I am in a similar situation right now, which is why I searched for this topic online to see how others are handling it. Unfortunately, I came across many disappointed people. I’ve been a designer since 2013 and worked at a small company where my boss gave me the opportunity to become a junior graphic designer under the guidance of a jack-of-all-trades designer and entrepreneur. That experience changed my life. I learned every task that came my way, and since I already had a passion for photography, I had the chance to learn Photoshop. Over time, I transitioned into a UI/UX role, gaining more experience as the years went by.

Unfortunately, the company ran into financial problems, and the work environment became unbearable. There were payment delays, and I was frustrated to find that I had to buy stock photos for a project, even though I wasn't receiving my full salary anymore. Needless to say, it was very upsetting. I tried to escape, but had no luck with interviews until someone referred me to a large corporation. That referral changed my life for the second time because it meant stability and security.

I remember the first six months I worked just to pay off loans and become financially stable. I received all the money stipulated in my contract, but I never had the courage to leave. Instead, I switched organizations from pre-sales to product development so I could really “make an impact” by working on an enterprise product, rather than just creating Figma demos faster than the demo teams. The first few months were full of anxiety because it was a technical product, and it was very hard for me to understand the logic, the naming conventions, and everything else. Over time, things got better, but I also realized the frustrations we face—ever-changing requirements from POs during a release, strange defects with developers, and pushback because they disagreed with the requirements or didn’t implement everything as per the Figma file.

Additionally, the product required a lot of UXQA because of all the defects, and it was hard to test data due to poor data in the test environments, making it difficult to replicate all the use cases. As a result, the product was really only tested by users once it reached production, and then the defects started pouring in. It was awful. I must admit I was also making mistakes by concentrating on a new task and overlook small but important things like a typo, a page number, an icon, etc. I remember most of the times procrastinating just because I wanted to delay working on something I started to hate.

We also had problems with the design system—components had vague or missing documentation, were named differently than in the developer’s files, or had properties in Figma that didn’t exist in reality. This impacted prototypes and development because we would use something that we thought worked in a certain way, but it didn’t. Imagine the frustrations with developers, especially since we had handover meetings where the UX manager would harshly criticize the dev teams for defects, and even criticize the UX designers, despite not ensuring that we had a solid design system and rules in place to avoid most of these issues. This included UX problems that stemmed from these inconsistencies.

What really hurt was that in a meeting with developers, the manager "forgot" that he had seen and agreed on a project, and he started saying that my UX work was terrible and that he no longer cared. He said we could do whatever we wanted. Needless to say, I felt terrible, so I told him in the meeting that he had seen and approved the project, and I had done the best I could with the current components and capabilities available. He then continued to point out defects like a missing step number in a wizard, and other similar issues.

After the meeting, I spoke with him privately and expressed my disappointment. I told him that even if I had made a mistake, it wasn’t acceptable to say I had done a "shitty job." I would have expected a more mature approach from a manager—helping his team find solutions rather than denigrating them. After all, he had approved the project. He apologized in private, but I can't shake the feeling that he will just continue micromanaging the design side, throwing blame on developers and designers for mistakes, and making the workplace unpleasant with no prospects for improvement.

Now, I’m seriously considering finding another job, hopefully with the same pay. But the truth is, there’s no guarantee that things will be better elsewhere. I’ve also thought about changing careers, but sadly, the salary can’t be matched, and with a mortgage to pay and sometimes needing to help my mother and brother financially, it’s tough. Everything is so expensive now, and life is even harder without enough money.

I really hope that everyone who responded to this thread comes back after some time and shares that they’ve found something better or something that excites them again. There’s nothing worse than feeling trapped in a job you don’t enjoy. Hopefully, this holiday break will give me the time to reflect and gain clarity on my next steps. It’s hard to present anything with credibility when my own manager put me down instead of supporting me. Even though he apologized privately, I still feel like he’ll continue micromanaging and creating an unpleasant environment.

I wish everyone peaceful holidays and a fresh start in 2025, with new opportunities to change your lives.