You’re Not “Behind” — Career Timelines Were Never Real
Build a career that’s strong, flexible, and truly your own.
You might have a script in your head about how your career should progress. Early title bumps. Steady promotions. Management by a certain age. Bigger teams. Bigger budgets. Bigger impact.
If you’re not hitting those milestones “on time,” it’s easy to feel like you’ve failed.
This article expands on some of the themes I touched on in last week’s article Designers: Be Bigger Than Your Title. In that piece I talk about how the role behind the same title varies wildly across organizations.
Here’s the truth: the timeline you’re measuring yourself against? It was never real.
It’s stitched together from highlight reels, irrelevant corporate ladders, and expectations that don’t fit the creative fields us designers actually work in.
The sooner you stop measuring your career against a made-up timeline, the sooner you can start building meaningful milestones along your personal growth path.
Where These Expectations Come From
Social comparison:
You see someone announcing a new role on LinkedIn. Another celebrated in a department all-hands. Another updating their title on Slack. One after another, it starts to feel like you’re standing still — even when you’re doing important work. Social media is a highlight reel, not a blueprint.
Dissimilar industries:
Fields like finance, law, and medicine follow rigid, sequential tracks. And practitioners tend to narrow focus over time as they gain experience. Design, UX, and creative industries flex, shift, and reinvent themselves constantly. And typically as you grow in your expertise you’re overseeing broader scope and coordinating across disciplines.
Internalized pressure:
Somewhere along the way, we tie career achievement to self-worth. It sneaks in quietly: “If I haven’t made X title by Y age, what does that say about me?”
Here’s what it says: nothing useful.
Instead ask yourself: “what skill have I grown in the past quarter?” or “how much impact am I having today versus last year?”
What Real Design Careers Actually Look Like
Nonlinear.
You take a freelance detour. You jump between product, agency, and brand work. You build skills in places your younger self didn’t even know existed. None of that’s wasted. In fact, it’s a bonus.
Paced differently.
Some designers get early leadership roles and find out they hate them. Some stay hands-on longer and step into leadership later — or in a different environment — and love it.
Speed doesn’t predict success. Sustainability does.
Shaped by life stages.
Health, family, mental energy — they all impact career momentum at different points. Taking a slower season isn’t falling behind, it’s being human.
Cross-disciplinary by nature.
Modern design careers aren’t just pixels and prototypes. They bleed into product strategy, branding, research, storytelling, leadership. Range is a feature, not a bug.
If your career path looks messy on paper? Congratulations. You’re building in and for the real world.
Signs You’re Growing Even If It Doesn’t Look Like It on Paper
Forget the title. Forget the next rung.
Look for this instead:
You’re building range. You can contribute meaningfully across UX, product, brand, or research — even if your title hasn’t caught up yet.
You solve harder, messier problems.
You’re less rattled by ambiguity. You navigate complexity with more calm.
People seek you out.
Not just for deliverables — for advice, input, strategy.
You think outcomes, not outputs.
You’re less interested in checking boxes and more interested in solving root problems.
You recover faster.
Setbacks don’t stop you. They sharpen you.
Growth doesn’t always show up in titles.
It shows up in how you think, work, and show up under pressure.
Don’t Get Me Wrong
Saying “don’t stress about timelines” isn’t the same as saying “stay wherever you are forever.”
If you’ve demonstrably outgrown your role — delivering more impact, solving bigger problems, leveling up your skills — you deserve opportunities that match your growth.
Stagnation isn’t a virtue.
Neither is being undervalued.
Equitable pay matters.
Across your organization. Across the industry. Across experience levels and disciplines.
Staying in a role where your contributions are consistently overlooked — or your compensation doesn’t reflect your value — isn’t a badge of honor. It’s a signal to move.
That said, growth sometimes comes with strategic risks.
I’ve personally accepted lateral moves — even a temporary pay decrease — when I was confident the role would stretch me in new ways.
New disciplines. New types of leadership. New forms of impact.
The short-term tradeoff led to long-term momentum I couldn’t have gained otherwise.
The difference?
It was my choice.
It was a calculated bet on my future, not a surrender to staying stuck.
You deserve to build a career that both challenges and respects you.
Never confuse patience with settling.
What to Focus On Instead of a Timeline
✅ Skills over titles. What can you do now that you couldn’t do six months ago? Where are you more fluent, faster, stronger?
✅ Impact over hierarchy. What real problems are you solving for users, your team, your company?
✅ Range over rigidity. If your role disappeared tomorrow, how easily could you flex into another? (Hint: T-shaped designers with range don’t stay stuck.)
✅ Sustainability over speed. Are you building a career that’s impressive on LinkedIn but miserable to live — or one that actually fits you, fuels you, and challenges you the right way?
Markets will shift.
Titles will change.
Companies will restructure.
Your skill, adaptability, and clarity?
Those will last. And bring successes you haven’t even thought of yet.
You’re Not Behind — You’re Building Something Real
Forget the fake deadlines.
Forget the invisible measuring sticks.
You’re not racing anyone.
You’re building something that lasts — something fueled by skill, impact, adaptability, and actual passion.
Careers aren’t ladders, they’re climbing walls. Sometimes you go sideways. Sometimes you scramble. Sometimes you rest.
Where you’re headed matters more than how fast you’re moving.
Keep building.
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I write weekly articles for designers and design leaders who want to grow their impact, lead with clarity, and build careers that actually feel sustainable.