I am a Senior level designer, experienced also worked at FANG companoes. Don't want to be a manager. In my mid 30s so no spring chicken. What's left to do? Any advice from designers who have similar problems - what career path did you follow?
Director level IC
Linkedin has a bunch of principal IC roles. Also switching between IC and Management is fairly easy, and people have done that more than 2-3 times in LinkedIn. PM me if you are interested to know more.
OP you have a lot of choices! 1) Founding designer for a start up, 2) starting or joining a design agency, 3) going freelance / contract for max freedom or as others mentioned 4) becoming a principal / staff at a large corp. Depends on what you’re optimizing for. I’ve dabbled in all the above and gravitated towards where I thought I could grow the most at the time.
You could also try adjacent roles like product management. It’s a harder transition to make but I know a couple folks who pulled it off.
If OP is a designer at Uber, transitioning to product management shouldn’t be too difficult because every designer I’ve talked to at Uber was very articulate and thoughtful. May have to do it at a smaller company, but I was almost hired as PM at Amazon so who’s to say.
Principle all the way. People that can do, should do. People that can’t do, manage.
Salesforce has IC equivalents to pretty much any management role. I believe above Principal is Distinguished. I've had the same thoughts myself though if I want to work somewhere a bit smaller next and be more of that founding designer type.
There are a good number of Principal level (above Senior, below Partner) non-management designers at Microsoft. Usually owning a feature area alone and working with a PM to drive engineering work. Well paid with a good amount of autonomy.
Microsoft has some kick-ass principal designers. Much respect.