Questions to ask when starting a new design role
Congratulations on your first day at your new company as a product designer! Now what? Here's all the questions you need to ask and to whom
Starting a new product design or design management role? It’s up to you to be proactive and seek out those who have the information you need to perform your role and understand the business. Whether it’s in your own team or in external departments, your first few weeks are a crucial time to start building relationships and setting expectations.
You might not have these exact roles and departments, but find people who have the knowledge and responsibilities. Set up a video call, or arrange a coffee to introduce yourself and go through these questions.
Design team
- What existing design and research processes are in place?
- What are relationships like between designers and other stakeholders?
- What are some of the core design values and philosophies that guide design decisions?
Design lead
- Is there a design system I should be using? Can the owner run me through it
- How do I know if there’s already research in this problem space?
- How do you prefer to be contacted—in person, via phone, by email—and how often.
- What are your expectations of me for the first 30/60/90 days?
Product Managers
- What goes into product strategy and how is the road map created?
- What does the competitive landscape look like; where does our product win, and where? does our product need to improve?
- What type of Product Manager are they?
- What does their ideal relationship with a designer look like?
Engineers or Engineering Managers
- What tech stack is behind the product?
- How have engineers and designers been collaborating, and where is there room for improvement?
- How agile is the engineering team, and is there an expectation for product discovery and design to be ready for engineering within a certain time frame?
- How has the product got to where it is now?
- How has the product grown?
- Any loss of customers? Why?
- What data are we tracking atm and how?
- Can I attend dev stand-ups?
Customer Success / Support
- What is the state of current users/customers?
- What are the most common pain points and what are the most common areas of delight and value?
- What areas of the product are self-service versus require help from Customer Success?
- How does Customer Success currently communicate with the product/design team and are there areas for improvement?
- What are some of the most common support issues that come in?
- Are there common issues that users could easily solve on their own but don’t realize they can?
- How do support issues get passed to the product team and prioritized?
Sales / Account Executives
- What markets do we do well in, and are there any markets we want to break into?
- How do you tell the story of our company and product, and does that story change depending on the type of prospect you’re talking to?
- If you could wave a magic wand and add or change one feature in the product to help improve your life in sales, what would that be and why?
- What do you usually show to prospects, and have you collaborated with designers for these materials?
Executives
- How do you see design and product’s role in supporting the vision of this company?
- What are some of the characteristics of your most successful team members?
- Where do you hope this company/product will be in 5 years?
It's going to be up to you to find these people. Ask your team lead for any suggestions or contacts that might be able to help and get going. I'd suggest scheduling a couple of meetings per day so that you don't overwhelm yourself with too much new information. After 2 weeks you should have spoken to most teams and have a good overall grasp of the business. Take notes or record the meetings if possible so you can rewatch in case you missed anything.
