Get a seat at the table and build the design career you want. This podcast is for designers looking to break in, level up, and take control of their careers—whether you're freelancing, climbing the corporate ladder, or just trying to get noticed. Every two weeks, we dive into career fundamentals, design best practices, and the hottest topics in the design community.
The One Way to Get Better at (And Still Enjoy) Product Design When AI Does Half the Work
Every designer wants sharper craft and better taste. But with the new tools generating close to all of your work, it's tempting to skip the design fundamentals entirely. I mean... who knows anything about gestalt or color theory anymore?!
Also, social media is full of hot takes claiming UX is dead and the double diamond is over. None of this or the above helps you to enjoy your job as a Product Designer. Luckily, there's a better way.
In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick continue their series on becoming a modern, in-demand product designer with part two: improving your hard skills. They skip the hype and focus on how you get better at the output, whether you like building everything by hand or running 20 directions in parallel.
Tyler makes the case for learning the fundamentals the slow way first, so you can art direct the tools instead of just trusting whatever they come up with. He shares how he uses Figma's agent to apply a design system to his mockups, and why talking through a problem with ChatGPT for 30 minutes is part of his discovery. Nick is much more skeptical and explains why reviewing an AI-generated 80% version can be more exhausting than designing it yourself.
They also agree on a very boring answer: repetition. Copy the designers you admire, make something every day, and build a playground of experiments that shows off your range.
In this episode you will learn:
🔸 Why junior designers need to nail hard skills before leaning on AI tools
🔸 What AI design tools still get wrong, from happy path flows to generic styling
🔸 Why the journey map is the one step you shouldn't skip
🔸 How a branch-and-merge workflow could make code the source of truth for design
🔸 Why repetition and daily design challenges still beat every shortcut
🔸 Why one to two year goals beat a five year plan
🔸 How a playground page with 52 experiments helps you stand out, especially as a freelancer
🔸 How Tyler uses Figma's agent to apply components, spacing, and variables from a design system
🔸 Why the double diamond isn't dead, it's on steroids
🔸 How talking a problem through with ChatGPT turns into personal discovery
🔸 How Nick and Tyler's opposite working styles show up everywhere, down to a broken dishwasher
🔸 This week's challenge: a portfolio hero section with no centered layout that works in English, Spanish, and German
Subscribe to The Design Table Podcast https://www.designtablepodcast.com/subscribe
Resources to help you level up your design career: Get your portfolio and career strategy reviewed with a Design Table Audit https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/design-table-audit
Download the Product Design Blueprint https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/product-design-blueprint
Join our UX and product design community https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/ux-and-product-design-community
In need of support? Take a look at our resources https://www.designtablepodcast.com/learn
More about Tyler and Nick Tyler: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/tyler-white Nick: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/nick-groeneveld
30 Sept 2026
The Best Way To Get Product Design Experience When You Have None
Junior product designers know what it is like. To get a job you need experience; and to get experience, you need a job. How do you break free of this annoying circle? The internet is full of generic suggestions that do not really get you anywhere. Luckily, there's a better way.
In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick tackle the experience-job circle mentioned above. They skip the tired advice of redesigning a famous website and focus on what gets you real clients, real work, and real proof.
Tyler makes the case for doing free work the right way, from pitching local businesses a redesign in exchange for a testimonial to building a home services website before you even reach out. Nick explains why good outreach makes things easier for the other person, and shares the Loom and FigJam combo that gets him a reply almost every time.
They also get honest about timelines. Bootcamps promise a new career in weeks. Nick puts it closer to two years and Tyler caps it at one year if you're willing to make sacrifices.
