Yours truly got quoted in Fast Company. Grace Snelling, surveying the industry reaction to Lenny Rachitsky’s TrueUp hiring data, pulled a comment I left under Rachitsky’s original Twitter post:

Designers have designed themselves out of the equation because of design systems. But, IMHO, the secret sauce has never been the UI. It was the workflows and looking across the experience holistically.

Let me expand on that. The UI has always been the easiest part of product design. Design systems made that even more true. What separates a great product from a mediocre one is understanding our users deeply enough to create experiences that actually delight them. That understanding is the work AI can’t do, and it’s the work too many teams were already skipping before any standoff started.

The data behind the standoff: Rachitsky’s analysis of TrueUp’s job market tracker shows design roles have been flat since early 2023 while PM and engineering roles surged. (Quick side note: this data is for tech startups, not the general tech industry or design industry at large.) His theory:

I don’t know exactly what’s going on here, but it does feel AI-related. […] Unlike PM and eng, which started growing in 2024 (two years post-ChatGPT), design didn’t. If I had to venture a theory, I’d say that because AI is allowing engineers to move so quickly, there’s less opportunity—and less desire—to involve the traditional design process.

Claire Vo, founder of ChatPRD, puts the harder version of why:

Often design teams & designers are the most resistant to change org in the EPD triad, with highly vocal AI opponents, and little skill or interest in the art of campaigning for influence or resources. […] If a PM or engineer can get 85% there with tailwind and a dream, you better come to the table with more than ‘I represent the user.’

“I represent the user” was never enough on its own. It just went unchallenged when designers were the only ones who could ship polished interfaces.

Anthropic’s chief design officer Joel Lewenstein on where the EPD triad actually lands:

I think there’s a lot of role collapse at the very beginning, but there are still pretty clear swim lanes as things get into the later stages of product development. […] It’s like a Venn diagram that’s coming closer together.