A Perspective from Andrew Cullen, Lead Product Designer at InVision

This week, we're lucky to interview Andrew Cullen!

Andrew is a 28-year-old designer from the UK, currently Lead Product Designer at InVision.

InVision is a design prototyping tool used and acknowledged by many successful startups.

The Remotive team was delighted to get to hear Andrew's thought on Remote Working, and working at InVision :)

How did you first hear about InVision?

We used InVision heavily at the agency I worked at before joining InVision, so I got to know the product reasonably well before I even joined the team.

We tried a lot of alternative prototyping tools, but InVision was the only one that stuck—it hit that sweet spot of fidelity versus time investment, and our clients felt comfortable using the product to communicate their feedback to us.

What made you decide to apply at InVision?

After working in the agency environment for around 8 years, I was itching to take my career in a new direction.

I wanted to be in a role where I’d have the opportunity to really sink my teeth into solving problems without the constraints that can sometimes be imposed upon you with agency work.

I saw an ad on Dribbble for a product designer position at InVision. Since I was already a fan of the product, I was excited at the thought of joining the team.

Clark Valberg, the CEO of InVision, responded to my application, and we chatted a few times over the next couple of weeks to see if i’d be a good fit for the team and whether my ideas and method of working aligned with where Clark wanted to take the product.

Fortunately for me, he decided I’d be a good choice and offered me the job.

Why do you work remotely, and how does it feel?

Before joining InVision, I’d never really contemplated a fully remote job—I’d found working from home every now and again difficult because the agency wasn’t set up to facilitate this way of working.

When the team is fully distributed, it makes a huge difference because everybody is in the same boat and the required processes are in place to allow everybody to really enjoy the benefits of remote working without feeling like they’re missing out on things.

I love the flexibility of being able to work from anywhere with an internet connection. If I want to spend the afternoon at the coffee shop, I just pack up my Macbook and off I go. I recommend mixing up your surroundings every now and again to keep things fresh.

Thinking back to my office environment, I feel much less distracted working on my own. But I still get to spend a good chunk of my day speaking with colleagues, so I never feel lonely.

Could you please share with us your daily routine - we’re super curious to hear how your organize your day!

Everyone on our product design team is based in the UK, so we keep slightly different hours than those based in the US.

It’s important to keep a fairly consistent routine when you’re working remotely.

We tend to start our day around 11am GMT, which gives me the opportunity for a more relaxed start to the day compared to the standard 9-5 hours I was used to previously. Those extra couple of hours give me chance to take the dog on a leisurely morning stroll and return home for breakfast and a coffee before starting work.

I use the first part of the work day to concentrate on design work, and the later part of the day is usually made up of meetings. Myself and the rest of the product design team have a daily call at around 5pm to discuss ideas and present what we’re currently working on with each other.

As a product lead, I also work closely with product managers, engineering, and QA to make sure everything we release is up to scratch, so I hop on calls when needed.

What software do you use?

We use both Photoshop and Sketch within the design team, so I move between both depending on the project and if I need to dig into any other designer’s assets. If I feel the need to illustrate any motion, then I tend to make use of the animation tools inside Keynote.

I love how I can quickly throw together some ideas without investing too much time playing about with ideas when we’re still in an early stage.

Because we’re remote, we place extra importance on communication between all members of the team.

We switched to Slack earlier this year—it's really helped increase transparency and improve collaboration across the company. Our daily standups and other meetings happen over Google Hangouts (webcams optional!), and we still have the odd email thread floating around, too.

Of course we also spend a lot of time inside InVision. LiveShare is particularly huge for us on the product design team: every day during our design call we each present what we’ve been working on over the past 24 hours. Using LiveShare means we can present our ideas in real time, and everybody on the call can offer their feedback and ideas for improvement through the commenting and sketching tools.

What would be your ideal setup?

I don’t think mine is far off from ideal: I use a Macbook Air plugged into a 24-inch Apple Cinema Display. I wouldn’t mind upgrading to the 27-inch model for the extra pixels, but I really enjoy the portability of my Air if I want to get out and about.

Fortunately, I don’t need to do much CPU-intensive work like video editing, so I can get by without any issues using the Air as my primary machine.

My current home office environment works well, but I’d love a studio at the bottom of the garden to give me some separation between home and work life.

Many thanks to Andrew and InVision for taking the time to answer our questions!

You can find InVision over here :), and Andrew right there!

As well, InVision is hiring! You can check the available Remote positions available on our Job Board.

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