In this episode you will learn:
🔸 Why free work in exchange for a testimonial beats another pet project
🔸 How to pitch a local business without sounding desperate
🔸 Why freelance-style experience translates to in-house roles
🔸 What Dan Mall gets right about cold outreach, and why Don't Make Me Think applies to your pitch
🔸 How answering an A or B question with option C landed Nick a client
🔸 Why building the website before you pitch speeds up the sale and lets you charge more
🔸 How offering to do the job until they find someone can make you the person they keep
🔸 Why small, unscalable gestures like handmade cookies or a printed portfolio get you remembered
🔸 The two-minute Loom that gets Nick a reply and an invite to talk almost every time
🔸 Why vibe coded pet projects can hurt your portfolio, and when a playground page still works
🔸 How long it really takes to land your first paying design job
Subscribe to The Design Table Podcast https://www.designtablepodcast.com/subscribe
Resources to help you level up your design career: Get your portfolio and career strategy reviewed with a Design Table Audit https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/design-table-audit
Download the Product Design Blueprint https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/product-design-blueprint
Join our UX and product design community https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/ux-and-product-design-community
In need of support? Take a look at our resources https://www.designtablepodcast.com/learn
More about Tyler and Nick Tyler: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/tyler-white Nick: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/nick-groeneveld
23 Sept 2026
Your Product Design Setup - How To Go From Idea To Live Prototype In Just a Few Clicks
Imagine you found a bug on your client's website. Back in the day, you'd have to get that issue on the agenda and agreed on before even starting to work on it. Today, Nick's website fix went live twelve seconds after he clicked 'sync', and the whole setup costs about twenty-five dollars a month.
In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick kick off a ten-episode series on how to become a modern, in-demand product designer. They start with the foundation: setting up an environment that helps you get an idea off the ground and into a working prototype fast. It is a modern product designer's way of doing things now.
Tyler explains how connecting analytics tools through MCPs gets you a project baseline the same day, and Nick shares why faster data still means you have to think about whether it's the right data.
They also break down how designers can capture and act on ideas, from Nick's Granola and Zapier pipeline that scores every meeting red, orange, or green to Tyler's scheduled Claude recaps that catch what he missed in Slack and Jira. Nick closes out with the exact hosting, GitHub, and Claude setup he uses to push changes live.
In this episode you will learn:
🔸 Why connecting analytics through MCPs cuts your baseline research from weeks to a single day
🔸 Why faster access to data doesn't help if you're filtering it wrong
🔸 What a funnel actually is and how it overlaps with a customer journey
🔸 How to match your design to a buyer's mindset so you don't spook them or oversell
🔸 How Nick vibe coded a baby tracker for his newborn twins, and why every designer needs a setup that turns an idea into a link in minutes
🔸 How to capture ideas automatically with Granola, Zapier, and Slack
🔸 How Tyler uses scheduled Claude runs for a daily catch-up, a weekly recap, and one-click vibe coding prompts for open design tasks
🔸 The exact stack Nick runs: hosting, GitHub, VS Code, and Claude, plus why Claude Pro is enough to start
🔸 Why you still need to learn the rules of design before you can break them
Subscribe to The Design Table Podcast https://www.designtablepodcast.com/subscribe
Resources to help you level up your design career: Get your portfolio and career strategy reviewed with a Design Table Audit https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/design-table-audit
Download the Product Design Blueprint https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/product-design-blueprint
Join our UX and product design community https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/ux-and-product-design-community
In need of support? Take a look at our resources https://www.designtablepodcast.com/learn
More about Tyler and Nick Tyler: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/tyler-white Nick: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/nick-groeneveld
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
YouTube views
980
Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025
Podcast Authority Score: 56 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
86
Social presence
0
YouTube
66
Engagement
0
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Guest appearances
Books guests
Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.
Questions about Design Table Podcast
Who hosts Design Table Podcast?
Nick Groeneveld and Tyler White and Nick and Tyler host the show. Published by Nick Groeneveld, Tyler White.
How often do new episodes come out?
The show publishes daily, based on its RSS feed.
Does Design Table Podcast take guests?
Yes. Guests have been identified in episode analyses.
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