28 Feb 2023

Employee Spotlight: Bea Parry, Product Designer

This month’s #employeespotlight is on our London-based Product Designer Bea Parry, who joined the Financial Services pod in 2022. In the blog, she discusses her unusual route into Product Design, why she enjoys it and where she’d like to progress next.

Tell us a bit about your background and experience

If you’d asked me at age four what I wanted to be when I was older, I would have said a carpenter. If you’d asked me what my favourite subject at school was at fifteen, I would have said Design & Technology – Resistant Materials. Yet somehow, I ended up working as a Compliance Officer in investment banking, an industry not best known for its creativity! I spent around four years after uni enforcing anti-money laundering procedures, dabbling in trade and email surveillance, and monitoring IPOs and other types of deals for insider trading. That was until the lack of creativity in my life took its toll, and I decided enough was enough. It was time to leave the regulations behind and find a more creative way to spend 40 hours a week and earn a living. After lots of trial and error, I eventually landed on Design.

How did you get into Design?

After I quit compliance, I enrolled in a 3-month graphic design boot camp called Shillington. The course was for complete beginners to learn the design fundamentals. I left with a graphic design portfolio that I later tailored to be more UX/UI design-focused, then started applying for junior UX/UI design roles. After four months of searching, I landed my first job in design at a WordPress Agency as a Junior UX/UI Designer.

Why this job?

UX and UI design is informed by user research insights, whereas graphic design, for example, is more subjective and based on personal preference. Both are important disciplines, but I find it really rewarding to create solutions that are backed by user insight.

What are your career ambitions? Where would you want to progress next?

I’d love to learn more about human behaviour and psychology to be able to apply it to UX and UI design. I think understanding how and why people make the decisions they do will help me to make better product design choices.

What projects have you worked on that have had the biggest impact?

I worked on a pilot product for Hargreaves Lansdown that aimed to provide insights and guidance to help clients reach their financial goals. It’s a project with many stakeholders and the potential to positively impact and improve the financial lives of thousands of people. It’s something that I’m really proud to have been a part of.

Why do you like working at cxpartners?

The culture at cxpartners is second to none. Everyone is open, supportive and friendly, and I feel like I could approach anyone at any level for help or advice on a project, even if they’re not in my team. Everyone is passionate about user centred design, as you’ll immediately see demonstrated in Slack. We’re remote-friendly, and our work/life balance is on point. I have a one-year-old daughter, so this is really important to me. I couldn’t ask for more, really.

Do you have any advice for people looking to get into Product Design?

I would recommend working on your own personal projects. Try to create a product that solves a problem that you’ve noticed in your own life and document your process. It will be a great addition to your portfolio but also good practice to get you thinking like a Designer.

Learn more about Employee Spotlight: Bea Parry, Product Designer

Alix Vaughan

Reach out to Alix Vaughan

Sales Director

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