Tommy Smith - How side projects can land you a dream job

Remember when the Carl Rivera (https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/carl-rivera) told us about his vision to create the new Shopify Product Design Studio?Well in this episode I got to sit down with Marvin Schwaibold (https://x.com/MSchwaibold) from Molly studio who Shopify recently acquired to bring that vision to life.We go deep into creativity, Marvin's journey with Molly, how he's building his ideas with AI, and a lot more.Some highlights:- How to become a well of creative ideas- How AI unlocks how designers work at Shopify- What design differentiation looks like at Shopify- What Marvin has learned diving into Claude Code- How designers at Shopify create and leverage internal tools- Behind-the-scenes of redesigning the famous Collins website- + a lot more- Jaytel - Marvin’s design partner from Molly studio https://x.com/Jaytel- Brian Collins - legendary designer who worked on the Collins website redesign https://wearecollins.com/- Carl Rivera - Shopify’s Chief Design Officer (referenced previous Dive Club episode) https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/carl-rivera- Design Fluid Interfaces video from Apple’s Human Interface team (2019) [https://developer.apple.com/br/videos/play/wwdc2018/803/?time=1551](https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2019/808/)- Claude Code - AI coding tool by Anthropic https://claude.ai/login- Artifact - internal Shopify tool for showcasing design work https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jaytel_this-was-meant-to-stay-inside-shopify-but-activity-7422739773561384960-oqiU/

Flora Guo (https://x.com/floguo) has one of the more impressive career trajectories of anyone I've interviewed on this show.She's currently the founding design engineer at Paradigm. But before that Guillermo (Vercel CEO) personally DM'd her to join the Vercel team.So we're going deep into career growth, design engineering, what it's like being a founding designer at an AI-native startup.- What it’s like being a founding design engineer at Paradigm- The challenges of designing AI-first products that work at scale- Flora’s experiments with new design tools like Paper and Variant- What Flora learned working alongside top design engineers at Vercel- How Flora evolved her workflow with Claude Code over the past year- Mental models for using AI as a learning tool rather than just a task executor- + a lot more- Tokyo Design Forum (February 2026) - https://www.tokyodesignforum.com/- UI Engineering 101 by Mariana Castillo and Derek Briggs - https://maven.com/pixeljanitor/uiengineering-101-for-designers- We talked about Rauno Freiberg's portfolio (Vercel design engineer) - https://rauno.me/- New tools: Paper - https://join.dive.club/paper-ad-email

Today's episode is with Kris Puckett who has led design at Mercury, Dropbox, and now as a design manager at Stripe.His journey is the perfect example of what it looks like to lean into this moment in time with AI.Some highlights:- Behind the scenes of Kris’s Epilogue app- How to create custom skills with Claude Code- How to start building personal systems with AI- How Kris taught Claude to be a metal shader expert- Building internal tools and workflows with AI at Stripe- + a lot more

What does it look like to demonstrate uncommon care in the way you design and build an interface?Josh Puckett has has spent nearly two decades designing products like Wealthfront, Dropbox and helping dozens of startups.But recently he released Interface Craft which is a library of everything he's learned about through the years about designing with “uncommon care” 👇⭐ Use this code for 20% off Interface Craft: DIVE20Some highlights:Josh’s principles for great designMorphing strategies for micro-interactionsHow the value proposition of design is shiftingHe builds a custom pattern generator on the flyHow Josh makes storyboards to collaborate with AIWalks us through how he designed the onboarding flow

Today's episode is with Luis Ouriach (https://x.com/disco_lu) whose role as a designer advocate at Figma means he's constantly helping teams navigate this rapidly changing landscape... especially when it comes to design systems.So we're going to do a deep dive into the trends he's noticing and what it all means for designers.Some highlights:- How design systems are changing with AI- Luis’s ideas around agentic design systems- Pitfalls to avoid when adopting AI with your team- What trends we can ignore vs. what is really important- Luis’s journey as a builder and his career plan moving forward- What Figma's new integration with Claude and Codex unlocksLuis’s agentic design systems article: https://medium.com/@disco_lu/building-agentic-design-systems-the-future-of-ai-enhanced-design-6ad0470cf1e3

Today's episode with Cameron Worboys (Head of Product Design at Cash App) is an inside look at how an AI-native design org operates and the ways designers can thrive in this new world.We go deep into:The new archetypes of designersCam's vision for bespoke softwareThe #1 trait that Cam looks for in design hiresHow >90% of designers at Cash are shipping PRsWhat to do if you don't want to become an IC builderHow to create an emotional attachment to your productHow Cash has replaced the old engineering/product/design triadJulien Martin's episode - https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/julien-martin

A few weeks ago, Stripe launched their [new site (https://stripe.com/) and reminded everyone who the 🐐 of web design is…So I asked their Head of Design, Katie Dill (https://www.linkedin.com/in/katie-dill-79168b3) , to walk us through some of the tiny design decisions that make it so special.But we also did a deep dive into how the practice of design is evolving at Stripe and everything they’re doing to push past the status quo.Some highlights:- How the “call for a new aesthetic” is influencing design culture at Stripe- How their internal tool Protodash is changing the way designers prototype- The most important signals that Katie looks for when hiring designers- What the concentration of craft looks like in an AI era- + a lot moreCall for a new aesthetic - Patrick Collison and Tyler Cowen’s grant program (https://newaesthetics.art/)Cultural Tutor YouTube video: https://youtube.com/watch?v=tWYxrowovts“Beauty is the New Business Tool” - 1927 Atlantic article (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1927/08/beauty-the-new-business-tool/376227/)

As software becomes easier to create than ever, what does it look like to truly differentiate with design?Today's episode with Julien Martin (https://x.com/julienmartin_?lang=en) is an attempt to answer that question.He was the Head of Design at Zenly, Snapchat, and Amo which is some of the most uniquely impressive consumer design I've ever seen.Some highlights:- Behind the scenes of early Amo explorations- How the composition of design orgs is changing- The unlock that led to Amo's unique visual language- Julien’s advice for how to succeed in today’s job market- The untold story of how Julien joined in the early days of Behance- Why side projects are now the strongest signal when hiring designers*- Andy Allen (https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/andy-allen) (referenced multiple times for his “not boring” article and Camera app)- Off Market (https://offmarketjobs.substack.com/) (Julien’s talent agency for designers)- Retro app (https://retro.app/) and Duolingo (https://www.duolingo.com/) (mentioned as inspiration)

Today's episode is with Tommy Smith who recently landed a new role as a part of the Dive Talent Network.So we're doing a deep dive into what makes his portfolio so effective:Making his side project a first-class citizenPositioning himself as a new design engineerAdding personality by experimenting with RiveHighlighting what matters most in his case studiesFlexing his craft muscles and nailed the finer details

Ryan Stephen (https://x.com/Ryan__Stephen) is a product designer at Microsoft, but the reason I wanted to interview him is because he's the man behind some of my favorite design experiments on Twitter.So in this episode Ryan gives us a behind-the-scenes look at his creative process, the tools in his stack, and how he approaches effective storytelling in design.Some highlights:- How Ryan sparks creativity- The power of putting your work on Twitter- How Ryan thinks about investing in his career- Ryan’s mental model for fidelity and prototyping- The lessons Ryan’s learned about effective storytelling- The tools and techniques Ryan uses to make ideas feel real- + a lot more