Unlike junior designers who can specialize, Staff and Principal designers must be ambidextrous. They are expected to operate at a strategic level—understanding ROI and influencing leadership—while simultaneously possessing the hands-on technical ability to build advanced prototypes that bring their vision to life.

The traditional management philosophy of “hire smart people and get out of their way” is obsolete in design. Today's leaders must be deeply engaged, providing significant support to senior designers who tackle ambiguous and politically complex projects. This hands-on guidance is crucial for shipping outcomes, not just outputs.

Design leaders must rapidly switch between high-level strategy and deep, hands-on critique. If they're not a strong practitioner, they lose credibility and can't effectively course-correct work, leading to quality issues discovered too late in the process. Operational skill alone is insufficient.

AI and cataloging tools have compressed the competitive research phase from days to minutes. This frees designers from tactical UI comparison and empowers them to focus on higher-level strategic work: crafting product narrative and system architecture, a role previously reserved for senior leadership.

The CPO's responsibilities have expanded from product roadmaps to key business decisions like go-to-market strategy, partnerships, and defining the company's core focus. This strategic voice is becoming central to the C-suite, sometimes even before a CTO or CMO is hired.

To hire a founding designer, founders need a clear theory on how design will help the company beat its competition. This strategic framing is far more compelling than simply stating that design is important.

AI tools are collapsing the traditional moats around design, engineering, and product. As PMs and engineers gain design capabilities, designers must reciprocate by learning to code and, more importantly, taking on strategic business responsibilities to maintain their value and influence.

Instead of relying on documents and KPIs, which can be misinterpreted, Shopify's design team creates tangible, visual 'North Stars.' This allows stakeholders across the company to have a concrete and rich debate about future direction, transforming design into a strategic alignment tool.

The number one reason design-led product visions fail is the exclusion of product management. Since design doesn't typically own the roadmap, involving product partners from the very beginning is critical for buy-in and ensuring the vision doesn't become a useless artifact.