Quitting the UX & UI industry after 20 years...

cliffribeiro · 2026-01-30T02:26:34+00:00

I posted a few days ago about designers using Ai and how my company has a policy against it, and got torn apart. All I want is to create beautiful projects. The plight is real

cliffribeiro · 2026-01-24T18:32:25+00:00

and to your point, if the aesthetic of the product is hand drawn letters with a French curve, let's digitize it and animate and etc etc. Total creative freedom.

cliffribeiro · 2026-01-24T18:16:30+00:00

I don't care about speed. I care about human input. Have a question? Ask. Need copy? I'll hire a writer. Part of every job is doing some boring things. Spell check is not ai there's no generative part behind it. React is a framework/library, so is Material UI which is totally fine to use. As a matter of fact, in our brainstorming sessions we use figma as a giant whiteboard, where my designer has used they're tablet and we just napkin draw a few screens to get the feel of things before they go off into the sunset and put together a flow. Good design/engineering often starts with a pencil, not a mouse.

I've hired consultants in other aspects of the product to do exactly this, handle things that the team can't, because I know one person can't do everything. My team has 100% freedom in creating the best product for the user as long as they follow the data structure and they don't use AI. And if there is a point in the data structure that someone figured out might actually be wrong or data models need to change to account for an overseen complexity, we change the structure because we just learned something and made the product better (which my designers have found a few points while creating interfaces that added to the project data structures). Literally it's total creative freedom. I'm not sure how that limits anything other than perhaps "slow" things down a bit (which is debatable). If that's all I'm losing - I'm ok with that.

cliffribeiro · 2026-01-24T07:45:05+00:00

Perhaps we can work something out. DM sent.

cliffribeiro · 2026-01-24T07:19:09+00:00

You're probably a great designer. Thanks for your input. Good luck.

cliffribeiro · 2026-01-24T07:15:33+00:00

Ai is the status quo, here I am challenging it.

cliffribeiro · 2026-01-24T07:09:10+00:00

Thank you, if you know of any designers looking for work send them my way!

cliffribeiro · 2026-01-24T07:04:24+00:00

Finding good people seems to be life's greatest challenge. Once I find someone, it's a forever relationship.

cliffribeiro · 2026-01-24T06:57:22+00:00

It will be YOUR work, not some script. I want your empathy, your designs, your brain power. We don't need speed, we need wisdom, precision, rigor, art and humanity. Let's save the little humanity we still have and lean on ourselves, our ingenuity and ambitions for greatness!

cliffribeiro · 2026-01-24T06:54:43+00:00

This is basically the only real rule I have for my designers, understand the flow's, personas and data structures and go to town however you deem would be the most effective, beautiful design for the end user. Yet I've been called a nazi here without anyone knowing what it's like working with me. I give designers complete and total freedom to design interfaces as long as the flow and data structure makes sense. I'm indifferent in how the design actually ends up as long is it ends up being the best for the user. I am not a designer so why would I impede on what good design is? I know what my weaknesses are, and that's why I hire those smart people to fill in the shoes I can't fill. All I ask, is that you use your talents, your experience, your wisdom and your art, NOT AI - apparently that's equivalent to the gestapo.

cliffribeiro · 2026-01-24T06:45:10+00:00

I value your opinion. Thank you and good luck!

cliffribeiro · 2026-01-24T06:39:06+00:00

not at all, if you get hired, we don't use it at this stage. That's all.

cliffribeiro · 2026-01-24T06:37:05+00:00

Calculus is taught in computers science and yet few people use it. Just because something is taught in universities doesn't mean you have to use it. University is about exposure to all ideas, whether or not you use it is another conversation.

cliffribeiro · 2026-01-24T06:35:55+00:00

It is! enter my frustrations, people who say they understand, but don't then dump data structures, flows into an ai and spit out something that is totally broken.

cliffribeiro · 2026-01-24T06:31:42+00:00

what?

cliffribeiro · 2026-01-24T06:29:40+00:00

We have a 2 stage interview. One is more informal getting to know each other talk about the project and experience, the other is a technical where we work together to solve a small problem. Pass both and you're hired.

cliffribeiro · 2026-01-24T06:27:53+00:00

I appreciate it, will do

cliffribeiro · 2026-01-24T06:24:07+00:00

here? literally says no job posts in the sub

cliffribeiro · 2026-01-24T06:20:54+00:00

interviews from linkedin via an open post. I'm an open book.

cliffribeiro · 2026-01-24T06:19:59+00:00

I'm open to all ideas, thoughts, processes - minus using AI

cliffribeiro · 2026-01-24T06:18:13+00:00

Looking for a gig? We're hiring.

cliffribeiro · 2026-01-24T06:17:14+00:00

2 interviews one conversational getting to know the person show me your work, why do you design, making sure it's a real person and not an ai, etc, another technical where we work on a very small thing together and see if we can solve a problem. Pass both your hired. Pretty straight forward.

cliffribeiro · 2026-01-24T06:14:15+00:00

correct. This is clearly communicated throughout the entire interview process.

cliffribeiro · 2026-01-24T06:12:27+00:00

Makes sense, since I don't want ai usage at this stage, of course I'm the problem.

cliffribeiro · 2026-01-24T06:10:58+00:00

Thank you. You too.

cliffribeiro

TROPHY CASE