Design engineering writing and resources
This is a short list of articles, books, blog posts and other resources about the practice of design engineering.
I will periodically update this page as I come across new writing or other media I feel are worth sharing. Please feel free to contact me with links to anything you feel I should consider adding to this list.
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Articles and blog posts
- The Attributes of a Design Engineer by Kathryn Gonzalez — Kathryn is a well-known design engineering leader who built her career as an early employee at DoorDash, creating and leading their Design Infrastructure organization. This is her unique take on design engineering through the lens of personal experience at a fast-growing startup.
- Design engineering, a working definition by Sean Voisen — My own perspective role based on my experience running Design Engineering inside Adobe’s Design organization, highlighting what I call the three primary activities of design engineering: prototyping, design systems engineering, and building high-quality interfaces.
- The Gulf Between Design and Engineering by Rune Madsen — Though not technically about design engineering, this is a great article about building bridges between design and engineering by embracing ambiguity through shared tools and tighter feedback loops.
- Design Engineering by David Hoang — In his newsletter, Proof of Concept, David Hoang calls design engineers this decade’s data scientists—those with the aptitude and skills to excel in a world of AI and multi-device interfaces, where everything seems to be a kind of programming.
- A Collection of Design Engineers — Maggie Appleton published a succinct list of prominent or public-facing design engineers who often build out in the open, highlighting design engineers known for designing and building high-quality, delightful interactions.
- What is Design Engineering? by Guo Chen — Guo shares a broad overview of design engineering based on research and interviews, smattered with useful links to other resources, including podcasts and videos.
- The Case for Design Engineers Part I, Part II, and Part III — Jim Nielsen’s multi-part argument for why design engineering matters, focusing on declarative design, or the idea that a well-crafted, working design artifact (i.e. prototype) should be the deliverable. Be sure to read his example design scenario in Part II.
- The unique value prototyping brings to the design process by Sapna Gathani — Sapna, a manager on my team, wrote this piece for the Adobe Design blog. It covers how design engineers on our prototyping team build high-fidelity prototypes in collaboration with our design team to help them envision, explore and learn about new designs.
- I think I might be a design engineer … by Trys Mumford — Mumford’s multi-part series on design engineering has a special focus on web front-end, but nicely covers prototyping, design systems and designer-developer relationships within that context.
- Become a Design Engineer by Karl Emil James Koch — Practical advice on how to approach design engineering as a newcomer, both by developing the skills and through a kind of “intrapreneurship,” proactively undertaking new projects that allow you to create space for the role in your organization.
- Why a Design Engineer career is an investment in your future by Emil Widlund — Emil shares his journey moving from designer to design engineer, and how embracing the multidisciplinarity of designing and coding allowed him to better express design intent than working in non-programmable design tools.
Books
- Design Engineering Handbook — Perhaps the most thorough, in-depth resource on design engineering in existence. It covers everything from defining the role, describing design engineering processes, tips for collaborating with engineering, career growth, leadership and even organizational design. Published by InVision and well worth a read.
Podcasts and videos
Websites and communities
- d×e — A relatively new platform focused on design engineering that looks promising. As of this writing, it’s most valuable resources seems to be its growing job board as well as its collection of links to other articles and resources about design engineering. I’m excited to see where this one goes!
- Design Technologist Club — The Design Technologist Club has a Slack instance that is relatively quiet. Still, if you’re looking to connect with other design engineers/technologists, it’s a place to start.