Catt reconnects with Theresa Slate, a fellow Staff Designer. Theresa has spent the last two years fighting her way out of playing double duty as both staff designer and de facto design manager. She's finally built an operating model that actually protects her time, and has gotten to a place she describes as one of the proudest moments in her career. This episode is for designers who join every single team meeting and wonder why they can't find time for the strategic work they were hired to do.

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ℹ️ In this episode

• How Theresa cut 40% of her meetings
• Why "quick wins in a trench coat" is not a design strategy
• How to be a good collaborator without being a doormat
• What it took to get public cross-functional praise for the design team

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📖 Resources mentioned

• The Staff Designer book (Rosenfeld Media): https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/the-staff-designer
• The Staff Designer course on Maven: https://maven.com/catt-small/staff-designer

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🌐 Find Theresa on the internet

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/theresaslate

Catt reunites with her former Etsy colleague and longtime mentor Jessica Harlee - the designer who helped inspire the book in the first place. Jess gets into what it actually looked like to switch teams internally at Shopify after realizing growth design wasn't the right fit, how she's leaned into her architect archetype at a company that lives and breathes systems thinking, and why building genuine relationships (not just networking) is the skill that keeps unlocking things for her career.

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ℹ️ In this episode

* What an internal team transfer process looks like

* How to figure out your staff designer archetype

* Why being put on a project outside your strength zone isn't a setback

* Building relationships as an introvert: how to maintain genuine connections without it feeling transactional

* What to do when leadership doesn't know who you are

* How Al is shifting Jess's role

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📖 Resources mentioned

* The Staff Designer book (Rosenfeld Media): https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/the-staff-designer

* The Staff Designer course on Maven: https://maven.com/catt-small/staff-designer

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🌐 Find Jessica on the internet

* Website: https://jessicaharllee.com

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Catt sits down with Meghan Logan — whose viral product design interview playbook started their whole friendship — to catch up on what's changed since the book came out. Meghan gets real about untangling her self-worth from her design work, what it actually looks like when a staff designer is adding value versus performing the appearance of it, how she adapts her process in a new role at Stripe, and why she thinks creativity is going to matter more than ever in an AI-saturated industry.

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ℹ️ In this episode

• What genuine staff-level contribution looks like versus performing the role
• How to adapt your process when you're new somewhere and still earning trust
• Why treating stakeholders like user research participants still holds up
• Meghan's honest take on AI for design

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📖 Resources mentioned

• The Staff Designer book (Rosenfeld Media): https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/the-staff-designer
• The Staff Designer course on Maven: https://maven.com/catt-small/staff-designer
• Caps Lock by Ruben Pater (Valiz): https://www.artbook.com/9789492095817.html
• UXpilot: https://uxpilot.ai

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🌐 Find Meghan on the internet

• Website: https://www.meghanlogan.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meghanelogan

Catt's Corner is a podcast that builds on my Rosenfeld Media book, “The Staff Designer”.

When I wrote the book, I interviewed a ton of incredible staff and principal designers. I also got feedback from many design thinkers. Some of the conversations and feedback made it into the manuscript. A lot didn't. So I wanted to expand on the topic!

I chose a few people to start with, went back to them, and asked: where are you now? What's changed? How are you actually adapting to a design landscape that feels like it's shifting under all of us in real time?

Over the next two months I'm releasing eight episodes. The episodes connect to each major arc of the book. We're talking about what it means to be a staff designer right now, finding your archetype, protecting your energy at scale, shipping big ideas without losing momentum, building influence without a title, making the business case for design, what comes after staff... and a special closing episode about what it looks like to leave design.

A quick moment of vulnerability: this is my first full podcast. I’ve done shorts here and there, but this is different! I'm learning a lot as I go. The conversations are the whole point, though, and I believe you'll love (and learn from) what you hear.

I'm speaking at Config this week, and every guest answered one extra question for me: how they're adapting to AI right now. I'll be quoting a few of them in my talk on Thursday, so be sure to come through for that! A new episode will drop every Wednesday until August 19. Subscribe so you don’t miss it!

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Grab your copy of The Staff Designer - https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/the-staff-designer/

Join the next cohort of the Staff Designer course on Maven - https://maven.com/catt-small/staff-designer