[TMA] Should [Front-End? Research? Accessibility?] Belong in the Design Org?

A coincidence last week got me thinking about Front-end Developers in Design organizations, and, more broadly, non-designer roles in Design organizations.

One day, with a VP Design client of mine we discussed the state of front-end development in his org, and then the next day Ryan Rumsey shared his experience having front-end development in his org over the initial objections of engineering leaders.

So, should Front-end Development be located in UX/Design organizations, or in Engineering orgs? I think a lot about career paths and professional development, which has led to this simple heuristic for whether a sub-function should be in an organization: Could someone from that sub-function eventually be promoted into the head of that organization? If so, then the placement of the sub-function makes sense. If not, that's a sign to consider moving it elsewhere.

The overwhelming majority of UX/Design organizations are lead by people with design backgrounds, and there exists an implicit (and sometimes explicit) bias towards the design function, over research, content, etc. I always celebrate when people without design backgrounds lead UX/Design, such as Amy Thibodeau (came up through content content, now Chief Design Officer at Gusto) or Catherine Courage (started in usability/user research, now a long-standing VP UX at Google).

Getting back to Front-end Developers, I see them as a kind of 'lost tribe' within product development organizations. Nearly 15 years ago, the first two in-house UX/Design teams I lead included Front-end Developers. It made sense because often those FEDs didn't have formal engineering backgrounds, and instead were a somewhat marginalized group of self-taught Web jockeys who enjoyed operating at that awkward edge of code and design, particularly in the face of a jumbled web browser ecosystem.

The rise of Design Systems has legitimized the role of Front-end Developer, but, frankly, I'm surprised that FEDs are still a function without a home. By now I would have thought the practice had formalized and professionalized into an engineering discipline, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Which leads me to think that 'career path' has proven to be a crucial issue for Front-end Development. Let's say you have a Sr Manager of Front-end Development, leading a team of 10 FEDs. What's next for them? They typically don't have the engineering chops to credibly become a Director of Engineering, nor the design practice savvy to be a Director of Product Design.

Something similar has happened to Accessibility, which, like FED, often begins in the UX/Design team, but it's clear that there's not a clear career path from Accessibility into Design leadership... but then where is there that path?

UX Research has gone through similar processes, though it's not uncommon to see research leaders become a head of UX. Or, for UX Research to move out of UX/Design and into an holistic Insights function, which provides a different growth opportunity.

This is something for which I don't think there are simple answers. At this point, that perhaps difficult reality is that choosing Front-end Development or Accessibility may be career-limiting, because companies simply don't need people at Director or VP levels leading such functions.

This career-limiting nature also hold true for design, though typically at a higher level. It's most common for UX/Design to report into a Product Management function... Which should suggest that the head of UX/Design could be promoted into that Product Management executive role. If that doesn't appear to be the case, well, why?

A Corollary to all this provides further support for my contention that marketing design should be in a broad-based, holistic Design organization, instead of having marketing design report into a Marketing executive. Because you'll pretty much never see a CMO with a design background. (I know of one instance.)

If you've figured out career growth paths for the marginalized or specialized practices within UX/Design, I'd love to hear them!

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