Spent some time reading an article called The State of UX in 2023

The first two paragraphs hit hard.

My concerns about my career in UX has always been this: Our ability to deliver impact and real results (and hence separate ourselves from the herd with our portfolio) is very dependent on other teams.

If we are positioned as UX designers plugged directly into product teams, then we are heavily reliant on product strategy and technical architecture. We depend on product managers to make strategic decisions on what features to move ahead, and what designs to adopt. We also depend what our development teams can feasibly implement within existing architectural frameworks and past technical decisions. Throw all these into the byzantine mess of enterprise product teams where products have dependencies on one another and there always is mounting technical debt, and often the UX designer feels utterly handicapped, with little space to play and exert any influence.

Alternatively, If we are positioned as UX professionals who have expertise in understanding what users truly need (through interviews and user data) and can follow up that understanding with ideas and solutions to truly shift the needle and bring about business growth, then we are heavily reliant on a leadership that truly see the strategic value of UX and willingness of stakeholders across multiple silos of sales, marketing, customer support to collaborate. Otherwise, we are doomed even before we begin the first day of the design sprint.

Being so dependent on others means that its very hard to attribute product success and failure to the UX-er. And that’s a bad thing especially with layoffs haunting the tech industry in general.

Within the design discipline, the rise of the Growth Designer role – a designer who is focused on acquiring new customers and bringing in immediate revenue – shows that companies are being more pragmatic about the Return On Investment (ROI) when making hiring decisions. Many designers who started a UX career with the goal of advocating for users are seeing their role shift to one that is focused on boosting company profits at all costs.

After so many years advocating for “a seat at the table”, designers are now being asked to split the bill.

Fabricio Teixeira and Caio Braga, The State of UX in 2023