Different job roles and companies will be asking for slightly different skillsets. To help you understand the different opportunities out there, we made a list of ways to segregate companies and their job roles:
<aside> 💼 Company types
Consumer Regular people use it (e.g. social media, social gaming, ride sharing companies) Ex: Uber, Instagram, Doordash, Buzzfeed, Robinhood, Airbnb, Netflix, Medium, Spotify
Enterprise People use it for a specialized purpose (e.g. workplace tools or business tools) Ex: Slack, Asana, Figma, Unity, Zoom, Flexport, Atlassian
Note that many companies produce both consumer and enterprise products. For example, LinkedIn has products that cater to regular jobseekers (consumer) and tools that help companies/recruiters (enterprise). Facebook has products like Messenger that cater to regular people (consumer) and products that cater to advertisers (enterprise).
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<aside> 🌂 Products
• Web Apps (e.g. Netflix) • Desktop Apps (e.g. Zoom) • Mobile: iOS/Android Apps (e.g. Venmo) • Emerging Tech: AR/VR, Chatbots, IoT (e.g. Amazon Echo)
Note that again, many companies ship products on a range of platforms. For example, Netflix has a web app, an iOS/Android app, and even a TV app.
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<aside> 🧻 Job Roles As mentioned earlier, note that some companies use these roles interchangeably (or sometimes erroneously), so be sure to read the job description to know exactly what you'll be doing and whether the job matches your interests and skillset.
• Product designer • UX designer • UI designer • Interaction designer • Visual designer • UX/UI designer • Specialized roles (likely with different requirements): conversation designer, game designer, AR designer, etc.
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<aside> 🧪 Company Types
Tech company Ex: Slack, Google, Epic Games, tech startups You'll get a depth of experience working on the same product/set of products. • Big tech (e.g. Facebook, Amazon, etc.) • Mid size (e.g. Stripe, Slack, Samsara, Flexport, and other 100+ person companies) • Startups (ranging from companies like Niantic to small 1-10 person startups)
Non-tech company with a digital design and/or product team Ex: Nike, Chase, Johnson & Johnson, Disney
Agency Ex: IDEO, Frog, Fjord You'll be exposed to lots of different projects and will get a breadth of experience.
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<aside> 👉 Resume & Cover Letters
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