Becoming the Duncan Idaho of design

Issue 098: The need to foster purpose in the individual contributor’s path

Jun 26

Dune is one of the most acclaimed science fiction narratives ever—coining the concept of the space opera. George Lucas essentially copy/pasted many of the concepts into Star Wars. One of the most beloved characters in the series is a swordsman named Duncan Idaho who hails from Ginaz, a planet known for those who’ve mastered the blade. The name of the character might make you think he’s a friend of Hannah Montana or a trusted friend of Johnny Utah from Point Break. In the first book, Idaho serves the House of Atreides and is Duke Lego’s right hand man, despite not commanding anyone directly. In essence, Duncan Idaho is an individual contributor with no direct reports.

Sketch of a man holding a sword in front of his forehead, depicting an iconic scene from the 2021 film "Dune"

In tech and design, the individual contributor path historical resulted in a dead end that forced people to become a manager to move up. As a result, a lot of people who shouldn’t be managers become managers. There’s been great progress in the past few years for the individual contributor path to be more expansive. Many companies (including the one I work one) have parallel paths for individual contributor and people manager. Despite the progress, there’s much room for continued improvement.

In April of this year, Google appointed their first Distinguished Designer at the company—a highly impactful role working directly with executives. It’s a super mega duper senior designer role that 24-year old company. Before becoming CEO of Twitter, Parag Agrawal was a Distinguished Software Engineer before he became CTO—then a bunch of other things happened recently. The title “Distinguished Designer” might sound as made up as Duncan Idaho, but they exist at larger companies. How do we advocate for the Duncan Idaho of Design? This issue is focused on the individual contributors, how they innovate the craft, embody leadership, and influence the team.

Individual contributors are the best mentors and trainers

Though mentorship is part of a manager’s role, you shouldn’t feel constraint to seek advisory and mentorship from them. In fact, you should have multiple mentors and include individual contributors. Individual contributors are often more suited to teach and train than managers because of the time allotted. On my team, we have individuals on who lead brainstorm sessions and recently launched a peer mentorship program. They also make time for 1:1s with other designers to help them work through problems.

Individual contributors innovate the craft

In Top Gun: Maverick, the Pete Mitchell (played by Tom Cruise) returns to the ariel combat school he took part of nearly thirty years ago. Maverick returns to a new class of pilots who has never seen experiences he has. He rigorously trains them on maneuvers, techniques, and pushes them to be the best versions of themselves. The film is essential about an individual contributor continuing to find his place while his contemporaries moved to leadership.

Individual contributors are the ones who have the opportunity to deeply innovate on craft—pushing the industries standards. This might be creating a framework that standardizes a way of doing something or pushing technological the bounds. The highest level of leading as an individual contributor is transforming how work is done in your field.

Individual contributors are leaders

I’m personally not a fan of the term “design leader” when referring to managers. There are managers out there who don’t lead, and on the flip side, individual contributors who do. To lead without direct authority is a sign that people are inspired by you. When you’re an individual contributor, you get to be the cool aunt or uncle that people go to for advice. This opens up an incredible path for mentorship and developing people.

Do you want to be Duncan Idaho?

Looking like Jason Mamoa is not part of the requirements of being design’s Duncan Idaho. There can be times where it feels like senior designer purgatory out there. The hope is that individual contributor paths continue developing and become normalized earlier in company stages. A leader as a manager and one as an individual embrace different focuses and strengths.

In every management role I’ve had there is individual contributor representation at the leadership group level. If you find purpose and fulfillment as an individual contributor stick to it. I’m optimistic the path will continue blazing for you.