If I started UX in 2026, I’d do this

Here's what I'd do if I were transitioning into UX design today Step by step it looks pretty different from three years ago because the tech industry has changed a lot due to AI UX is an $11.4 billion dollar industry right now and it's expected to double by 2030 And I think it's an underestimation People are still trying to break into UX because you get a tech salary you get to be creative

and you make an impact You also don't need to code and you won't have endless meetings like a product manager But of course a great career like this doesn't happen overnight There is no such thing as I would just take three months learn a design certificate and get a job at Google Wake up Hi I’m Aliena I’m a designer content creator and educator I knew I wanted to be a designer since day one

but for some reason I thought I needed external validation from a big organization like a job offer or certificate to call myself a designer That is the biggest mistake you can make It turned out to be the opposite You have to believe you are a designer before anyone else does or you will stay stuck You'll keep waiting for permission instead of building things you already know how to build And about titles

I know “UX Designer” still sounds popular internationally but in Silicon Valley we’ve been calling ourselves “Product Designer” for many years already titles like “Growth Designer” “Design Engineer” are also rising and whatever Silicon Valley does everyone else follows So don't get too attached to the UX label Your job title is just whatever your company wants to call its designers Apple says “Human Interface Designer”

Google says “Interaction Designer” and Airbnb says “Experience Designer” As long as you are a designer in tech you will need to do User Interface (UI) User Experience (UX) product thinking business thinking and vibe coding anyway So embrace a product designer identity right now and start living like one As a product designer When you see a problem you see an opportunity And everyone every place every product every business that

crosses paths with you you make them better Once you embrace this identity everything else flows naturally And here comes the technical part Practice UI first I said user interface design not user experience design because UI takes longer time to master and it is your first impression in a job application you only need to master one UI design tool today

Figma You can start by recreating the wireframe of your favorite app in Figma A wireframe is just a simple digital outline of the design When you create a wireframe you represent the high level ideas And the weight of different sections You only need two tools in Figma to create a wireframe rectangle and text Rectangle for shapes and text for text You can use different shades of gray if there are multiple colors

Here's an example of a sketchy wireframe of YouTube And by doing this you'll learn how to represent ideas fast and how to make high level design decisions Practice this on a different app or website every single day And before you go on to more practice or purchase a course please first build an accountability system I used to think hard work is all it takes to be successful and that is only true if you're studying

for a standardized test If you want to be successful in the tech industry you not only need hard work but you also need system network creativity mindset and timing And what I like to do is just find two people who have the same goals as mine and then set up weekly calls to set goals co-work and provide feedback for each other This works so much better than just working alone because you'll get feedback faster

and you get to provide feedback to others You also triple your network and learning immediately and you get to work in a team environment After you master recreating wireframes you now want to trace the high fidelity design of your screenshots pixel to pixel This requires you to learn a few more tools in Figma You can check out the tutorials in my PDF for example this is a screenshot of a banking app

and this is what 80% of my students can create during their first week at my bootcamp Again this is the screenshot and this is their tracing You can see a little bit of difference but it gives you an idea of what you need to aim for You want to trace a great product first because this is the only way to master UI fast Unfortunately 99% of aspiring designers skip this step directly take a UX course

Start a personal project and wonder why they're rejected over and over again One very magical thing about design is that great design is transparent When something is designed So good to the eye We don't see the details at all Things only pop up if it feels wrong or crazy And that is why if you don't trace these designs you will not be able to create a palette of colors then melt into the design

You won't figure out the font combination that works together You won’t know exactly how many pixels to put as margin or padding and you definitely won't beat AI So take a screenshot of an app every day and trace it to its nearest pixel We’re getting more technical and to help with your attention span I will bring out my cute baby Before this step you've mastered

creating a snapshot of a product but that is static And in this step you will turn it into a flow And you need to learn prototyping because there are going to be many screens in a product and they're connected You'll learn how to connect them so viewers can click through your design as if they are using a working product and that is called a prototype Since there are many elements in a design

and you will also need to align them you will also learn Auto Layout which automatically aligns your layout Also because there are many similar elements in the design you don't want to copy and paste them all the time in case there's a system change So you will also learn how to create and use components And with components you'll also learn how to use and create a design system Each company has its own design system

with hundreds of pages of elements and templates And finally when you design there are going to be many iterations and versions So you will also learn how to organize and annotate different versions of the design And if you're wondering who to learn all this from I have no idea Yeah just happen to do this full time for fun Now that you have technical skills in UI design

it is a great time to dive into User Experience Design There are so many courses to choose from like Google UX design Certificate and my program or you can self study with ChatGPT and here you will learn the UX design process There are two processes that these courses usually teach Number one is The Double Diamond design process This one is more commonly used in the industry today And number two is design thinking

which was popular around 2018 But then it kind of faded a little bit There are also many UX design theories techniques and concepts you will learn like personas empathy maps user interviews usability testing Gestalt principles depends on the course or the bootcamp you take They will give you different templates and examples Just keep in mind that you can use these examples as a reference but never

but never consider any template or method as the right answer There is no right answer in design There is no one size fits all template That is why so many designers get rejected right away that big tech companies because all their case studies are personal projects following the same process with no constraints In the real world it's very unlikely that you will have the time to go through every single step

of the UX design process and you will have to make some compromises So when you are learning UX design take notes and build up your knowledge library But when you start working in the real world keep updating this library because this knowledge is not static When a company hires you and pays you $150K a year they expect their investment to pay off So your design needs to help a business

make money Surprise that is why when you are making a design decision you not only need to make the user experience better but you also need to benefit the business There are a few ways to quickly improve your business sense You can take a business course You can take my program you can self-study with ChatGPT or Gemini you can work in a business And many of you already have great business sense

