--- title: "Why Hybrid Design Managers Should Stay in the Craft" description: "Senior designers are still told to pick a lane: manager, or expert. The stronger option is the hybrid design manager — someone who keeps shipping, on purpose, while still growing people. The manager-versus-IC fork hid a third path: stay in craft without dropping the team. Expert..." publishDate: Sun Oct 04 2026 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) author: Romain Penchenat language: en tags: ["hybrid design manager","individual contributor career","design career tracks","design leadership","product design"] canonical: https://blog.romain.garden/blog/hybrid-design-manager-stay-in-the-craft/ estimated-read-time-in-minutes: 7 --- Senior designers are still told to pick a lane: manager, or expert. The stronger option is the hybrid design manager — someone who keeps shipping, on purpose, while still growing people. Senior designers still get the same career fork. Go manager, and you risk being pulled off the work. Stay expert, and you risk being treated as the person who never quite "leveled up." For a long time those were the only two doors, and the manager door was the one that paid and the one that counted socially. That split is outdated. It was never the only option. To dive deep into this, I sat down with Malija Saifullah, a leading authority in hybrid design management at PayFit. She kept her hands in the work on purpose — not as a branding exercise. Design was missing from her week, and you cannot grow junior designers if your own craft is rusting. The useful question is no longer manager or individual contributor. It is when a **hybrid design manager** should still ship, and how to do that without stealing the team's autonomy. *** ## Why the Hybrid Design Manager Role Exists > **The old senior fork — manager or expert — hid a third path: stay in craft while you still grow people.** Early in her career, Malija still saw design managers who had never designed. That profile has mostly disappeared. What replaced it was a cleaner, more rigid tree: once you are senior, you pick. Manager track or expert track. People leader or **individual contributor career**. You have to choose. The expert side of that fork was not valued. Pay was worse. Perceived impact was worse. Social pressure pointed at manager, director, VP — titles that looked heavier than a super IC. The expert role already had extraordinary reach: a more transverse scope, real pedagogy toward more junior designers, and strategic weight for the company and for users. Valuing that role is both perception and salary. In some French companies, she says, we are not there yet. Super ICs are still not paid or seen at their real worth compared with other countries. It is moving, especially on pay. Manager and expert used to be compensated differently. That is changing, and it should: the impact you can have as a manager, you can have in another way as an expert. PayFit is a concrete case. Two former managers switched tracks and went expert. Ghita Benotmane — an extraordinary product leader — moved into service design, with strategic impact across the company. That kind of move only becomes possible once the expert track is treated as a real destination. Malija did the inverse. She never fully left the work. At PayFit she has kept a craft side since she arrived. Freelance and volunteer design projects sat alongside the job for the same reason: craft is why we stay designers — creativity, taste, usefulness. The hybrid role is the shape that finally matches that. *How design career tracks shifted — click each step* 1. **Managers who had never designed** — Early in her career, Malija still saw design managers who had never done the work. That profile has mostly disappeared. 2. **The senior fork: manager or expert** — What replaced it was a rigid tree. Once you became a senior designer, you had to choose the manager track or the expert individual-contributor track. 3. **Expert IC under-valued** — Pay was worse, perceived impact was worse, and social pressure pointed at manager, director, and VP — titles that looked heavier than a super IC. 4. **The expert track starts to count** — Valuation is both perception and salary. Some French companies still lag other countries, but pay is moving, and PayFit had former managers switch to expert — including Ghita Benotmane moving into service design. 5. **The hybrid path** — Malija took the inverse move: keep a craft side while managing. Freelance and volunteer design work sat alongside the job so the craft never left. *** ## What Individual Contributor Work Means for Design Leadership > **Being an IC as a manager is not designing full-time. It is staying current enough to cover, co-build, and pick the work that actually needs you.** "IC while you manage" is a fuzzy phrase. You can optimize it forever. Malija hears about US companies where one person manages forty-five managers and still designs. She does not see that as real. The useful question is what we even mean by the work: QA? Tiny projects? Vision? Design today is not only interfaces. It is behaviors, systems, strategic calls, product calls. Her bar is practical. You need to know the scope of the designers on your team. You need to be able to do the micro work — to cover someone short-term, or to co-build with other designers. That only works if you stay current: craft, design-system pieces, what is new. That part does not change. How it plays out for her: she can jump in where there is no designer. Not as a long-term assignment. She could do full-time senior work inside a squad. That is not what the role is for. The filter is where her stamp actually helps the team, the user, or the company's strategy. Time split is equally fuzzy. In design, managers already talk projects the way an IC would. Is that management, or co-construction? If you isolate the people work — growing someone, change management, helping the team discover AI — that is a fairly small slice of her week. It still matters. It just shows up inside the projects they build together. AI can take some of the org micro-tasks off a manager's plate. Management of humans does not go away. *** ## When Hybrid Design Managers Should Take the Work > **Jump in for short-term coverage and for the most strategic, transverse problems — not to become the squad's full-time senior.