Product Designer on a Progress Over Perfection Mentality

Name: Pekka Murto

PhD: Design, Aalto University, 2017

What is your current job?

I am a Product Designer for Vend in Helsinki, Finland.

I focus on end-to-end product design for digital products (discovery, user research, design, prototyping etc.).

What is your favorite thing about your job?

I love helping to drive sustainability through our products and being able to use a broad range of skills in doing it, both the analytical and creative ones.

What is the most important skill you developed or experience you had during your PhD that now helps you in your current position?

How to make sense of data (qualitative and quantitative)

How did you build the skills necessary for your current role?

I had a degree in design before starting doctoral studies and much of it comes from there, but I also did have a design side hustle to keep a foot in the industry. I actively learned how to work with digital design tools, took part in mentoring and followed the "altac" career discussion and podcasts for inspiration.

How did you find this position? What were the career steps you took to get to where you are now?

I was originally sourced through LinkedIn by a recruiter.

PhD graduate ➡️ Postdoc researcher ➡️ Senior design researcher ➡️ Senior service and UX designer

If someone is interested in a similar role, what would you recommend they start doing now to prepare?

Immerse yourself in the professional field of design: read blogs, Medium articles, industry trends... Also, start working with service design / product design already in academic – this should be relatively easy if you are in design academia: learn the tools, create personal projects or go through courses (eg. Google) to build your designer credentials.

Why did you decide to not pursue a career in academia?

It was not a clear decision, and I did have one foot in the industry all the time so it is hard to define, but the final decision was when my postdoc was coming to an end. I did not see good options for me in academia and I needed (and wanted) a permanent job. The decision was relatively easy to make.

What advice do you have for someone getting their PhD and looking to pursue a career outside of academia?

Network and mingle with people in industry, choose your study subject as something that resonates with industrial logic and always, always remember that there are great and intellectually rewarding jobs outside of academia.

Also, embrace a progress over perfection mentality – academic life is typically very slow whereas in industry you often need to work fast, make decisions with imperfect information and fail to learn.

And for those interested, what was your main area of research?

I focus on the use of design in product development, especially in the development of complex products and services. My PhD focused on design in shipbuilding, where my postdoc was in a different area (energy transition from a user/buyer perspective).