Carly Schonberg spent most of her early career as a graphic designer. She was in her most recent role working with a small events company for 6.5 years, where she started as a freelance graphic and web designer and was eventually brought on as a full time employee, shuffling into a product design role as their virtual offerings grew.
Having gotten a taste of all stages of product design at her last job, she found the people-focused aspects of UX design really interesting.
“I was feeling a bit stuck in my design career and wanted to take the next step, but wasn't getting any responses to my job applications. UX Academy fixed that!” says Carly.
Carly’s UX Academy Journey
“I was attracted to Designlab because of the Career Services phase. I had confidence in myself as a designer, and I had a feeling I wasn't getting noticed in my job hunt because my knowledge on promoting myself was outdated and lacking,” says Carly.
“To be honest, I thought I would breeze through the design portion of UX Academy, and I couldn't wait to get through it and on to working with a Career Coach. But I was SO pleasantly surprised by how challenging and fulfilling the entire experience was! I really enjoyed challenging myself with totally different projects, and new design tools that didn't even exist when I started my previous job. I also loved interacting with the community of students, learning from them and sharing my design experience with them. It really helped to shake off the rust and inspire me.”
Working as a Senior UI Designer at Bevy
After graduating from UX Academy, Carly was fortunate to get interest from almost half the companies she applied to. But one position in particular stood out to her: a Senior UI Designer at Bevy—a job role posted in the Tech Ladies community (which she found so helpful in her job search in general).
“Bevy stood out as a great company to work for because I got a really good feeling from everyone I talked to during the interview process, which was also very respectful and efficient. I had an initial screener with a recruiter who was an absolute pleasure to work with throughout the process, followed by interviews with the team lead, another teammate, and finally one of the co-founders. All were conversational video calls. I could tell everyone had done their homework on me, as opposed to putting me through endless calls and presentations. We had no trouble sensing that it was a good mutual match,” Carly says.
Of course, Carly was hired at Bevy, and things are going really well! “Although there are the day-to-day challenges of being part of a startup in the process of rapidly scaling, everyone is really passionate about building good practices and supporting each other. The projects I've worked on so far have challenged me in new ways as well,” she says.
Carly now works as one of two senior UI designers on a product design team of 8 (and growing). Bevy is a 100% remote company, which Carly is no stranger to.
“Remote work has its pros and cons, but by coincidence my previous two jobs were also remote, so I'm used to it and I love it. I'm hoping once the world is COVID-free, I can take advantage of the flexibility and spend some extended time traveling,” says Carly. “I’ve spent most of my time at Bevy so far building a brand new design system. We have a fully white-labeled product, so it has been really interesting designing components that can work with any company’s branding while still meeting accessibility guidelines.”
Carly’s Advice for Would-Be UX/UI Designers
Now that Carly has graduated from UX Academy and landed this amazing job (where she no longer feels stagnant in her career), she has some advice for incoming, current, and graduating UX Academy students...
“Look for and join communities that mean something to you, even if they aren't design focused! Whether it's for networking, volunteer projects, or freelancing, you'll do better work and build deeper and longer lasting connections if you devote your energy to something you're passionate about,” says Carly.
The Future...
So what’s the rest of Carly’s world looking like these days? “Normally I love to travel, but recently my life outside of work has been a lot more quiet. I read a lot and enjoy outdoor activities. I've also been spending as much time as I can spare on climate activism!”
Carly discovered the Climate Designers community by chance while looking around to fulfill UX Academy’s networking requirement, and she cites it as “truly one of the best things to come out of my UX Academy experience.” She just recently became the co-lead of the NYC chapter, and has been volunteering design work to a number of other climate projects and organizations as well.
In the coming year, Carly is hoping to find opportunities to mentor junior designers, grow her network, and introduce as many people to Climate Designers as she can!
Check out Carly’s portfolio and connect with her on LinkedIn.
If you’re looking to follow in Carly’s footsteps and find a program to help you grow your design career, we recommend exploring UX Academy. You can apply directly if you meet our prerequisites!
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