IDC forecasts that the global workforce involved in software design and development will grow by more than 30%, reaching 144 million people by 2029. This expansion reflects the growing role of design as a competitive differentiator and the increasing demand for design talent. Generative AI is expected to accelerate product development while raising expectations for usability and visual quality.
## Workforce Growth in Software Design
- The population of knowledge workers and developers designing digital products and interfaces is projected to grow from **107 million in 2025 to 144 million in 2029**.
- The research covers multiple industries, company sizes, and roles involved in software design and product development.
- IDC based its model on quantitative research involving more than 1,000 IT and business leaders.
## UX Design Leads Growth
- UX professionals are expected to grow at a **7.6% compound annual growth rate** between 2025 and 2029.
- This growth is expected to outpace other knowledge-worker categories.
- IDC links the trend to rising demand for design-intensive digital products and solutions.
## Generative AI Raises the Bar
- Generative AI will increase the speed and volume of software development.
- Faster development may give users more product choices and enable better-designed digital experiences.
- Designers and developers will face greater pressure to make AI-powered features highly usable, appealing, and intuitive.
Overall, the study suggests that companies should treat design as a strategic capability and invest in UX talent as software development becomes faster and more AI-driven.
“Skill share,” Figma’s April 2025 issue, gathers practical lessons for designers, developers, and product builders ahead of Config 2025. Its central argument is that strong products depend not only on speed or technical execution, but also on craft, communication, storytelling, experimentation, and long-term thinking. The issue encourages readers to keep learning across disciplines and apply these skills collaboratively.
## Craft as a Competitive Advantage
- Linear CEO Karri Saarinen shares ten principles for creating products that stand out.
- The advice reflects a shift away from “move fast and break things” toward deliberate quality and attention to detail.
- Craft is presented as an organizational value that should influence every level of product development.
## Better Designer–Developer Handoff
- Successful handoff depends on collaboration rather than simply transferring designs to engineering.
- Figma’s guide focuses on three principles:
- Encourage curiosity between designers and developers.
- Keep communication open throughout the build process.
- Establish a shared understanding of what “good” means.
- The goal is to reduce friction, clarify expectations, and preserve design intent during implementation.
## Writing and Storytelling for Product Builders
- Clear writing helps teams explain technical architecture, new features, product roadmaps, and broader visions.
- Storytelling is not limited to writers or marketers; people in every product role benefit from articulating ideas effectively.
- Strong communication can make complex concepts easier to understand and build support for new directions.
## Building for the Long Term
- In a period of rapidly advancing AI tools, product teams must focus on making things work well—not merely making them work.
- Dylan Field and Garry Tan discuss experimentation, play, and exploring an “idea maze” as essential parts of product development.
- They also address vibe coding, AI-assisted creation, and the importance of preserving human craft even as AI models become more capable.
- Founders are encouraged to remain deeply focused on quality and to develop products with lasting value.
## Broader Exploration
- The issue also includes a “Rabbit hole” section featuring additional visual and editorial explorations.
- Together, the featured topics present skill development as an ongoing process spanning design, engineering, communication, and strategy.
The practical takeaway is to treat craft and collaboration as core product skills. Teams can improve their work by communicating clearly, aligning early, experimenting freely, and maintaining high standards even when new tools make development faster.
AI tools are creating a renewed sense of possibility, making it easier for people—even nontechnical users—to build, write, design, and research. Figma’s article celebrates the excitement behind the “you can just do things” mantra while questioning whether constant creation may also become exhausting. Its central tension is whether AI is ushering in a creative golden age or overwhelming people with too many possibilities.
## The “You Can Just Do Things” Mantra
- The phrase has become a tech-world rallying cry alongside:
- “Move fast and break things”
- “Don’t ask for permission”
- “It’s time to build”
- “Founder mode”
- “Fuck around and find out”
- AI-powered tools make the idea feel more attainable than ever by lowering the barriers to execution.
- Writing assistants, design generators, and research platforms allow more people to create without specialized technical skills.
- The article connects this mindset to earlier advocates such as Steve Jobs and contemporary online creators.
## The Thrill of Discovery
- The current AI boom is compared to the early 2010s, when discovering apps such as Instagram and Uber felt especially exciting after the App Store’s emergence.
- Michael Mignano of Lightspeed Venture Partners observes that people are once again hearing about impressive new products every day.