In that case you can move on You don't have to be an expert in business but you need to be able to do the following Number one is you understand basic business terminologies and you can talk business Number two while working on a design project you know what key metrics to use to measure success Usually it's just conversion or retention And you can estimate how much more annual revenue your project can make for the business

Number three when making a design decision you have a sense of the cost and feasibility of building your design Okay this can be a little bit more engineering driven So if you're transitioning from an architecture background or software engineering background you should be a master at this one Number four is you know the different roles you'll be collaborating with And these people are product managers software engineers content designers

design managers design leads data analysts legal marketing VPs Number five When you use a product you can quickly sense the business model behind it which is just how the business makes money from it So let's do a quick exercise What is the business model behind YouTube?

It's one word Starts with an A ADS Ads and subscriptions but mostly ads So if YouTube relies on advertisements to make money What’s the one metric that matters the most to the business?

The answer is watch time The longer we watch the more ads we see the more money they make and how to increase watch time on YouTube?

That is what every single project on YouTube needs to tie back to This next point is very important If I were transitioning to UX now I’d start my own business first before applying to a full time design job in tech But when I apply I will apply directly to a mid senior or design lead position not junior roles Why?

because there are far too few junior opportunities in the industry So this is a way to work around the situation and avoid getting stuck in a red ocean in the beginning By the way this is not just happening in design and tech This is happening everywhere However even though there are very few junior roles out there senior demand is still high and will keep rising Big tech companies still need senior designers Startups also need senior designers

once they grow to a point where using AI is not enough And there will be more and more tech startups because of the rise of AI I'm not really a high risk taker so I will actually delay registering this business legally until I've secured some paying customers for at least one client But I will build a brand in my mind first and come up with a name branding logo and fonts

And starting from day one of this career transition I will package this period as the founder and product design lead of my own company In the US and many countries you can legally operate an invoice as a sole proprietor without forming an LLC so you can put the title of Founder and product design lead on your resume right away to build up your years of experience and hide a career gap

But of course you need to actually build your company It starts as a shell but it cannot stay as a shell And when you think of yourself as a business owner or product designer lead of your own company the following things will change one you become less desperate and more confident Because your status is no longer unemployed or just working at a job you hate Number two is you become more patient Confidence and patience alone

can already improve the first impression you make on clients and businesses Number three is you take yourself and your work more seriously You no longer think about finishing a fake project fast to put it into your portfolio Instead you think about how to get actual paying clients That makes a huge difference because recruiters want to see you have skills to work for actual businesses not just in your cute fantasy Now if you are based

in a developing country When you get to the point of registering your business please register it in a developed country not in your home country Look into an LLC in the USA In Delaware State you don't have to be in the US to run this at all and it costs less than 500 USD a year to maintain Just make sure you save a large portion of your income and pay tax to the country

you register your business every single year and if you still want to register and run a company in a developing country well you may have to bribe a lot of people and pay a lot of actual money just to get things through and it can end up costing ten times more money time and energy And every time I say this people in the comments are like I am sure you are

talking about my country blah blah blah No it's not just your countries every other developing country You are not alone but you are living in a completely different time than your parents So please use that to your advantage Now that you've learned UI UX and business you want to put your skillset together to your first project which will be a web app If you are taking a UX bootcamp the differences between what the bootcamp teaches

and what you will do differently are the following three Before you double down on a project test in the market whether people experience the same problem you want to solve and how much are they willing to pay to get the problem solved If you are just taking a UX bootcamp you will only learn the first part which is how to identify a problem But that is not enough because you are building a business not a charity

You want to make sure people are willing to pay more than the cost of sustaining your business And with this information you can design a revenue model from the get go Sometimes the user is not the person paying for the business but that's a whole new different world And beyond designing the product you also want to build it Use a no code tool to do it It doesn't have to be complex

but you need a working link And when I go to that link I should be able to use your product and get my problem solved There are so many no code tools these days I will just recommend Lovable for now And number three is do marketing and sales At minimum you want to build a waitlist full of emails so share your ideas on social media and gain interest and gather feedback gather emails

If you don't share your work no matter how great is your design it won't go anywhere And when you apply for a job the recruiter will ask what impact you made with your design And if you didn't deliver a product no one tried it and it's just hard to justify that you made an impact at all And today you have all these no code tools to build a working product in a day

