Craft or Code: Perspectives from Designers at Every Stage

Written by Som - Sr. Product Designer @Atlassian & Member of The Extended Pack Collective. Originally published on Beyond the Build Newsletter

You wake up. Do your chores. Maybe breakfast if time and traffic allow.
Then the slow crawl to the office, the kind that tests your patience before the workday even begins (in this case, I’m referring particularly to Bangalore traffic).

Once you’re there, it is not just design work. It’s aligning with PMs, unblocking engineers, giving feedback, getting feedback, defending design decisions, documenting stuff, and navigating a dozen micro-pivots before lunch. Mental energy burns fast.

By the time you’re home, the day has already taken its cut. Some of us squeeze in a workout. Some meet friends. Others collapse on the couch.

And then there’s that small slice of time that’s truly yours.

What do you do with it to grow as a designer? Where do you invest effort and time?

Do you sharpen your craft until your work speaks for itself? That could mean diving deep into motion design, storytelling, interaction design, visual polish.

Or, do you lean into code? Front-end skills, AI prototyping, building in tools like Framer, becoming the designer who can ship ideas faster and speak an engineer’s language?

The pace of change is super fast. If you focus the next 6-12 months on the wrong skills, you might miss opportunities you don’t even see yet.

So I asked designers—ones just starting out, those in the messy middle, and leaders who’ve been where we are now. I’ll try to describe in the best words, what they all said.

How this article is structured

Each section will focus on one group. Each group is a level of designers as mentioned below. I’ll share a quote or sentiment that stood out from my conversations with them.

And then a few bullet points capturing the essence of what they’re really saying.

Levels

• Early-career (Associate product designers, product designers)
• Mid-career (Senior product designers, lead product designers)
• Design leaders (Design directors, S/VP of design, head of design)

What early-career designers say

“I’m not interested in picking up coding from scratch. But if there are tools that let me achieve outcomes, I’d try them, especially if they help with design outcomes.“

—Sharanya, Product Designer

“For someone like me, who wants to explore other design disciplines, I think craft is very important. But I think AI tools help me cut the execution time down and explore craft quicker.“

—Ronith, Product Designer

• Many early-career designers lean toward craft because it strengthens core skills that apply in any industry.
• AI tools are seen as an enabler, removing heavy execution work so more energy goes into creative exploration.
• Craft means not just visuals, but thoughtful articulation of why design choices are made.
• Technical tools and AI aren’t a replacement for craft. They’re a medium to express it better and faster.

Surprisingly, early-career folks are much more open to exploring AI tools than mid-career designers.

What mid-career designers say

We’re essentially walking the tightrope between craft and code. We want to do the right thing, but we just don’t know which way to lean. And LinkedIn is no help either. Every day, either coding is dying or design is dying.

“Craft can be a personal pursuit. But in most real-world projects, your success depends on how well you understand technical systems and how quickly you can work with them.”

—Isha, Senior Product Designer

• Feeling the pull from both sides—code/AI trends from teams like Google, Intercom, and Raycast vs. the satisfaction of mastering craft.
• Recognizing that coding skills improve collaboration with engineers, and can open product leadership doors later in your career.
• At the same time, knowing that your role is still anchored in design craft. Motion, visual design, strong interaction design, and storytelling still set you apart.
• Some are experimenting with split learning schedules (I’m doing this. Code and prototype in the morning, motion in the evening) to see which one sticks.
• Realizing that craft excellence drives performance reviews today, while technical fluency might shape your opportunities tomorrow.
• On the job, learning might help in learning AI prototyping, but craft might be a personal pursuit.

What design leaders say

When you talk to design leaders, the conversation shifts quickly from tools and trends to bigger questions like purpose, impact, and the kind of designer you want to become.

Their advice blends decades of craft with the realities of running teams (sometimes whole orgs), navigating org politics, and shaping products at scale.

“What pulls you in? Discover what gives you happiness and pursue that. It can change over a period of time, but find your purpose first.“

— Amit Chowdhury, Adobe India Design Leader

“The future lies in outcome-driven, solution-centric designers. I don’t think craft will ever be at the center anymore. You’ll have to be an everything designer very soon.”

—Mohit Yadav, Founder & Chief Design Officer - Wolffkraft

• Get clear on your life goals. What kind of work makes you feel alive? What gives you lasting satisfaction and happiness?
• Choose a path based on what pulls you in, not what’s trendy.
• Strengthen craft. Things like visual competence, thoughtfulness, and attention to detail still matter.
• Learn to speak the language of PMs and engineers. Understand their decisions before challenging them.
• Blend craft with the ability to create measurable impact for the business and users.
• Build leadership skills early, even if you’re not in a formal leadership role yet.
• Go broad over time—stack new skills on your core instead of sticking to one lane. Learn everything you can.
• Design is about serving others.

My two cents on the topic

If there’s one thing that stood out to me after all these conversations, it is this -

Learning the “build” side of things feels like the smarter bet in the short term. AI tools, prototyping, technical fluency—they’re not just nice-to-have anymore.

But here’s the catch. None of that means craft can be sidelined.

Craft is what makes a product delightful, thoughtful, and worth using in the first place. And in a sea of AI-generated sameness, strong craft will stand out even more.

Personally, craft still calls to me. I’m drawn to it because it feels rare… something not everyone can master. But I see myself building products in the future, so I know I need to sharpen my build abilities too.

Feels like it’s not an either-or anymore. It’s craft for depth, build for reach. And both are needed for a seat at the table that designers have always longed for.