Ditto

Ditto's first two designers and developers were Jolena Ma and me. In the early days, we worked side by side in our SF apartment, reviewing each other's PRs and Figma mockups. By Ditto’s second year, we’d grown our engineering team and stepped back from IC development, but continued to own the design needs of our growing team. A year and a half ago, we brought on Ditto’s first designer, Quinn, and I only wish we’d done it sooner. Formalizing the design function fundamentally up-leveled not only our velocity but also how our company works as a whole. ⭐ What are some design-driven changes at Ditto in the last year? ⭐ 1. We changed the relationship between design and engineering from “handoff” to deep, continual partnership. On projects, this means collaborating from the moment a challenge is identified—long before mockups exist. As a result, technical constraints and scope surprises are minimized, and engineers develop a deep understanding of user challenges. 2. We rebuilt our two-way sync with Figma down to the studs. This required (1) a nuanced understanding of how design files are set up and evolve over time, (2) a systems-thinking lens to treat text as building blocks, and (3) continual iteration driven by testing hypotheses with real customers. 3. We raised the company’s bar for craft tenfold. Craft and quality pays dividends you can’t even plan for (customer perception, trust, retention, deals won), and it can only happen by making the right tradeoffs every day. With Quinn, our design ethos shifted from scrappy (read: cutting corners from limited bandwidth) to true excellence, influencing everything from our new design system to accessibility and QA. 👉 In short: at Ditto, design is deeply embedded in all product decisions and is a primary stakeholder in business decisions. We started Ditto as designers building better tools for teams like ours. Bringing a designer onto our own team has helped us turn that early intuition into a scalable practice, reshaping how the entire company operates. P.S. We’ve just opened a role for a second designer to join the team! Reach out if what we’re working on sounds interesting. 😊

Interested in building the future of design tooling and the role of product text? We’re growing Ditto’s design team! ⭐ As a design-driven company building for other design and product teams day-in and day-out, it’s hard to overstate the importance of design at Ditto. Ditto’s design function drives the product itself: identifying and shaping problem spaces, exploring solutions, and working closely with engineers through implementation. Are you (or someone you know 👀) someone that: • Has a bias for systems thinking—including how people, data, and design solutions relate and fit together • Is interested in design and developer tooling, and excited to work closely with engineers from concept to production • Is able to break down big, complex problems into simple, high-craft product solutions • Has a love for text and writing If so, we’d love to chat! (Instructions on applying in the job listing 👇) https://lnkd.in/gk395USE

Every company wants to say they’re “doing AI.” Few can honestly say they’re ready. And Ian Richards lived it firsthand, as a content designer at CVS. The rush to adopt AI, without knowing why, created chaos. That's why Ian created a framework – so you don't have to go through that yourself. Finally answer the question: "How ready are we for AI?" https://lnkd.in/e8MGyWuH

Ditto heads north 🍁 For this quarterly retreat, the Ditto team paid a visit to our neighbors to the north, and spent a week in Montreal. Nothing better than a week of planning, face-to-face collaboration, and too many helpings of poutine. (Also, yes, we did manage to squeeze 12 different faces into one photo booth session. It was probably the hardest thing we did all week.)

Because these things tend to get lost in time, some recent Writers of Silicon Valley episodes content designers and UX writers might find interesting: - Tips for getting hired in a tough market with Casey Webb: https://lnkd.in/gap3DWKH - How to be informed and not afraid of AI with Andrew Stein: https://lnkd.in/geRMd-k2 - UX writing for video games with Ben Moran: https://lnkd.in/gXWeeJ84 - Should content designers care about AI prototypes and vibe coding, with David Hamilton: https://lnkd.in/gnV_RDbv - How Ditto is rethinking product content, with Jolena Ma and Jessica Ouyang: https://lnkd.in/gD7BuuJz Get them wherever you get your podcasts!

I'm hiring at Depop again! Our lean, mean (but actually really very nice) Content Design team is still growing and I'm looking for a mid-level Content Designer to help us on our mission to make fashion circular 👕♻️🤩 Please apply directly (but feel free to DM any burning questions). Recruiters, I love you, but our talent team are on this one : ) https://lnkd.in/eXiYpPZr #Hiring #ContentDesign #ContentDesigner #UXWriter

After five glorious years, I’ll soon be moving on from my role at TL to something extremely exciting. This means we’re now hiring a Lead Content Designer! If you’re looking for a chance to grow a world-class team, this is it.

We are hiring a Content Designer! Please apply directly on the link.

Another week, another resources roundup 💥 Here's some resources that have made the rounds in the Ditto team slack this week: Just keep writing, an ode to content designers in the AI era by Danielle McClune 👉 https://lnkd.in/eWjMZjQZ The six jobs of words in products, by the systems genius David Connis and our friends over at Button 👉 https://lnkd.in/gPBmvK_i The power shift in content design, and how AI is making us more essential, by Ian Richards 👉 https://lnkd.in/dAPD-ydx The first (!) podcast episode from our friends over at Lead with Tempo, featuring Beth Dunn 👉 https://lnkd.in/eSN_mPW7 What have you been reading lately?