If Figma Disappeared Tomorrow, Would You Still Have a Job?

Like many product designers, you’ve probably ran into one of the following challenges. One PM shows up with a prototype, an engineer suggests a user flow, or someone who has never opened Figma suddenly has strong opinions about spacing, UX, and “how the screen should work.”

So… is everyone a designer now?

In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, we talk about why designers feel threatened when other people start doing pieces of design work, why that fear is understandable, and why the real value of a designer is not about the tools they use.

We also get into AI, vibe coding, Figma Make, product managers building prototypes, designers jumping into code, and what actually separates a designer from someone who just has an idea and a tool.

This episode is about the changing role of product design and why your moat is how you think, validate, challenge, facilitate, and help a team make better decisions.

In this episode you’ll learn:
🔸 Why everyone feels like they can “do design” now
🔸 Why Figma is not your real moat as a designer
🔸 How to handle PMs or engineers bringing design ideas
🔸 Why designers need to become better at pushing back
🔸 How AI and vibe coding are changing product design
🔸 Why your value is in judgment, not just execution

⏱ Chapters
00:00 Everyone has an opinion on design
03:00 What actually makes someone a designer
05:00 When PMs bring their own prototypes
08:00 The sanity check layer designers provide
10:00 Why designers need to push back
14:00 If Figma disappeared, what value would you add?
17:00 Why bad ideas can still move the team forward
20:00 Is the designer role actually changing?
23:00 Figma Make, vibe coding, and prototyping in code
27:00 Why code is harder to collaborate on
30:00 The existential crisis happening across tech

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More about Tyler and Nick
Tyler: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/tyler-white
Nick: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/nick-groeneveld