What skills should a Junior/Middle/Senior designer have?

Do you often ask yourself what level you have as a designer? What is the difference between Junior/Middle/Senior designers in UI/UX design agency San Francisco? In this article, we will do our best to help you identify and understand the differences between them, what it takes to become a Junior, Middle, or Senior designer, and what salary each of them claims.

What is the need for the gradation of designers? 

Companies, like Dworkz, use the designer gradation to make it easier for you to define what you need to do in your career to reach the further level. Also, due to the separation, it is easier for them to tie the salary to each of the designers.

What are skills required to become a Junior UI/UX Designer?

What set of skills do you need to get the desired position?  

1. First of all, learn the listed skills required in the desired position. 
2. Try asking a recruiter in an interview what kind of skills they need for this position. 
3. Also, look through Linkedin.

Visual design  

1. There is a basic taste that matches the feeling of a beautiful studio and art director.  
2. Such a designer can gather a layout and work with typography, but needs a review by a senior designer.  
3. Such a designer uses style guides.

General design instruments  

1. A designer knows every inch of the basic set of Figma options.

Skillful with varied interfaces  

1. The understanding of interfaces (a designer understands the user’s pain and the importance of designing an interface specifically for the needs and tasks of the client).
2. A designer has the right understanding of the interface structure, peculiarities of multi-step product design, and cross-platform.

Product orientation  

1. A person keeps an eye on designing for users and businesses, improving something, and fixing user pain, to help businesses develop and become more effective.
2. The person does not state that he just wants to do art or drawing.

Communication  

A designer can simply and clearly explain his decision to colleagues or clients, and ask the right questions on the topic.

Autonomy and responsibility  

1. Such a designer can immediately take on an independent part of the project under the mentorship of an art director (for instance, some section, modal window, or search box on a website).  
2. A designer already takes part in projects at the level of generating ideas and solutions.

Commitment to development  

1. A designer is burning with the idea to develop in design.  
2. A designer is greedy for feedback from the art director and adequately perceives it.
3. At the same time, such a designer can look for developments outside (courses/literature/design blogs) of the studio, and not just sit with the art director, waiting for new thoughts to be put into it.

What skills do you need to become a Middle UI/UX Designer?

Such a designer has experience working as a designer, but there are not a large number of completed cases in production or an expert level of competencies. As well, they direct junior designers.

Such a designer starts his journey with a product orientation:

• thinks about product metrics;
• asks the customers necessary questions about their company, business niche, target audience, competitors, etc;
• implement all this knowledge to make decisions in product design (guided not only by intuition but mainly by data). 

What skills are preferable to have to become a Senior UI/UX Designer?

It is a designer who is experienced in a variety of projects. Moreover, they can illustrate the mastery of each of the demanded competencies. And this is a very important fact. In their work, Senior UX/UI Designers pay a lot attention to product aims, analyses, and far more. 

In the studio, Senior UI/UX Designers are as independent as possible, practically without supervision from the art director. They are always ready to support Junior and Middle designers. More than this, they understand the logic of the specific product. 

As a rule, Senior UI/UX Designers start their journey in social media. They can run the company’s channels, Facebook, and Instagram, and publish work on Behance. Topics can be clarified by the art director.

What skills are crucial to get a Team Lead position?

A Team Lead is the one who already has a specific specialization (for example, they are the best at designing mobile phones, or they are really skilled at working with some kind of tasks and products).

A Team Lead can go to a conference or stream on some design topic and everyone will say “wow” at how cool and experienced they are. They can lead one simple project, develop people on it, and perform it with high quality.

Despite the fact that a Team Lead is a specialist and this is an expert track, they have great communication skills and can support juniors and middles.

What skills can help you become an Art Director?

Art Directors can be fully responsible for one or several projects and provide high-quality work on them, helping designers set goals. They have many cool cases in portfolios in different industries and types of projects. 

Art directors can plan the time of projects because they determine their volume and are well-versed in the resources of the studio. As well, they understand who should be taken on which project. Also, they know how many people they need in general to complete the task.

Art directors are responsible for people, their growth, and well-being (condition, mood, motivation). It also helps them determine which specialization to choose and what topics to speak about in public.

Final thoughts

In varied companies, like Dworkz, Junior/Middle/Senior designers need varied skills, as there is no specific list of skills for all possible companies. The differences between them are both large and not very. 

As well, you may need in-depth knowledge of the industry and how to achieve it through marketing. This can be a great choice for people who have been working in another industry for 5 years and decide to change their major and become a designer. Thank you for your attention and time!