Principal Product Designer. Notes on craft, hiring, design systems, and the seams between roles.https://rohankartik.com/enhttps://rohankartik.com/notes/the-cost-of-fast-decisions/https://rohankartik.com/notes/the-cost-of-fast-decisions/On the trade-off between velocity and the kind of decision that needs to be slept on.Sun, 12 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://rohankartik.com/notes/what-i-look-for-in-a-design-portfolio/https://rohankartik.com/notes/what-i-look-for-in-a-design-portfolio/Not the work itself. The captions, the gaps, and what gets left out.Mon, 02 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://rohankartik.com/notes/the-model-reads-every-line/https://rohankartik.com/notes/the-model-reads-every-line/AI in design is less about generation and more about review. The model is the third reviewer who reads every line without fatigue.Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://rohankartik.com/notes/decisions-no-data-no-time/https://rohankartik.com/notes/decisions-no-data-no-time/The principal-level decision is usually made with bad data and a deadline. The honest framework is smaller than people think.Thu, 12 Sep 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://rohankartik.com/notes/retro-is-a-leadership-decision/https://rohankartik.com/notes/retro-is-a-leadership-decision/The design lead's retro entry sets the temperature for the next sprint. The shorter the entry, the more room the team has to lead.Fri, 10 Nov 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://rohankartik.com/notes/when-the-system-stops-being-the-answer/https://rohankartik.com/notes/when-the-system-stops-being-the-answer/A design system solves the wrong problem once consistency is no longer the bottleneck. Most teams keep solving the wrong problem.Mon, 10 Apr 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://rohankartik.com/notes/principal-is-a-week-shape/https://rohankartik.com/notes/principal-is-a-week-shape/What separates principal from staff is not scope of work but compression of context across unrelated decisions in the same day.Wed, 15 Mar 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://rohankartik.com/notes/speed-craft-false-binary/https://rohankartik.com/notes/speed-craft-false-binary/Teams who argue about speed versus craft are missing the real axis. The real one is what gets revisited and what does not.Mon, 20 Feb 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://rohankartik.com/notes/error-screen-tests-the-brand/https://rohankartik.com/notes/error-screen-tests-the-brand/A brand holds at the moment of failure or it does not hold. The error screen is where you find out.Fri, 10 Feb 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://rohankartik.com/notes/pms-smarter-than-the-design/https://rohankartik.com/notes/pms-smarter-than-the-design/The good PM thinks better than the design at the strategy layer. The designer's job is to think better at the artifact layer. Confusing the two ruins both.Wed, 08 Feb 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://rohankartik.com/notes/hiring-rubric-survives-a-year/https://rohankartik.com/notes/hiring-rubric-survives-a-year/Most design rubrics fail twelve months in because they grade for the interview, not for the role. Three criteria hold up.Wed, 25 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://rohankartik.com/notes/designing-without-research/https://rohankartik.com/notes/designing-without-research/Good judgment under research constraints has a teachable structure. Most designers treat it as a personality trait.Sun, 20 Nov 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://rohankartik.com/notes/shared-artefact-builds-trust/https://rohankartik.com/notes/shared-artefact-builds-trust/Two languages and two cadences inside one company become one when both sides have to write into the same document.Sat, 12 Nov 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://rohankartik.com/notes/critique-that-lands/https://rohankartik.com/notes/critique-that-lands/Most design critique fails for one of three reasons. Each has a specific fix that costs the giver thirty seconds.Tue, 20 Sep 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://rohankartik.com/notes/find-the-object/https://rohankartik.com/notes/find-the-object/If a physical or regulated object can already hold the truth, the software around it gets to be simple.Fri, 15 Nov 2019 00:00:00 GMT