The Principal Path: Journeying from Management to Individual Contributor
Summary
As UX teams scale, how might we evolve the careers of veteran individual contributors who feel compelled to go into management to advance or lead? Often we view management as the only option to lead others, be impactful, and grow their careers. There is an opportunity for talented ICs and their orgs to embrace UX leadership outside of management, leveraging their intuition and leadership skills to build better products faster. Edward Cupps will leverage his experience over this past 18 months, having moved from Director to Principal, to highlight the possible challenges, opportunities, and rewards of such a role for scaling teams and individuals.
Key Insights
-
•
The traditional UX career path often pushes talented individuals into management even when their passion is design.
-
•
Balancing management and individual contributor work is unsustainable and can lead to burnout.
-
•
Leadership is influence and passion, not equivalent to management or formal authority.
-
•
Individual contributor leadership roles, such as principal designers, provide a parallel path for career advancement.
-
•
Successful principal IC leaders influence product vision and strategy without managing people directly.
-
•
Managers and principal IC leaders can partner closely, delegating important tasks and coaching together.
-
•
Transitioning from management to IC leadership requires letting go of direct reports and control over team processes.
-
•
Companies benefit from developing parallel career ladders to retain and empower senior IC leaders.
-
•
Creative leadership fuels passion and can create more impact than traditional management for some UX professionals.
-
•
Senior ICs often build extensive cross-functional networks and influence beyond their immediate teams.
Notable Quotes
"When people are in their element, they connect with something fundamental to their sense of identity, purpose, and well being."
"Leadership is not management. It never has been."
"Leadership is influence. You can influence people without being the person who signs off on their vacation requests."
"I was doing all the things, and it wasn’t sustainable."
"The kind of leadership I was craving was creative leadership, not people management."
"Managers don’t have to go it alone; principal ICs can be key partners for coaching and strategic initiatives."
"Switching sideways from management to principal IC was a leap of faith but ultimately gave me more impact."
"A principal has built a boat on their own and rode it around the world—demonstrating autonomy and expertise."
"I was no longer a point person in recruiting or shaping the team, but that was okay."
"The wider base of leaders from IC paths will help drive product priorities and give ICs something to reach for."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Bring government stakeholders out into the community so they can see and feel the problems firsthand and build empathy."
Stephanie WadeBuilding and Sustaining Design in Government
December 8, 2021
"Doing this tagging manually would have taken me around 10 hours of mind-numbing work."
Jorge Arango[Demo] How to re-categorize content at scale using LLMs
June 5, 2024
"Potential refers to not yet actualized possibilities that may or may not come to fruition."
Nicole AleongFuture Orientations to Everyday Life: Futures Anthropology as a Methodology
March 26, 2024
"Bad recruitment equals bad insights, and there’s little you can do to fix it during the session."
Taiye Akin-AkinyosoyeAmplifying voices and enhancing user research through group interviews
March 12, 2025
"We formed a core task force empowered to make decisions quickly, avoiding weeks of delay waiting for formal approvals."
Davis Neable Guy SegalHow to Drive a Design Project When you Don’t Have a Design Team
June 10, 2021
"The best we do should be open to improvement and evolution to better serve clients' target audiences."
Megan CamposWhat Did I Miss? The Hidden Costs of Deprioritizing Diversity in User Research
March 12, 2021
"Having a well-thought-out data package really helps us see a fuller picture."
Brad Peters Anne MamaghaniShort Take #1: UX/Product Lessons from Your Industry Peers
December 6, 2022
"You want to catch accessibility defects early through automated testing in your CI/CD pipeline, what we call shifting left."
Sheri Byrne-HaberAccessibility at Scale
June 9, 2021
"The more experienced you are, the more satisfied you tend to be with your salary; it can almost be double compared to beginners."
Marc FonteijnFirst Insights from the 2025 Service Design Salary(+) Report
December 4, 2024
