Afraid of losing your job? Become irreplaceable

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This is an audio version of the brief, the design better newsletter that takes you deeper into the insights we've uncovered through hundreds of interviews with creative thinkers. I'm Eli Willery and I'm Aaron Walter. Becoming an Irreplaceable designer. The software industry is in a tough contraction phase. Teams are downsizing and companies are prioritizing efficiency it's stressful for a lot of folks but it's also an opportunity to reflect on your work your skills and the unique value that you bring as a designer.

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What could you do to make yourself indispensable to your team?In my career I've worked with a number of truly irreplaceable designers, and they all share a comment trate: They became more than just a designer. They bring additional skills in coding and research or business that expand their value make them better cross- team collaborators and help them solve problems more effectively. Irreplaceable designers thrive in the blurry space between disciplines they adapt their language and perspective as they work across teams earning respect from their peers.

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These designers they are rare but they shouldn't be. AI is making it easier for all of us to bridge the gap between disciplines while there's a lot of excitement about how AI can help designers improve their craft, the real opportunity lies in designers learning to build as well as design. Blurring the lines between design and EngineeringYears ago I did a fair amount of development but these days, calling my coding skills rusty would be super generous. My JavaScript skills they're terrible,

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But recently with the help of Chat GPT's new o-3 mini high model I built a next.js app and it's live. It's called the design better directory maybe you've already seen it. It's a simple database driven site with search filtering and dynamic content logic. I'm kind of proud of what I was able to put together. I started this project as an experiment: How far could I go using AI as my development partner? It turns out designers can build pretty much anything they want to my first attempt at this app used a platform called replet.

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An online development environment with built-in AI but the results they weren't that great the AI kept making mistakes it would fix them and then make the same mistakes again. Developers call this “regression” I call it “infuriating”. Frustrated I turn to chat GPT and ask some basic questions what's the best way to build a directory of designer profiles in job postings? Since the o-3 mini high model specializes in coding I just kept asking questions. Soon it started generating solid code.

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Here's the tech stack that chat GPT guided me to. The tools include a data source which is Google Sheets it's super easy to collect and update data via Google forms and it's totally free. There's a front-end framework which is next.js: It's a fast modern react-based framework that is created and maintained by the company versell more about them in a minute. All of the styling and design system was done with Tailwind CSS. It's kind of like a design system in a box that I'm familiar with from past projects. Deployment and just management of code was GitHub.

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And versel, which is an instant low maintenance hosting environment, I never used it before but found it super easy to get things started. Search and filtering was handled client side with fuse.JS this was totally new to me I'd never heard of it before but it is quite good. Profile photos were just handled by users uploading images via Google forms. Here's how the design better directory works:Google Sheets is the database it's a free simple tool that everyone knows and it's easy for me to use.

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The directory just pulls real-time data from Google Sheets which is populated by responses to a Google form a grid-based UI was built using Tailwind CSS it's a responsive layout that displays each designer's name role location and photo and was super fast and easy to build. Users can filter and search based on location role and job type each profile page is created dynamically a unique ID is passed over when you click on a designer's card and opens a detailed profile page with more info. Versell handles all of the hosting and deployment it does the builds of the deployment,

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It tracks analytics speed all kinds of stuff it's super easy to use. The free and low-cost frameworks available today make building tools like this fast and totally accessible. Much of this tech was brand new to me, but as I progressed I started to understand the structure and logic of react and next.js and before long I was troubleshooting issues without AI's help like I was an apprentice learning from a real engineer. After about a week I had a working app live for users to test and -more importantly- I got an incredible education.

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Curious about the quality of the code that I generated, I installed versel speed tracking tools in the app and to my surprise the app was performing really well.The opportunity in front of you.For years we've debated whether designers should learn to code well the debate's over today's AI power tools make learning and applying these skills easier than ever you don't need to go back to school or spend countless hours studying you can learn by building.

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As BB King says “the beautiful thing about learning is nobody can take it away from you” Imagine what you could do if you could both design and and build. You could create a new product that could become a business or a new revenue stream for you. You could collaborate more effectively with your engineers and colleagues at work. You could build functional prototypes to test with users directly. You could ship real products not just mockups. You could develop tools to support a community kind of like what we just did.

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This is the most excited I've been about technology in a long time and I got to tell you I'm excited for you, because expanding your skill set will open new career opportunities and give you greater autonomy in your work. Take the time to explore these new tools. Learn to build it's an essential step in becoming an irreplaceable designer.