- Crucially, these recommendations increasingly come from ordinary friends—not only people working in technology.
- This suggests AI products are becoming broadly accessible and relevant beyond the traditional tech community.
## Possibility Versus Overload
- The proliferation of AI tools creates a powerful sense that almost anything can be attempted.
- At the same time, the sheer number of available tools and projects may become mentally exhausting.
- The article asks whether high agency and constant experimentation empower people or pressure them to stay perpetually productive.
- It frames the issue as a balance: embracing AI’s creative potential without feeling obligated to act on every possible idea.
People should take advantage of AI’s expanded creative possibilities while resisting the expectation to “do everything.” The most sustainable approach is selective experimentation—use tools that meaningfully support a goal rather than treating constant activity as the goal itself.
Linear CEO Karri Saarinen argues that exceptional products stand out through deliberate craft, not merely speed or feature delivery. Quality must be embedded in leadership, team structure, collaboration, and product decisions. The goal is not perfection, but a consistently high quality bar that earns users’ attention and trust.
## Quality Starts with Leadership
- Leaders must explicitly prioritize craft and create the conditions for teams to pursue it.
- Declaring quality important is insufficient; companies need to explain how it supports the business.
- Design can make complex products more approachable, as Saarinen observed at Coinbase.
## Build Small, High-Quality Teams
- Smaller teams reduce excessive debate and preserve execution quality.
- Hire people who already demonstrate strong craft rather than focusing only on measuring output.
- High standards should be established through the quality of the team’s work.
## Eliminate Handoffs
- Product managers, designers, and engineers should share responsibility instead of working in isolated stages.
- Removing “handoff to development” prevents teams from treating quality as someone else’s responsibility.
- Understanding implementation constraints helps everyone contribute to the final result.
## Avoid Rigid Product Silos
- Too many specialized teams can create inconsistent quality and fragmented cultures.
- Rotating responsibilities keeps ideas fresh and prevents teams from becoming narrowly focused.
- Users care about the overall product experience, not the organization chart.
## Treat the Specification as the Starting Point
- Meeting requirements is only the minimum standard, not the definition of a great product.
- Teams should add care and judgment beyond what the specification explicitly demands.
- Craft is what turns a technically functional product into a memorable one.
## Quality Is Not Perfection
- Products should pass a clear quality bar before reaching customers, even if they are not flawless.
- Beta users can help teams iterate from a solid initial release toward greater polish.
- Defects are measurable, but excellence is often judged qualitatively through user perception and organic praise.
## Design with Strong Opinions
- Products work best when designed for a specific audience and purpose.
- Flexible products that serve everyone moderately well often fail to excel at anything.
- A clear point of view strengthens the product’s value proposition and helps earn user trust.
The practical recommendation is to make quality a company-wide operating principle: hire carefully, keep teams connected, exceed the basic specification, and design decisively for a particular user.
Atlassian treats “developer joy” as more than a smoother developer experience: it is a company-wide philosophy centered on reducing friction and protecting the craft of development. After poor productivity and satisfaction in 2022, Atlassian standardized tools, improved processes, and empowered engineering teams to address frustrations directly. The effort produced major gains, including higher satisfaction, faster pull-request cycles, more frequent deployments, and improved roadmap delivery.
## Developer Joy as a Company Priority
- Developer experience typically covers workflows, tools, and processes; developer joy focuses more deeply on the values, standards, and craft of development.
- Atlassian found that developers lose more than eight hours per week—about 20% of their time—to inefficiencies.
- Common sources of friction include:
- Searching for information and solutions
- Poor tooling and redundant systems
- Cross-functional coordination with design and other teams
- Planning and process overhead
- In 2022, Atlassian frequently missed public roadmap commitments, while developer satisfaction fell below 50%.
## Operationalizing Joy
- Atlassian created a cross-functional “champions” program to identify and eliminate organizational frustrations.
- The initiative focused on:
- **Systems:** Auditing tools and processes, standardizing where possible, and removing redundant tools—the company’s “Noah’s Ark of tooling.”
- **Culture:** Establishing coding standards, shared values, and metrics that emphasized quality and craft, not just efficiency.
- Every engineering team allocated 10% of its time to developer productivity improvements.
- This gave developers an “ownership stake” in solving the problems affecting their work.
- Developer joy became a company-wide OKR reported by teams every month.
