How She Built an AI Career Coach That Helped Her Get Promoted to Staff Designer ✦ Ember Liu
How do you get promoted from Senior to Staff Product Designer & can an AI career coach help you get there? @emberandcarol
Ember Liu, a Staff Product Designer at Intuit, takes us inside the AI career coach she built with Claude. By giving it context, she uses her AI career coach in her day-to-day workflow to prepare for 1:1s, manage up, navigate difficult conversations, identify UX career blind spots, and ultimately build a stronger promotion case.
We also discuss the real differences between Senior and Staff Product Designers, how to connect UX design work to business impact, align cross-functional teams, and influence without authority. More importantly, Ember shares candid lessons from her own journey and a grounded perspective on how to keep growing, even when career progression feels slow or circumstances outside your control get in the way.
If you’re a Product Designer, Senior Product Designer, or UX Designer trying to reach the next level, feeling stuck in your UX design career, or looking for practical ways to use Claude and AI agents for career growth, you CANNOT miss this conversation!
🕗 Timestamps
00:00 Intro
00:35 Meet Ember Liu: Staff Product Designer at Intuit
02:34 How She Planned Her Staff Product Designer Promotion
06:14 When & How to Talk to Your Manager About Promotion
07:59 The Biggest Gap Between Senior and Staff Product Designers
09:19 How to Document Your Career Impact
11:34 What Counts as Promotion Evidence
13:59 Working with Data and Challenging Metrics
16:19 How She Built an AI Career Coach with Claude
17:34 Giving an AI Career Coach the Right Context
19:34 4 Skills for AI Career Coach
22:34 How AI Reveals Your Career Blind Spots
26:04 Keep Training and Improving Your AI Career Coach
28:04 Using AI Career Coach to Build a Promotion Case
30:14 Senior Product Designer vs. Staff Product Designer
32:34 How to Align Cross-Functional Teams
35:34 How to Influence Without Authority
38:04 Building Trust as a Staff Product Designer
41:34 Looking Beyond Design Deliverables
43:34 Advice for Product Designers/UX Designers Stuck at Senior Level
45:54 Finding Fulfillment Beyond Product Design/UX Design Work
💫 About Ember Liu
Ember is a Staff Product Designer at Intuit. Before joining Intuit, she worked at Airwallex and several startups. Outside of work, Ember writes about product design and career growth and creates content with her friend Carol.
🔗 Connect with Ember
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ember-liu/
Newsletter (How to Build Your Own Career Agent): https://emberliu.substack.com/p/how-to-build-your-own-career-agent
YouTube: @emberandcarol
RedNote: https://xhslink.cn/o/1A7xCeSX2yq
📌 Disclosure: The views and opinions expressed in this episode are those of the host and guest and do not necessarily reflect those of their current or former employers or affiliated organizations.
#productdesign #uxdesign #staffdesigner #staffproductdesigner #productdesigner #designcareers #careergrowthcoaching #claudeai #aicareercoach #claudeskills #uxdesigner #uxdesigners #uxcareer #ux #uxtips #careercoach #uxdesigntips #uxd
Ember Liu, a Staff Product Designer at Intuit, takes us inside the AI career coach she built with Claude. By giving it context, she uses her AI career coach in her day-to-day workflow to prepare for 1:1s, manage up, navigate difficult conversations, identify UX career blind spots, and ultimately build a stronger promotion case.
We also discuss the real differences between Senior and Staff Product Designers, how to connect UX design work to business impact, align cross-functional teams, and influence without authority. More importantly, Ember shares candid lessons from her own journey and a grounded perspective on how to keep growing, even when career progression feels slow or circumstances outside your control get in the way.
If you’re a Product Designer, Senior Product Designer, or UX Designer trying to reach the next level, feeling stuck in your UX design career, or looking for practical ways to use Claude and AI agents for career growth, you CANNOT miss this conversation!
🕗 Timestamps
00:00 Intro
00:35 Meet Ember Liu: Staff Product Designer at Intuit
02:34 How She Planned Her Staff Product Designer Promotion
06:14 When & How to Talk to Your Manager About Promotion
07:59 The Biggest Gap Between Senior and Staff Product Designers
09:19 How to Document Your Career Impact
11:34 What Counts as Promotion Evidence
13:59 Working with Data and Challenging Metrics
16:19 How She Built an AI Career Coach with Claude
17:34 Giving an AI Career Coach the Right Context
19:34 4 Skills for AI Career Coach
22:34 How AI Reveals Your Career Blind Spots
26:04 Keep Training and Improving Your AI Career Coach
28:04 Using AI Career Coach to Build a Promotion Case
30:14 Senior Product Designer vs. Staff Product Designer
32:34 How to Align Cross-Functional Teams
35:34 How to Influence Without Authority
38:04 Building Trust as a Staff Product Designer
41:34 Looking Beyond Design Deliverables
43:34 Advice for Product Designers/UX Designers Stuck at Senior Level
45:54 Finding Fulfillment Beyond Product Design/UX Design Work
💫 About Ember Liu
Ember is a Staff Product Designer at Intuit. Before joining Intuit, she worked at Airwallex and several startups. Outside of work, Ember writes about product design and career growth and creates content with her friend Carol.
🔗 Connect with Ember
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ember-liu/
Newsletter (How to Build Your Own Career Agent): https://emberliu.substack.com/p/how-to-build-your-own-career-agent
YouTube: @emberandcarol
RedNote: https://xhslink.cn/o/1A7xCeSX2yq
📌 Disclosure: The views and opinions expressed in this episode are those of the host and guest and do not necessarily reflect those of their current or former employers or affiliated organizations.
#productdesign #uxdesign #staffdesigner #staffproductdesigner #productdesigner #designcareers #careergrowthcoaching #claudeai #aicareercoach #claudeskills #uxdesigner #uxdesigners #uxcareer #ux #uxtips #careercoach #uxdesigntips #uxd