January 28, 2025

How to get a growth design job

Hi Friends,

Let’s be honest—job hunting can feel like a full-time job itself. It’s easy to feel stuck if you’ve been refreshing job boards and sending out résumés with no results. But here’s the thing: the game isn’t about applying to more jobs. It’s about positioning yourself as the designer who can drive real impact.

Over the past decade, I’ve secured job offers from companies like Shopify, Webflow, Gusto, Adobe, and Amplitude. As the first growth team hire at Webflow, I played a key role in building their founding growth team, and I’ve served as an active panel member for design hiring at Adobe and Amplitude. Through these experiences, I’ve seen firsthand what separates candidates who get hired from those who don’t. Spoiler: it’s not luck or connections—it’s how effectively you tell your story and align your skills with what companies truly need.

I’ve seen a shift happening. Growth-focused design roles are heating up, and companies are on the hunt for problem-solvers who know how to make a measurable difference. That’s you. But to stand out, you need to tell your story the right way.

I’ve put together a guide that walks you through how to do it:

• Growthify your portfolio to scream “I create results.”

• Deep research the hidden requirements of a job role with informational interviews (even if they intimidate you).

• Use storytelling to show hiring managers why you’re the one.

You’ve got this. Don’t let fear or uncertainty hold you back. Take the first step today.

Cheering you on, Ran
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Step 1: Position Yourself to Win

Applying strategically beats sending out a flood of applications every time. Focus your efforts where they matter most by finding your own career Ikigai:

Play to Your Strengths

Highlight what sets you apart—whether it's your unique skills, industry expertise, or innovative problem-solving approach. Many job seekers focus solely on what they want, forgetting about their strengths. This puts them at a disadvantage

Be Intentional

Understanding which problems energize you and which team dynamics motivate you will help you find the perfect role.

Do the Research

Look for roles where your skills align with the company’s biggest challenges.

Step 2: Leverage Informational Interviews

Yes, informational interviews can feel daunting. Asking for intros or cold emailing isn’t always comfortable, but here’s why they’re worth it:

Uncover Hidden Insights

Job descriptions rarely paint the full picture and often miss the mark. Speaking with someone on the team gives you a real sense of the challenges, goals, and culture. This insight is invaluable. You can’t get it any other way.

Get Your Foot in the Door

A genuine connection with a hiring manager or a team member transforms you from a résumé into a person they’re eager to work with. You might even skip the initial screening rounds (recruiter and hiring manager screens) and move directly to onsite interviews—a huge advantage and time saver.

Step 3: Apply a Growth Lens to Your Portfolio

Growth design is all about measurable impact. To stand out, “growthify” your case studies by focusing on data, learnings and results.

Reframe the Narrative

Go beyond the traditional problems and solutions story arc. Clearly demonstrate:

The problem you tackled and how you validated it with data (qualitative and quantitative).
The hypotheses that drove your solutions.
The results and key learnings from experiments.
How those insights informed your next steps.

Tailor for the Role

Use what you’ve learned from informational interviews to customize your portfolio. Highlight projects that mirror the challenges the team is tackling, and speak their language.

No Growth Projects? No Problem!

Not every real-world project will have concrete impact numbers. In such cases, highlight your iterative process. Without direct growth experience, you can still demonstrate how you gather and apply learnings across iterations. Focus on key insights and how they influenced your final outcome. Demonstrate that even without being on a growth team, you considered business impact and used an iterative approach to reach your final solution.

Breaking Into Growth Without Product Design Experience

Breaking into growth design is often easier than product design. Growth projects are usually smaller and less pixel-perfect, like small A/B tests for brand or acquisition. Teams value logical thinking, a growth mindset, and business acumen over polished craft. In fact, branding and agency designers often thrive on growth teams because their work aligns really well with these goals. So you are definitely in the right place!

Step 4: Master Design Challenges

Design challenges are common in growth interviews, especially for candidates without direct experience. Practice is key.

Choose a thought process framework (such as "Problem → Clarify → Decide → Hypothesize → Solution → Reflect", this is the one I like to use) and practice applying it to 2-3 sample problems on paper. For extra preparation, try working through a real problem from your work, in front of your coworkers to get real practice and feedback (without telling them what you're practicing for).

Step 5: Build Your Story Arsenal

In Storyworthy, Matthew Dicks introduces the “homework for life” practice: every day, log a few things that happened to you that could make a great story. While we’re not professional writers or storytelling champions, this habit is incredibly useful—even if you only do it weekly or even monthly.

Keep a running diary of workplace moments—good, bad, or challenging. These could be examples of collaboration, handling disagreements, or tackling tough problems. Great interviewees stand out because they share real stories about themselves: how they made an impact, worked with difficult people, or resolved conflicts. Bonus points if you practice telling these stories concisely! Without documenting these moments, you’ll struggle to recall them on the fly or in a well-structured way during interviews.

Key Takeaways

While the 2025 job market for growth designers remains dynamic, you can secure your dream role through strategic positioning, networking, and compelling storytelling. Seize the moment—this could be your year to make an impact. Cheers to exciting opportunities ahead! 🥂 Report back to us to let us know your good news.

Further Reading

For more insights, check out my YouTube series on job searching and our in-depth interview with community members Shane (Grammarly) and Treyce (Dropbox).

About the Author

Ran is a product designer, startup advisor, and creator with over a decade of experience designing SaaS products and growth strategies. As the founding designer and head of design at Gable.ai, she leverages her experience from industry leaders like Shopify, Webflow, Adobe, and Amplitude to create impactful, scalable solutions.