Hot new job titles

Everyone loves job titles. When we’re not busy having job titles, we spend time talking about them. Or writing articles about them. Here’s a sneak peak at some new job titles that are sure to shatter Glassdoor with inflated salary ranges that you can quote during your next interview!

Principal Design System Architect

In the past, designers used to focus on screens, or user flows. Sometimes they would mock things up in “high fidelity” and hand them off to dev to help them build software. But this is basic shit now. You can design a bot to do all this boring work for you.

Leaked prototype of Adobe’s new Design Bot CC™

In 2017, the best designers will use design systems. These are pages and pages of controls, colors, and fancy gridlines that show how something should be designed but not ACTUALLY designed.

Principle Designer

It gets misspelled so often it is now a real title. Yes, this means that as a true “Principal Designer” you won’t get to correct people. However, you’re now charged with ethics and morals of your design team. You know…principles. You won’t critique design. Instead you will simply pose hypothetical questions challenging other designers to think about how your work “fits into company values.” You will also say things like, “We have a deeper mission here, you guys. It goes beyond pixels and RGB values. We are making a difference in the world.”

Sketch Runner

Behind every great Principle Designer is a great Sketch Runner. This person is learning the ropes on how to be a great designer by printing out designs on paper, and then literally running them down the hall to development to be coded. There is no functional reason for this role but it’s a necessary addition for any design team that wants to have interns but doesn’t have any actual work to give them. Sketch Runners, while often unpaid, will earn plenty of sweat equity in the long run.

Yep.

Associate Eye Trackers

The field of eye tracking is so damn important you can’t just start “dabbling” in eye tracking any more. You also won’t become Amy Adams in Arrival right out of the gate.

In time, young eye tracker. In time.

You will start by simply tracking people’s hand gestures. Are users flipping you off? Are they slamming their keyboards in disgust? These are just a few things Associate Eye Trackers will learn to pick up on as they set out on the long path to become Senior Eye Trackers.

Drone Choreographer

Man these things are so hot, we probably need to write an article about what they CAN’T DO…the first thing I’d have to cross off the list is, “serve as the backdrop behind a flying Lady Gaga.” I thought for sure they couldn’t do that. Boy was I wrong!

Fun fact: Drones are not fooled by poker faces. God Bless America!

Think of anything you want to design this year and then imagine it with drones. Here are a couple of freebies for those that still don’t see the tremendous value these drones provide:

A Facebook drone to follow you around and live stream your life. Like.

A Twitter drone that literally follows other people around. In new versions, this drone can question people’s political views then berate them so you don’t have to do it in person (because you probably wouldn’t).

Uber Drone. It doesn’t pick you up but it can pick up other little things. Like the car keys you left sitting across the room.

That’s all I got. The rest is up to your imagination.