Help me evaluate my possible paths as a mid/senior UXR

Why Read This from an HCI Perspective

This article does a great job of showing what UX/UXR professionals should use as criteria when making career decisions. In particular, it’s useful for HCI practitioners because it lets you compare how different organizational contexts—AI startups, the finance sector, and FAANG—create different expectations for performance, risks, and growth paths. It also highlights an important point: you shouldn’t look only at personal preferences, but also at how an organization evaluates work and defines roles. Overall, it’s a solid case to read from a career-design perspective.

CIT's Commentary

From a CIT perspective, the core of this case is less about the job title and more about how the organization allocates and measures UX. AI startups offer high role flexibility, but boundaries can easily become blurred. Finance companies may be more stable, but performance metrics can operate very strongly. FAANG has significant brand equity and learning opportunities, but it’s important to manage expectations based on level and team context. In the end, long-term satisfaction in an HCI career depends not only on individual capability, but also on the organization’s maturity, evaluation system, and fit with the collaboration structure. When choices become clearly separated like this, it’s more practical to first ask, ‘In what environment can I sustainably do well?’ rather than ‘What can I do well?’

Questions to Consider While Reading

• Q.For each of the three organizations, what metrics do they use to evaluate UX/UXR performance, and how can you verify that before joining?
• Q.At this point in your career, how can you prioritize which is most important among brand, learning, and stability as a career asset?
• Q.In an AI startup where roles are flexible and the UXR boundary becomes blurred, what is the minimum job identity that an HCI researcher should maintain?