Double Click: What Does It Mean To Be A Designer In The Age Of AI? | Figma Blog (opens in new tab)

AI is blurring the boundaries between design, development, and product management, making traditional job titles less stable. Figma argues that titles still matter, however: they communicate expertise, shape expectations, support career development, and contribute to professional identity. As AI changes the tasks within jobs, people may increasingly identify as generalists or combinations of roles rather than occupying a single fixed profession.

The rise of hybrid roles

• Figma reports that 64% of product builders identify with two or more roles.
• AI is taking on increasingly specialized tasks, increasing the value of people who can connect ideas across disciplines.
• Designers, developers, and product managers are increasingly working across traditional boundaries.
• Jobs can be understood as “bundles of tasks” whose importance changes as technology and industry needs evolve.

Why titles still matter

• Titles provide shorthand for understanding someone’s expertise, responsibilities, and status.
• They help establish expectations when people meet or collaborate for the first time.
• Professional titles can support career ladders and communicate alignment with the values of an industry.
• Research cited from Adam Grant found that allowing employees to choose their own titles improved psychological safety and reduced emotional exhaustion by up to 10% over five weeks.
• Professional organizations and certifications reinforce the importance of titles in fields such as architecture, engineering, and medicine.

Titles evolve with technology

• The meaning of “designer” has changed from a focus on physical objects and print to digital products and software.
• “Software engineer” emerged in the 1960s as the industry confronted the complexity of building software for increasingly powerful computers.
• New technology continually creates, reshapes, and sometimes eliminates roles; “prompt engineer” is presented as a recent example.
• During the dot-com era, some professionals combined responsibilities spanning product management, program management, development, and art.

Roles shape expectations and identity

• Titles influence how others perceive a person’s expertise and what work they are expected to perform.
• Nikolas Klein describes himself as “a product designer in a PM trenchcoat,” showing how people may retain one identity while operating in another role.
• Moving into product management made Klein’s strategic and service-design skills more visible and reduced assumptions that his work centered mainly on visual design.
• Developer advocate Jake Albaugh views roles as potentially limiting because their definitions change as expertise grows.
• At the same time, adopting the title “software engineer” after working as a web designer gave Albaugh a sense of confidence and recognition.

Organizations and individuals will likely need to treat titles as flexible signals rather than rigid boundaries. The most durable professional identity may come from the value someone creates and the connections they make—not from a single fixed job label.