Summary
DesignOps takes the lead to author our internal career matrix, so we can objectively and uniformly refresh each discipline, and establish org-wide skills echoed throughout each role. DesignOps at Salesforce is also included within these Career Competencies, allowing for our team to hold more consistent career discussions, and unifying promotions by leveraging the same language when discussing each DesignOps employee. Plus, since DesignOps is seen as a fairly "new" discipline, having it paired alongside more "well-known" disciplines (Designer, UX Engineer), elevates the understanding of our role and skills, and provides a baseline paired alongside our peer's disciplines. There’s great power in language, and the words we choose to use makes an impact. Making conscious efforts on our word choices and communications with one another can affect change at both the individual level as well as team-wide.
Key Insights
-
•
Salesforce’s UX career ladder includes about 180 unique skill attributes for design roles spanning six levels.
-
•
The team deliberately replaced vague terms like soft skills with clear, actionable language such as active listening.
-
•
Removing gender-coded language helped create more equitable and appealing career progression criteria.
-
•
Relationship design, a new DEI skill category, was added for all UX disciplines to highlight how work is done, not just what is done.
-
•
Relationship design consists of four interconnected mindsets: courage, compassion, intention, and reciprocity.
-
•
Senior UX employees are expected to hold difficult conversations, mentor others, and recognize power dynamics as part of relationship design.
-
•
The career competencies are tools for conversation, not strict checklists for promotion or scoring.
-
•
The competency updates were achieved over three years through an iterative and collaborative process involving volunteers across disciplines.
-
•
Education and adoption relied on resource guides, live walkthroughs, manager panels, and repeated organizational communication.
-
•
Salesforce’s UX career competencies map to broader company-wide competencies but remain tailored for UX-specific roles.
Notable Quotes
"Soft skills doesn’t always represent active listening, so we updated to be more specific."
"We wanted to be aware of extraversion, so words like energy were changed to initiative to not favor personality types."
"Gender-coded words influence someone’s decision to apply and feel they belong even within internal career ladders."
"Relationship design is not just what you do but how you do it, focusing on building relationships with customers, employees, and community."
"For early career UXers, compassion could be as simple as expressing gratitude for help."
"Senior employees should hold difficult conversations questioning processes that may be harmful to others."
"This is not a checklist or promotion tool; you don’t have to excel in everything to grow."
"If something was unclear or uncomfortable to even one person, it was a sign it needed editing."
"The competencies allow managers to celebrate individualism while maintaining consistency across teams."
"Adding inclusivity to the career ladder took three years and this is still a living document with room for change."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"LLMs talk the talk but don’t understand the meaning. They’re master impersonators without true knowledge."
Josh Clark Veronika KindredSentient Design, AI, and the Radically Adaptive Experience (1st of 3 seminars)
January 15, 2025
"Don’t forget cars are fun—get behind the wheel and enjoy a road trip once in a while; UX is meant to enhance that experience."
James RamptonThe Basics of Automotive UX & Why Phones Are a Part of That Future
July 25, 2024
"Either you need accessibility now or you will need accessibility in the future."
Sheri Byrne-HaberAccessibility at Scale
June 9, 2021
"Involving people with disabilities from the start reveals impact and usability issues that automated testing simply cannot catch."
Sam ProulxOnline Shopping: Designing an Accessible Experience
October 3, 2023
"We aim to keep the reporting simple for stakeholders while incorporating multiple data points in the background."
Alberto FerreiraMaking it Count: Developing a custom digital metric framework that works
October 15, 2021
"You have to build all the puzzle pieces with clear summaries before the patterns come together in mental models."
Indi YoungPaying Better Attention to the Problem with Indi Young
December 12, 2019
"Anytime you have to justify something by saying just this one time, you know you’re going down a bad road."
Dan WillisEnterprise Storytelling Sessions
May 13, 2015
"Ethical judgment is the ability to maximize benefits while minimizing harm to the communities we work with."
Sarah Fathallah Alba VillamilBeyond insights: Rethinking the role of researchers as stewards of organizational wisdom
March 13, 2025
"Numbers drive conversations, numbers drive decisions. That is the executive language."
Rima Campbell Amrit S BhachuIncrease Productivity and Drive Business Impact
September 24, 2024
Latest Books All books
Dig deeper with the Rosenbot
How can organizations create a democratization charter that fits their regulatory and organizational needs?
What strategies help mitigate imposter syndrome when pivoting from tech to law or other industries?
What are best practices for implementing guardrails that ensure safe and ethical democratized research?