Archive - Systems & Signals

The Career Lattice

#046: Why the future of design careers looks more like a network than a ladder. Part 6 of Design Your Next Move.

15 hrs ago • Justin Delabar

Make the Invisible Visible

#045: The work nobody sees is often the most valuable work that you do. Part 5 of Design Your Next Move.

Apr 8 • Justin Delabar

The New Design Skill Stack

#044: What to learn and what to keep. Part 4 of Design Your Next Move.

Apr 6 • Justin Delabar

Sunday Signals: 30,000 jobs gone by email, Big Tech's tobacco moment, and the standoff nobody wants to name

Oracle's AI trade-off laid bare, a jury calls social media a defective product, and the emerging tension of design/PM/engineering overlap.

Apr 5 • Justin Delabar

From Craftsperson to Conductor

#043: Why the skills that got you here won't get you to whatever's coming next. Part 3 of Design Your Next Move.

Apr 3 • Justin Delabar

Think Like a Designer, Act Like a Strategist

#042: Your career is a system you can design. Part 2 of Design Your Next Move.

Apr 1 • Justin Delabar

March 2026

Your Design Career Won't Be Killed by AI; It'll Be Killed by Inertia

#041: How to build a living framework for an uncertain field. Part 1 of Design Your Next Move.

Mar 30 • Justin Delabar

Sunday Signals: The ratio flipped, the deadline nobody's ready for, and the end of Figma as a design tool

This week's Sunday brief: new data on the design hiring gap, a compliance deadline four weeks out, and Figma buying its way into a different company.

Mar 29 • Justin Delabar

The Superpower That's Burning Us Out

#040: How the novelty-reward loop that makes AI tools so useful for neurodivergent brains also exhausts us.

Mar 25 • Justin Delabar

Design Systems as AI Infrastructure

#039: What IBM and SAP's newly launched design system MCP servers mean for how you build and structure your system.

Mar 23 • Justin Delabar

Sunday Signals: Figma, the job market, and other things not bouncing back

Doom-and-gloom edition.

Mar 22 • Justin Delabar

January 2026

Designing Through the AI Panic

#038: AI anxiety and indifference is not a design strategy.

Jan 20 • Justin Delabar

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