I came into design sideways. My first two jobs were both customer-facing. I started as a BDR at Datricks, then moved to MCE Systems as the assistant to the Chief Commercial Officer. In this role, I was in customer calls and feedback meetings all day. After a while, I started trying to find my own solutions to the feedback and problems I was hearing about.
I moved over to QA, testing mobile and web apps. On the side, I started rebuilding the flows I was testing as alternative versions, and showing them to the product team. That’s really where my design work started.
I’m earlier in my career than most people doing this, and honestly I think it helps. I never got locked into one tool or one way of working, so I stay open. It’s a big reason I picked up AI tools so fast. I prototype in Cursor and Claude Code, but I still really love Figma. I’m constantly looking for new tools to use.
The thread through all of it is listening. Most design problems are really listening problems first. You work out what people actually need, and the rest of the craft is in service of that.
Honestly, what I love most is the why behind all of it. I studied psychology and sociology in college, and the way people think still fascinates me, like what makes someone tap one thing and skip another, why an interface feels obvious or quietly frustrating. That’s really what design is to me: psychology you can use. Figure out what’s going on in someone’s head, then build with it, not against it.
want to say hi? → atarasalt@gmail.com