Design
A forward deployed designer specialises in interfaces and workflows. That is the craft, and that is what we hire for. They also build. They work in the codebase, they use AI tools to get things running, and they take a design as far into working software as it needs to go.
You go and watch the work happen, find out where the client's people are losing time or making mistakes, and design the thing that fixes it. Then you stay until they are using it.
Here are the five levels at a glance, then in full below.
Level | Problem | Relationship | Delivery and ROI | People |
|---|---|---|---|---|
L0 · Associate FDD owns a task | Understand the flow before drawing it | Sit in on research, take the notes | Do what you said, on the day | Ask early, take critique well |
L1 · FDD owns a screen or flow | Watch the work, restate the real problem | Earn time with the people who use it | Ship a flow that gets used | Help newcomers |
L2 · Senior FDD owns a workflow | Form it, spot adjacent broken workflows | Get users to show you their workarounds | Move an adoption or error number | Mentor juniors, raise the bar |
L3 · Lead FDD owns the experience of an engagement | Hunt the workflows nobody has named | The client brings design problems first | Own the experience outcome for the pod | Run and grow the design work |
L4 · Principal FDD owns a capability | Set our view on how work should feel | The executives who advise call on experience | Own outcomes across a book | Grow the Leads, set the standard |
The levels in full
Level 0: Associate Forward Deployed Designer
What you own: a task, and your own reliability.
- Problem: Does not open the file before they understand the flow. Watches the work happen and reads the tickets and the support logs before proposing. Can explain who uses this screen, what they are trying to get done, and what happens if they get it wrong. Learns the client's business and the rules it has to work inside.
- Relationship: In the room for research and testing, taking the notes, before they are running it. Learns names and roles. Writes up what they saw so the pod can use it.
- Delivery and ROI: Gets a defined screen or state built to the design system, on the day they said it would be. Says as soon as an estimate stops holding. Designs the empty, loading and error states, and what happens with too much data or the longest possible name. Follows it into build and checks what actually shipped.
- People: Asks for critique early and specifically. Takes it without defending, and does not need the same correction twice. Keeps the file and the library clean for whoever opens it next.
Level 1: Forward Deployed Designer
What you own: a screen or a flow.
- Problem: Does not design from the ticket. Goes and watches the work happen, finds the spreadsheet people built to get around the current system, and can restate the real problem plainly. Learns the client's business and what compliance and audit require on screen.
- Relationship: Gets time with the people who will actually use the thing, not only the people who approved it. Listens more than they present. Earns trust by doing what they said they would.
- Delivery and ROI: Gets their flow built and live, sitting with engineers through implementation. Owns whether it gets used, not whether the file was approved.
- People: Helps the people who join after them. Asks for critique early and acts on it.
Level 2: Senior Forward Deployed Designer
What you own: a whole workflow.
- Problem: Forms the problem for their area with the client, and spots adjacent workflows worth fixing. Knows the client's business well enough to tell a real friction point from a preference.
- Relationship: Owns day-to-day contact with the users and the business owner for their area. Gets people to show them the workarounds they are slightly embarrassed by.
- Delivery and ROI: Gets a whole workflow live and adopted, tied to a number the client cares about. Sets what to measure before designing, and reports it honestly.
- People: Mentors juniors on the research and relationship work, not just on craft. Runs critique that improves the work.
Level 3: Lead Forward Deployed Designer
What you own: the experience of an engagement, and the design work in the pod.
- Problem: Frames the experience problems for the engagement. Hunts the workflows the client has stopped complaining about, and brings them back as things we could build. Deep in one industry.
- Relationship: Trusted enough that the client raises experience problems here first, before they become a change request. Can hold a room with the business owner and the compliance officer at the same time.
- Delivery and ROI: Accountable for whether the solution is adopted and whether it moved the target. Decides what we reuse from our system and what this client needs built new.
- People: Runs the design work on the pod and grows the people doing it, including engineers who design.
Level 4: Principal Forward Deployed Designer
What you own: a capability and the people in it.
- Problem: Walks a client floor and leaves with the next set of solutions worth building. Sets the firm's view on how work should feel, and what we refuse to ship.
- Relationship: The executives who advise the client call first on customer and employee experience. Turns one workflow into a long relationship.
- Delivery and ROI: Owns experience outcomes across a book of engagements. Answerable for whether clients' people actually use what we built.
- People: Grows the Leads. Sets the standard others are mentored against, and owns our design system and research practice.