Get to know Propeller’s stellar team through our ongoing employee spotlights. Today, we talk to Linh Le, who serves as UI/UX designer on Propeller product team. Linh is based in Sydney, Australia.
What do you do at Propeller?
I’m a product designer. Basically, I look after the customer-facing side ofthe Propeller Platform and any kind of user interaction with it. I also do the research for it—talking to customers, finding out what their pain points are, and aligning that with some of our goals.
What’s the most interesting project you’ve worked on so far?
My favorite thing to do is the research with customers. Talking to them and trying to find out what they actually do with the platform has helped me learn about the industry.
It’s so left-field of what any of us know. I’ve never known anything about mining or construction, and actually learning about the industry has been the best part. As well as finding solutions to simple things like helping users organize their files or helping them convert DXF.
What’s your career background?
I’ve been a designer for about ten years. I did a design course at uni and really enjoyed it, and I’ve been a designer ever since. It’s quite a broad spectrum, in terms of places I’ve worked, but it’s always been design- or research-focused.
In 10 years, I’ve worked at about six different jobs. It’s not that I didn’t like the companies, it’s that I’ve found I chase the product.
Whatever project I found interesting, I went and worked there. After I found out that I knew the product so well that there was no more for me to learn, I moved on.
The product brought me to Propeller. I had heaps of friends working here—Andy, Tony, and Andrew. We all used to work together at another company. When a role opened here, and they were talking to me about the product, I was like, “well, that’s nothing I know about. Let’s give it a go.”
I think it’s the complexity of the product that intrigued me. Who doesn’t like a good challenge?
Where did you grow up?
I was born in Vietnam, but I came to Australia when I was about six. I’ve lived in Sydney for most of my life. I spent a year overseas in London, but realized how bloody rainy it is over there. After a year, I decided I was going to travel to Europe, and then come home where the sunshine is.
Before working at Propeller, what’s the strangest or most interesting job you’ve held?
Two years ago, I was contracted by a bank to do UX research. They were doing a study on small businesses. There would be two of us and we’d be sent to random houses to interview the people living there about their debt. It would take about three hours. Some of the people we meet were just so interesting.
Any talents, secret superpowers, or fun facts about yourself to share?
I’m a better cook than designer. I say that because I don’t cook professionally.
The only thing I don’t like is baking. I find it too tedious. It’s so strict, where with cooking you can be flexible with it and you can fix it up if it’s not quite right.
I think it’s similar with design. With digital design, if something’s not quite right, you can easily and quickly see what you did wrong and change it on the fly. Whereas, with print design, if you’ve done something and there’s an error, there’s no coming back from that.
<pThere’s a similar relationship from cooking to baking. You don’t know till the end with baking. With cooking you can change the taste and taste as you go.
What’s your favorite Propeller memory?
I reckon, the hackathon. It was my first hackathon at Propeller, and my team won. I worked with Coops, Tony, and Ruth, which represented the product as a whole. We presented Propeller in AR. While Coops and Tony were building it, Ruth and I were doing all the marketing and design stuff. It was really great and so much fun.
We won based on the marketing, branding, everything leading up to the finished product.
Do you have an office nickname? If so, what is it and how did you get it?
Jes and I knew each other before Propeller. When we first met, our nickname was Jinh because we were always drinking gin when we were together.
When we started at Propeller, we found Mahsa, and fell in love with her. So, now we have a Slack channel called Jinhsa. We’re always hanging out in there, talking to one another.
What’s your favorite Slack emoji and why?
Probably the smirk because I’m always saying something slightly inappropriate.
What’s one thing you wish software engineers understood better about Propeller as a whole?
I think no one really knows what I do. My title is a product designer, but no one knows what that is.
When I tell someone, they think I’m designing physical things like an industrial designer. What I wish they knew? What I actually do. People often associate design with just the visuals, sitting there and coloring boxes, but what I do is far, far more than that.
I do some of the research with customers and then synthesize that material so that we know what the pain points are and the problems we’re trying to solve for our customers.
Then, together with the team, taking that information and turning it into a real digital product that users engage with on a daily basis. It’s problem solving on many levels.
