Revisiting Midlife Career Crisis for Designers in the AI Era (And the Way Forward)

The idea of a career crisis is really just a surface issue. At its core, it’s pressure or confusion over two things: survival and personal value and meaning. Maybe I was lucky—at 36, the startup I worked with went public on NASDAQ, easing the pressure on survival for me. (But the question of personal value and meaning never stopped haunting me.)

Between 2019 and 2021, people saw me as a “success story” for designers, and I gave talks to friends and companies.

The most common question was: How should designers deal with a midlife crisis?

My answer was both honest and dishonest:

1. The honest part: I admitted I had no solution (and for me, it’s already resolved).
2. The dishonest part: I shared some insincere advice to make things sound more positive, like “focus more on personal growth,” “transition into management,” “build networks,” etc.

Frankly, those suggestions felt empty.

Since January 2020, I’ve been doing design work. Frankly, until December 2025, from an outsider’s view, I still believed in the existence of a midlife and career crisis for designers.

In many ways, midlife designers can’t match the younger ones:

1. Slower reactions
2. Worse memory
3. Slower to integrate into teams
4. Slower and sometimes closed off to new things

But from the end of 2025 to now in 2026, my view on a midlife career crisis for designers has completely shifted.

I think for designers and other creative fields (like engineers), career crises no longer exist. Sure, as one enters midlife, physical energy and speed can’t match the young. But what’s crucial is the accumulated experience, built knowledge/theory systems, and the judgment and taste born of them. These are what’s most valuable for designers in the AI era. Because in the AI era, there’s no need to compete on energy or speed—AI handles everything.

Another key point is accumulated project experience, cross-team collaboration, and understanding other fields. Honestly, I never formally studied programming, writing, planning, or growth marketing. But over the past 20-plus years, just working with pros across fields gave me a general grasp of their frameworks and reasoning. This is invaluable for designers using AI. In the AI era, your role isn’t just to design. Especially for those positioning themselves as “independent developers,” this accumulated field knowledge is a huge asset.

Simply put, if a designer today doesn’t embrace AI, doesn’t design with AI, or use AI directly for coding, they’re bound to face a midlife career crisis.

It’s not even limited to midlife. Even if you’re young, not embracing AI means facing a career crisis, with no job or opportunities.

In design, creativity, and expressing ideas, I’m now excited every day and eager to get hands-on.

It’s just like 20 years ago, around 2002 to 2005, when I was obsessed with making animations for personal sites. Unfortunately, those animations were only for show and weren’t truly usable.

But now is different. As a designer, you now have the ability to turn your ideas into products users can actually use. So far, I’ve launched two products—an iOS app and a macOS app.

It’s so much fun!

The threshold for turning ideas into products is getting lower. As designers, we should take action and make that move.

Here are some practical suggestions:

1. Try using Figma Make, Cursor, Codex, Claude (including Claude Code/Claude Design) to design, especially Claude Design. Challenges include web access and cost—these services usually start at $20 a month. But it’s absolutely a worthwhile investment.

2. Follow developers in this field. I prefer to call them Builders. Most people I follow might not be designers. In the AI era, a developer with product ideas (discovering user needs) and basic design and user experience awareness is more competitive.

3. Make something. I believe a designer truly passionate about design is also a creator. They have the drive and urge to turn ideas into reality. Before, we may only work up to design drafts, but now is different; you can turn your ideas into actual products. Whether the product is big or small, even if it’s reinventing the wheel (like making a journal app, photo app, calculator…), make that wheel first.

4. Don’t fear failure or setbacks. With AI, you can let the process of failures and setbacks feedback into AI, letting AI help you solve them. Of course, you need to learn more skills and understand more concepts. For instance, learn to write prompts more effectively and precisely, and learn about skills and engineering concepts like Git and using GitHub. There’s an initial barrier but it’s progressive and can build up from a small base.

5. Use AI to learn. For me, I created a Skills framework. Whenever I need to learn a new concept, I give it to AI, and it explains within the framework using non-technical terms, with simple examples. It’s how I learn; you can create your AI learning style too.

These suggestions and action lists are basic first steps that are easiest to start. The harder part is distribution and growth of the product (everyone says now attention, not design, code, or launching products, is the most precious). That’s why I returned to write on WeChat public accounts, x.com, and share on Xiaohongshu.

To me, it’s all so much fun. I often tell my kids I love design work because it’s so enjoyable—I can’t tell if I’m playing or working.