Transcript
A (0:00)
I have imposter syndrome every day still. And I think that means that I am constantly challenged and growing and taking on new things. That feeling is just the anxiety of, like, I don't know the answer yet. I don't know what I'm going to do. But for me, a while simple. It's always been like, I don't know what I'm going to do, but it's going to take it, like, day by day, and we're going to figure it out. And I think that attitude can take you really, really far.
B (0:20)
Welcome to Dive Club. My name is Rid, and this is where designers never stop learning. Today's episode is with Polly Darcy, who, over a few short years, went from an IC at Wealthsimple all the way to head of Design and eventually VP of Design. So we're gonna do a deep dive into her journey and everything that she learned along the way about design, leadership, craft, hiring, and a lot more. So let's start at the beginning of her story.
A (0:49)
I joined Wellsimple almost seven years ago, back in 2019, before COVID which seems sort of wild. I joined the team in 2019 as an IC, and we're only five, so we were a super small team. We were still like a sort of a centralized team within the company, because I think at the time, there was between, like, 250 and 500 people. And so we weren't even embedded on product teams. We were just like this core group that sat together, and every day you showed up to work and you were working on a different part of the product because the product was so much smaller than it is today. And I always knew that I wanted to lead a team. I grew up playing a lot of sports. This is like, a common thing for me. I often lean on sports analogies because, not to be a total cliche, but I am a Canadian gal who grew up playing hockey. So I feel like I'm constantly thinking about, like, what that taught me and how it impacts sort of, like, what I love doing. And so I always knew I, like, wanted to lead a team and work with a team, and that's sort of like, where I get most of my energy and what I really enjoy doing. And so I moved into this manager role, and I was managing, I think, like three people, and I was just sort of learning the ropes, but super green, super new to management, and, you know, still had no idea what I was really doing. Brett, who's a co founder at Wellsimple and our chief product officer, my boss, over the next sort of six Months came to me with this incredible opportunity. He was like, you know, I. I really see something in you, and I think that you should lead this design team. I was like, what? Are you sure? I think at the time, I was like, this guy's crazy. I think, like, I obviously had shown him my potential and then I could do it. But I think it really felt like sort of the scary moment where I was like, I have no idea what I'm doing and where I'm gonna start. Looking back, I think something I really admire about Brett and what he's taught me is, like, when you see potential in people on your team, you need to give them opportunities and support them and help them grow. Every time you give somebody an opportunity, it's a bet, like, 50% of the time those bets are going to play out and work really well, and 50% of the time, they might not. But I really love that approach of, like, when I work with people and I get energy from them and I, like, see that potential, you know, I also want to give them an opportunity to grow and take on something new and challenging. And that's what Brett gave me and. And sort of, like, started my trajectory here. And so, you know, I've been in this role leading the design team for, I guess, like, four or five years now. I remember when I first came into the role, someone said the statement, smooth waters don't make great sailors, and it just, like, hit me in that moment as I was going through this sort of challenging time of figuring out, like, my new role of the company and how we were going to get through it and rebuild a team that, like, you have to live through the tough stuff and figure out how to get through it, and if you can make it, you, like, come out stronger and better, and you learn so much in the process. And I feel like just as a younger person and more of a, you know, coming from more of an ic lower manager role, I really, like, needed to hear that. I think, as, like, something to motivate me and help me get to the next phase of my leadership. And so it's something I tell people in my personal life when they're going through challenges, but also, like, at work, it's like, it's not always easy, but, like, a lot of, like, the challenges that you face are really, like, opportunities for you to learn something new and. And grow in your role and really get better. And so it's something I, like, want to instill in my team all the time whenever they're going through a challenging moment, when it came to the team and what we had to do. At the time our product was not very good. You know, we were growing, but the quality of our product was, was nowhere where it needed to be. Like, you would open the app and there would be bugs and it was really janky and just like the craft was not there. I think like you could tell that we were not using the product. The people building the product were not using it, they were not looking at it. I really believe that if you, as someone who is a sort of maker and owner at the company building this product, do not want to use it with your own money, it's not good enough. You either have to like come to us and tell us why it's not good enough and, but also you have to bias towards action and like take the steps to make it really great. And you know, like, if you're not going to use it, why anybody else? And so that's when this like first sort of era began. And the first big shift we had to make in the culture was all around dogfooding and getting everybody who is building or selling the product. Because at Wealth Symbol you're either building or selling really to use the product every day and really like become obsessed with it because that was going to be the only way we were going to make it really, really great for our customers. And so we started with the design team and asked that everybody make sure that they are not only like literally looking at the app every day, but you like putting their own money in the app. The beauty of our product is like you can open any account, it's free, you can put in a dollar, you can put a 10 bucks. And I just wanted people to like explore the product, use it, open every new account, test every new feature so they really understood what our customers were experiencing and then share your feedback and like push through what you think should be better. Because you know, it's one thing to like test something in staging and it's another thing to actually like use a product with your own money because you just, you like are going to like very deeply feel the pain points and the friction and the frustration. And so the first shift is all about dog fooding and getting everybody to really use the product. And today like that has become a company wide sort of philosophy and culture where like every new hire I host an onboarding session with them where I like do a live walkthrough and tour of our app and then we talk about how you dog food. And as a result, you know, the team started using the product. And everyone started just like flooding slack with all of the feedback that they had, like, whether it was like bugs they were catching or whatever, or just feedback about how to make something better or a feature that was missing or something that didn't make sense.
