Nobody Told Me How to Get Here | A Why Design Guide on Being Hired
The hardware and deep tech industry does not do much to tell talented people how to get in, when to make a move, or how to build a career that lasts.
Over twelve episodes of Why Design, Chris Whyte has spoken with founders, CTOs, and senior design and engineering leaders who worked all of that out for themselves, often without a roadmap.
This compilation is the result.
Featured guests
- Tess Cosad, CEO, Bรฉa Fertility (Ep 01) on the one thing she looks for in every hire, and what that tells candidates about how to show up.
- Dan Salisbury, Industrial Designer, Automata (Ep 02) on almost not passing probation, playing to his strengths, and why he would not jump ship for anything less than exactly right.
- Dr Liz McGloughlin, Co-Founder, Tympany Medical (Ep 03) on how to articulate yourself in five or six sentences, and why most people skip the most practisable part of interview preparation.
- Rob Hallifax, Co-Founder, Windfall Energy (Ep 04) on meeting his co-founder at a random IoT meetup and why getting out there is the one strategy that has never let him down.
- Sid Shaikh, CTO, Fieldwork Robotics (Ep 05) on what attracts great engineers to startups, and why communication is the professional habit that compounds fastest over a career.
- Felicity Boyce, Head of R&D, Koroyd (Ep 06) on going with her gut to move to Monaco for a role she could not fully see yet, and what saying yes to something terrifying actually taught her.
- Matt Batchelor, Co-founder, Instrument Industries (Ep 08) on building a portfolio after redundancy, funding a master's degree through a Victorian-era scholarship, and his take on what a career actually is.
- Bob Schwartz, Design Leader and CDO, GE Healthcare, P&G, and Motorola (Ep 10) on table stakes in an interview, how to guide the room when you are the one being interviewed, and the question he wishes someone had asked him thirty years earlier.
- Mark Tapscott, Co-founder, Longbow Motors (Ep 11) on buying a Lotus Elise on a student loan, trading his time with race teams to get in, and what it costs to live the work you have always wanted to do.
- Lisa Gralnek, US Managing Director, iF Design (Ep 12) on a thirty-year career of taking roles that did not exist, and what it means to be found rather than to apply.
- Stephan Clambaneva, Creative Director, PARK (Ep 14) on what David Kelly told him about identity, and why leaning into what makes you different is the only career strategy that actually holds up.
- Shaun Fynn, Founder, Studio Fynn (Ep 16) on what he believed about design at 25 that he no longer believes, and why the impact he was after requires disciplines design cannot access on its own.
What you will learn
* Why the skills on your CV are table stakes and what interviewers are actually deciding in the room
* How to articulate who you are as a designer or engineer in five to six sentences before anyone asks
* Why the most interesting hardware careers were built through side doors, traded time, and things that looked wrong from the outside
* How to trust your gut on a career move when you do not have all the information
* What sustains a long career in physical product when the work is hard and the bag is still packed
* Why leaning into what makes you different is more effective than trying to replicate what worked for someone else
* How to communicate up and down and across technical and non-technical audiences as a technical leader
* What the question "what is your why" actually reveals when you have to answer it honestly
Resources and Links
Bรฉa Fertility: https://www.whydesign.club/episodes/S5E1
Automata: https://www.whydesign.club/episodes/S5E2
Tympany Medical: https://www.whydesign.club/episodes/S5E3
Windfall Energy: https://www.whydesign.club/episodes/S5E4
Fieldwork Robotics: https://www.whydesign.club/episodes/S5E5
Koroyd: https://www.whydesign.club/episodes/S5E6
Instrument Industries: https://www.whydesign.club/episodes/S5E8
iF Design ifdesign.com: https://www.whydesign.club/episodes/S5E12
PARK: https://www.whydesign.club/episodes/S5E14
Studio Fynn: https://www.whydesign.club/episodes/S5E16
Longbow Motors: https://www.whydesign.club/episodes/S5E11
Bob Schwartz: https://www.whydesign.club/episodes/S5E10
About Kodu
Kodu is the specialist recruitment partner for hardware and deep tech teams. We place industrial designers, mechanical engineers, and product development leaders in companies building physical products, from medtech and consumer hardware to robotics and mobility. We work with founding teams and global R&D organisations alike, and we understand what great looks like in the room, not just on paper. NPS: +92.
teamkodu.com
About the Episode
Nobody Told Me How to Get Here | Why Design: Being Hired is a compilation episode of Why Design, the podcast hosted by Chris Whyte, founder of Kodu. Each episode brings together founders, engineers, and design leaders working at the frontier of physical product to talk honestly about what it takes to build hardware teams that ship.
Looking for your next role in hardware or deep tech?
Kodu specialises in placing industrial designers, mechanical engineers, and product development leaders across medtech, consumer hardware, robotics, mobility, and more.
Get in touch: teamkodu.com
