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The Not-So-Secret Life of Design Managers (Ted Boda, Instagram)
Hustle
Ep
88
October 20, 2020
45
Min
"I think continuing being able to learn and build on your experience and build on your skillsets, really trying to improve as a professional and even personally. That's why I've been there so long and why I will continue to stay. Because I keep getting those opportunities to learn and be surrounded by incredibly smart people."
About
Ted Boda is currently a Product Design Manager on the Well-Being team at Instagram. He is also a former Director of Design at Udacity, former Senior Designer at Nest Labs, former Lead Mobile Designer at Netflix and a former Lead UI Designer for Keynote at Apple (where, interestingly enough, he worked on some of the slides used for Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth). With all that experience to draw on, we loved having Ted on the show — for a second time — to hear what he's been up to and gain some insight into how design management is done at one of the largest social media platforms on earth.
We cover:
- Guesswork at the beginning of design leadership
- Design leadership at Instagram
- Design tools at Instagram and Facebook
- The Well-being team at Instagram and what they do
- What an average week looks like for Ted.
- His "cameo" on Netflix
- Qualities to look for in Design Managers
- Ted's childhood interests