And we didn't have that a few years back So use that to your advantage Of course I also have a video diving more deep on this business and production side So I might put it here or I might just put it in the description After you're 80% done with your first project most courses or bootcamps will ask you to create a portfolio but instead of a web portfolio I would recommend to create a

10-page PDF pitch deck Most designers fall into this essay trap when they create their first portfolio they just list chronologically everything they did for a project Please don't do that Business owners don't read essays they don't have the time Instead create a pitch deck for your design agency service based on your first project and focus on why someone should work with you to grow their business

There are a lot of agency pitch decks examples online I will just share a few of my tips Start with wireframing We designers can be very OCD so it's really common to get drawn into the nitty gritty little details of the visual things Instead of that focus on the bigger picture first Write all the text of how you want to pitch your service Add a few boxes and annotation to represent the visual ideas

Only when you are done with the high level structures bring in the beautiful visual elements to make this pitch deck a work of art You can also use AI to make your pitch deck stronger I like to use ChatGPT and then just like iterate with it ask feedback from it My husband who works at Google thinks Gemini is better I'm not sure Number three is ask for feedback from real people early

not only from AI but also from your accountability partners and friends Preferably people who own a business because they know what they are looking for And number four is after you create this pitch deck download it as a PDF so that you can attach it on your email or you can just upload it to Google Drive and then use the link that can also become your first portfolio link I'll then use this pitch deck

to find my first paid client under my agency name I'll reach out to people or businesses in this order Start with people I know who own a business then second degree connections If that still doesn't work I'll move to in-person networking Worst case I'll do online networking or cold emailing The further you move down the line the harder it gets because trust between two people or two companies is not built in a day

And to communicate with them I will first try to arrange an in-person meet up If we couldn't do that I will do a video call There's so much art that goes into pitching your design service I will share one tip today Most people spend all their time rehearsing how they will present their pitch deck Instead of doing that Spend as much time as possible learning about the product your potential client is building

because this entire conversation it's more about them than you Your first client project is likely to be a disaster You'll soon realize that you won't be able to do exactly what you want to do You may even notice that your client doesn't know what they are doing You may also run into engineers who don't know how to do front-end work And you may hear absurd requests like can I have all the hi-fi screens

by the end of the day?

under all this chaos you'll be trained to do two things Make quick trade-offs decisions and collaborate But the chaos is good for your portfolio and you want to document how in three months you went from version 1.0 to version 4.4 When you feel your project is around 80% done it's a great time to start building a web portfolio My favorite web building tool It's Framer

but you want to design in Figma first and then export it to Framer later I can probably get a discount code for you guys so I make sure to include it if I get one Keep in mind that portfolio is not an essay it is still a pitch So start with wireframing the story you want to tell and then move your way to high fidelity and I think showcasing 3 to 4

case studies is a good number to start And of course I have a video on this Throughout this journey you also want to continue to network and expand your circle If relocation is an option do it for me my friends and most of my students We all build a network in tech first before we land our dream job because referral matters and also the conversations and the information you get once you are in the tech circle

are just completely different to when you are not And now that we get our portfolio I will finally start applying for a full time job There are two things I'm going to Number one I will find as many referrals as possible and then apply to these big tech jobs only after I get a referral Number two is the without referral parts I will do them simultaneously I will mass apply to every single UX

UI product and growth design roles on Indeed I will not care about the title nor the salary nor the location I'll just apply to every one of them just to get connected with the staffing agency or the recruiter behind these roles Once you are connected with these staffing agencies or this recruiters they will start to suggest more roles for you especially senior design roles that you cannot see on any company website because these are contractor roles

in this big tech world every single company outsources so much of their design work to contractors because headhunts are limited yet their work is unlimited and you'll get paid a similar amount as a contractor Once you have a big tech title on your resume it will get so much easier from there and that is how you land your dream job!

Congrats!

You won't stop here but you should definitely celebrate how far you've come When I transitioned from software engineering to UX I only had one goal in mind get into Google in three months I was ambitious but very greedy and impatient I wanted to get things fast and that is why I ended up being slow Every single insight I shared today came from a mistake I made And just in case

you feel a lack of motivation narrow your big beautiful goal to something that you can control So instead of saying getting a job at Google in three months say trace a screenshot of an app every single day for 30 days That's much better goal to set right now Or just think of your friend who's studying in a medical school Seriously my friends study nonstop until she's 30 years old

just to get an internship and at her job she's making decisions like there are two people dying but I can only save one which one am I going to save?

How do they do that?

I on the other hand I make decisions like version A and version B both look pretty which version am I going to choose?

I know this journey may not look easy but I swear this is already a really really good deal My name is Aliena Cai If you like design tech and business subscribe and turn on all notifications so you don't miss a gem like this And if you would like me to take you through this career transition check out Fast Track UX We just became an official Figma trusted bootcamp so you will also get Figma Premium

when you enroll I put everything I said today into a PDF If you like this video you will also like this one So I will see you there And I will end today’s video with a little clip from my wedding in Bali Enjoy!