## Measuring the Business Value
- Atlassian accepted short-term tradeoffs, prioritizing engagement and productivity improvements over immediate revenue optimization.
- The company measured both quantitative and qualitative outcomes.
- Within a few months, it achieved:
- A 50% increase in developer satisfaction
- A 50% reduction in median pull-request cycle time
- A threefold increase in deployment frequency
- Delivery of all customer roadmap commitments instead of repeated delays
- An increase in internal CSAT from below 50% to 80%
- The results reinforced the idea that investments in tools, processes, and clear measurement compound over time.
## Toward Team Joy
- The success of developer joy helped Atlassian build broader support for applying the same principles beyond individual developers.
- The initiative began moving toward the larger concept of “team joy,” extending the focus to collaboration and the shared experience of delivering work.
Organizations seeking similar results should treat developer productivity as an ongoing company responsibility: give teams dedicated time to improve their systems, reduce unnecessary complexity, and measure satisfaction alongside delivery performance.
Technology once felt playful, creative, and limitless, but constant notifications, social comparison, and digital distrust have made it feel burdensome. Figma’s article explores this changing relationship through interviews with more than 20 product and technology professionals, using 36 questions inspired by the psychology of vulnerability and connection. Their stories suggest that technology remains most meaningful when it enables creativity, community, and human connection rather than merely increasing consumption or efficiency.
## Early Encounters with Technology
- Many interviewees remember technology as an open frontier for experimentation and self-expression.
- Cristina Cordova discovered college pathways through the College Confidential forum, finding peers and practical guidance unavailable in her family.
- Kristy Tillman credits early design software with shaping her career and recalls a period of “pure creativity.”
- Mig Reyes remembers customizing AOL Instant Messenger profiles as a playful way to experiment and express himself.
- These experiences illustrate how early technology often encouraged curiosity, discovery, and personal agency.
## When the Digital Honeymoon Ends
- The web’s promise has been complicated by advertising, fear of missing out, endless notifications, and social-media pressure.
- Lauren McCann describes the alienation of seeing friends gather without her.
- Shyvee Shi notes that social platforms present polished versions of people’s lives, encouraging unhealthy comparison.
- Peter Yang argues that creating things is generally more valuable than passively consuming social content.
- As digital tools became essential to work and daily life, they also introduced new obligations, including “Slack-lash” and constant availability.
## Technology as a Source of Community
- Despite its problems, technology can create lasting relationships and communities.
- Lenny Rachitsky met his wife through the dating site howaboutwe.com.
- Sho Kuwamoto formed enduring friendships through the online forum Midwest Raves.
- Forums, dating platforms, and other digital communities can connect people with mentors, friends, and partners who share their interests.
- At its best, technology helps people overcome geographic and social barriers and build a sense of belonging.
## AI, Creativity, and the Future
- AI dominates conversations about technology’s future, bringing both excitement and caution.
- Mihika Kapoor sees creative AI tools as a way to help people turn ideas into reality and unlock broader innovation.
- Marcel Weekes emphasizes that developers should consider whether and how something should be built—not only whether it can be built.
- Automation could reduce tedious work and allow people to focus more on craft, judgment, and interesting problems.
- Jenny Wen argues that technology should also make room for joy, rather than optimizing every experience solely for speed or productivity.
## Reflecting on Your Own Relationship with Tech
- The article invites readers to use its 36 questions as a tool for reflection and conversation.
- Questions explore first usernames, early technology experiences, online identity, creativity, connection, and hopes for the future.
- Sharing these stories is intended to create the same vulnerability and intimacy that inspired the original “36 Questions That Lead to Love.”
Technology is worth embracing when it helps people create, connect, and express themselves. The practical challenge is to design and use digital tools more intentionally—prioritizing human value and joy over endless consumption, engagement, and optimization.
Config 2024 is presented as a community-centered conference shaped by lessons from Figma’s previous events. Scheduled for June 26–27 in San Francisco, it aims to improve both the learning program and attendee experience through reserved breakout seating, more developer content, expanded networking, and greater accessibility. Figma’s goal is to make Config a broader, more inclusive gathering for everyone involved in building products.
## A Community-Driven Conference
- Config has grown from its first 1,000-person conference in 2020 into a larger global community.
- Figma describes the event as more than a product conference: it is intended to support learning, idea-sharing, and celebration of craft.