** The criteria are case by case. She will not call a particular alert "beneath" a manager. If the team needs craft on a micro-project, you should be as fast as a senior designer who could do it. Short-term coverage is part of the job. The stronger case for a manager taking design work is strategic. Transverse scopes. Pieces designers cannot see from inside their own areas. Vision. Co-building with designers, including wow features: you infuse those by making designs, mockups, and prototypes, and by talking to engineers, PMs, and anyone else who can move them. So the work that most needs a **hybrid design manager** is the most strategic work, and the work where you can actually help the team behind you. Leading by example. Taking responsibility on the big transverse subjects. And then the manager hat, which is still the job. People still need a manager. *When the hybrid manager takes the work* | | Take it yourself | Leave it with the team | | ------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | Time horizon | Short-term cover — Jump in where there is no designer, or where the team needs craft right now. | Not a long-term squad seat — Full-time senior work inside a squad is possible — it is not what the hybrid role is for. | | Craft level | Even a particular alert, at senior speed — Classic craft is not beneath a manager. You should be as fast as a senior who could do it. | Day-to-day ownership inside a squad — The default is still the designers who already hold that scope. | | Why you | Transverse, vision, or a gap they cannot see — Scopes that cross teams, wow features, mockups and prototypes, conversations with engineers and PMs. | It does not need your stamp — If the work does not help the team, the user, or company strategy in a way only you can offer, it stays with them. | | How it should feel | Lead by example, then keep the manager hat — Take responsibility on the big transverse subjects. People still need a manager. | Their work, with you as a colleague when useful — Co-build when it helps. Do not turn the role into a permanent extra senior on the squad. | *** ## How to Prepare for a Hybrid Design Manager Role > **Love the craft, want to grow people, learn to influence without controlling, and get comfortable switching from a side panel to an AI strategy conversation in the same afternoon.** Coming from an **individual contributor career** toward hybrid — or the other way — starts with knowing yourself. Craft is the base, whether you want management or not. Tools change. Creativity, beauty, empathy do not. That love of craft has to stay, on a pure IC path, a pure manager path, or a hybrid one. That is her personal line, and she is clear it is an opinion. Then ask if you actually want to manage. The old error was treating management as the default promotion: anyone can do it, everyone should pass through it. That is a mistake. You can push influence as a senior designer inside a small squad, locally. That is fine. You can do it more transversely. You can do it as a hybrid manager. None of those is mandatory. The test is whether you like growing people — knowing them, accompanying them, working with them that way. Third: influence without controlling. You have a hierarchical role. You also sit with designers, PMs, and engineers in squads. The job is to push impact without taking decisions out of their hands. The switch between IC and manager has to be done with some care. Fourth: energy. The tax is context-switching, micro to macro, many times a day. A particular alert or a side panel in the morning. An hour later, the arrival of AI in the product. You have to like that movement. ### How you leave autonomy anyway She does not claim to have solved micromanagement. What helps is making the hybrid role explicit. Her designers know she has that dual hat. On design projects she will go into the micro-details, propose, co-build — like a colleague in the room, not like a boss inspecting pixels. Workshops. Thinking together. If the role is clear, that reads as mutual help, not control. The same clarity has to hold with engineers and PMs: co-build, do not impose. Explain the role. Ask questions. Say when you are in IC mode and when the manager hat is back on. The line will never be perfectly sharp. It has to be understandable. That is what avoids most of the daily friction. *** ## Final Thoughts This is never an easy subject. Managers still have every reason to go toward craft — to put their hands back in the work. It puts you closer to the field, closer to the designers you work with every day, and closer to users. Those are the people the role is for. Those are the people users need too. *** ## FAQs ### What is a hybrid design manager? A hybrid design manager keeps an individual-contributor craft side while still managing people: staying current enough to cover short-term work, co-build with designers, and take the most strategic or transverse problems, without becoming a squad's full-time senior. ### Should every senior designer become a manager? No. Treating management as the default promotion was a mistake. You can push influence as a senior designer inside a small squad, at a more transverse level, or in a hybrid manager role — and only the last of those requires wanting to grow people. ### When should a hybrid design manager take a design project? Case by case: short-term coverage, including classic craft done at senior speed, and the most strategic work — transverse scopes, vision, wow features, and problems designers cannot see from inside their own areas. Not as a long-term full-time seat on a squad. ### How do hybrid design managers avoid micromanagement? Make the dual role explicit, co-build like a colleague instead of imposing choices, and say when you are in IC mode versus wearing the manager hat. If that is understandable to designers, PMs, and engineers, the collaboration reads as mutual help rather than control.