tried this? I'm

like no. I'm like oh have you tried conductor? He's like no. It's just so

conductor? He's like no. It's just so valuable to have those little sessions with people because I feel like we're kind of all just blazing our own trail and figuring it out right now.

>> Absolutely. Yeah. I think getting to share your like personal workflows with friends is just such a fun thing to do because you can dive into like wow like this project that you made recently like how did you do that? Like what are the

tools that you're playing with? And

continuing to like have this demo culture I think is so powerful as well.

Like in Canada and I guess well why now we have this thing called sratic app where basically people get together every Sunday they co-hort for three hours and then at the end people demo what they've been working on I think

spaces where you can foster that curiosity to make things like not necessarily for work or for a specific project but just having dedicated space where you're carving out to be like okay today I'm going to learn something new

today I'm going to make something new and having that just because you love the process I think is such a powerful thing to when it connects back to a lot of the things that you were talking about earlier where like when you were

scrolling your Twitter feed so much of you just saying I learned something new here's what it is you know and people really like that really resonates with people and there's totally this moment

in time like gosh if you're listening and you're inspired by your journey on social media and putting yourself out there in the community this is the moment where you could do something similar where you just explore and

tinker and try different tools and try different workflows and like what if I did this instead or what if I use this as a starting point and then just dumping your takeaways and your experience like people are hungry for

that right now. Even my own journey like that's kind of how I started was back in like 2019 when Figma was a little bit newer and it was becoming a much more technical product and a lot of more

powerful like functionality component props and I would just explore. I would

just get up and I would just do weird things with components and then make a, you know, tweet about it and I would just do it again and again and again. It

was fun. And I think that same opportunity is is definitely present in today's world just because everything's changing so quickly.

>> Doing things for the fun of it is probably the most powerful thing and just always keeping that curiosity alive and building. How does the shape of our

and building. How does the shape of our tools shape us as the users of them?

like what are the interactions that they're affording or the ways of thinking that are really becoming embedded in our psyche. Something I

really love is the cloud code like ask user tool where basically you can use AI as an interviewer to really help you crystallize your own thoughts. So I

think um with AI there's like two paths that you can go down. One in which you're kind of like okay just like do this for me please.

and you're caught in this like infinite loop where you feel like you're not really breaking new ground or you're hitting the same bugs again and again.

But I'd really encourage us to flip it and be like ask how can we use AI to help us build the right mental models that we need like to first figure out like what is the level of the of

abstraction that I should exist at and what is the necessary context that I need to acquire in order to be effective here whether it's you know actually going into react and understanding how

does this component work like how should components be structured how should I be writing these prompts and the way I'm passing them to, you know, if I'm working with like a shader or something, like how much math

do I really need to know? I think with AI, we're getting much better at figuring out like what is the minimum viable level of knowledge I need to make something, but then like what is the level of knowledge that I need to become

someone who actually feels wellversed in this specific technology or this specific tool. And I think for everyone,

specific tool. And I think for everyone, you know, it really depends on the context of like whether you just want to create a fun demo or a prototype or whether this is a product that you want sustained over time.

>> Yeah. It goes back to what you were talking about in terms of viewing AI as the ultimate personalized tutor.

>> Yeah. Exactly.

>> Actively finding ways to lean into that rather than just to accomplish your next goal and then your next goal.

>> Absolutely. It's like how can we use AI to just really supercharge our own process as learners and thinkers and designers. I feel confident in saying

designers. I feel confident in saying that you have supercharged a lot of people's process listening because the way that you think about these tools, but also just the way that you approach

your own journey and your hunger for learning and experimentation, it's super inspiring for us. So, I really really appreciate you coming on and sharing it with us today.

>> Yeah, thank you so much, Ren. It's been

such a pleasure. Before I let you go, I want to take just one minute to run you through my favorite products because I'm constantly asked what's in my stack.

Framer is how I build websites. Genway

is how I do research. Granola is how I take notes during crit. Jitter is how I animate my designs. Lovable is how I build my ideas in code. Mobin is how I

find design inspiration. Paper is how I design like a creative. And Raycast is my shortcut every step of the way. Now,

I've hand selected these companies so that I can do these episodes full-time.

So, by far the number one way to support the show is to check them out. You can

find the full list at dive.comclub/partners.

dive.comclub/partners.