- The 2024 program is expected to include more than 75 speakers covering design systems, AI, development, and related topics.
## Reserved Seating for Breakout Talks
- Attendees can reserve places in breakout sessions instead of relying on available seating.
- Registered attendees are guaranteed a seat if they arrive on time.
- Very early bird ticket holders receive access to session registration 24 hours before other attendees.
## More Content for Developers
- Figma is expanding programming specifically for developers.
- The developer track reflects the company’s aim to serve everyone who contributes to building digital products.
- Additional details about this programming were still forthcoming when the announcement was published.
## Improving In-Person Connections
- The schedule will include more downtime for networking, informal conversations, and community interaction.
- A larger event footprint is intended to reduce lines and crowding.
- Figma expects the changes to create a smoother overall attendee experience.
## Supporting a Global Audience
- Virtual attendees will receive captions in English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish.
- In-person attendees will have access to simultaneous interpretation and translation.
- Figma plans to continue adding languages to future events.
## Expanding the Leadership Collective
- The executive-focused Leadership Collective will return after positive feedback in 2023.
- The track will include more content, a new executive briefing center, and additional networking opportunities.
- Participation is invite-only, with applications available during registration.
## Registration and Participation
- Very early bird tickets were available through Config’s registration site.
- Scholarships were offered for qualifying attendees.
- Figma invited the community to submit ideas and suggestions by email or social media.
- The call for speakers was open, with applications due by December 31, 2023.
Overall, Figma’s approach is to combine product announcements and educational sessions with better logistics, accessibility, and community interaction. The event is designed for designers, developers, executives, and other people involved in building products.
Jeromy Carriere, Datadog’s SVP of Product Engineering, describes engineering leadership as balancing strategy, execution, people development, and organizational processes. His career across Google, Facebook, and Datadog shaped his passion for observability and taught him to lead through mistakes, autonomy, and accountability. He argues that sustained innovation requires both intentional direction and space for teams and individuals to grow.
## The Responsibilities of Engineering Leadership
- Carriere’s work shifts with organizational cycles:
- Quarterly planning focused on connecting initiatives and increasing collaboration.
- Execution periods focused on removing resource and decision-making blockers.
- Ongoing performance management across the broader engineering organization.
- He works on how Engineering operates, including:
- Process definition and improvement.
- Hiring and performance management.
- Reviewing design documents and code.
- Observing incidents and postmortems.
- His central challenge is balancing attention across strategy, execution, people, and technical quality.
## From Cloud Monitoring to Datadog
- At Google in 2014, Carriere helped create a cloud monitoring offering because Google Cloud lacked capabilities comparable to Datadog.
- He later worked on observability at Facebook and developed a strong interest in improving developer and engineer productivity.
- He returned to Datadog after seeing its ability to innovate and deliver products with sustained velocity.
- He emphasizes that velocity means more than moving quickly: it requires direction, strategy, and consistency over time.
## Learning Through Mistakes
- Carriere believes the most valuable lessons come from making and owning mistakes.
- Earlier in his career, he was sometimes too directive, limiting team creativity and ownership.
- At other times, he was too distant and failed to provide enough support.
- His current leadership approach aims to:
- Give teams substantial autonomy.
- Provide support when needed.
- Hold teams accountable for agreed-upon outcomes.
- He also learned that people may not have a clear five-year career plan. Leaders should help them identify the work that provides satisfaction and enables them to perform at their best.
## Creating Space for Career Decisions
- People often become focused on the immediate task and overlook other possibilities.
- Carriere recommends deliberately stepping back to observe:
- What activities feel satisfying.
- What opportunities exist nearby.
- What kinds of work could better match an individual’s strengths and interests.
- This reflection requires intentional time and freedom rather than waiting for clarity to emerge automatically.
## The Value of Co-op and Internship Programs
- Carriere credits the University of Waterloo’s co-op program with giving him early experience as a professional software developer.
- The combination of strong academic training and repeated, high-quality industry placements helped connect theory with real work.
- He sees a similar benefit in Datadog’s internship program, where interns are trusted with meaningful projects and often produce some of the company’s strongest work.
Datadog’s engineering approach, as described by Carriere, combines strategic product velocity with thoughtful organizational support. For both leaders and individual contributors, the practical recommendation is to learn from mistakes, create room for reflection, and build environments where people have autonomy, meaningful work, and accountability.
