
Ask HN: Marketable dev skills for designers - Adrig
So, I&#x27;m a designer focused on product (UI&#x2F;UX&#x2F;Business) and I&#x27;m learning code for personal reasons (some web dev and scripting). I&#x27;m wondering if there are some ways to add basic dev skills to my designer profile to be more marketable in the freelance market.
The obvious would be front-end but I&#x27;m afraid it would push me towards a performer role than someone who think about the whole product. I would also be less efficient than a proper front-end dev so I wouldn&#x27;t be really effective in larger teams. Plus I don&#x27;t enjoy it that much. But hey if you&#x27;ve seen counterexamples, let me know.<p>Other things I thought about would be data analysis for research or MVP building, but I&#x27;m not sure if there is a proper market for this kind of profile. Any insights on thoses or other interesting skills you&#x27;ve seen ?
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sebmak
I can't speak too much about the freelance market, but i can say as someone
who is currently trying to hire a UI/UX designer ;)
([https://www.pairin.com/careers/](https://www.pairin.com/careers/)) One thing
i am always looking for in a designer, especially UI, is their ability to
prototype a complicated idea.

Since so much more of "Great" design no days involves things like motion and
animation, it is great to see a designer who can mock something up with some
motion. And that can be with either code or with some sort of animation
software. It is really hard for most people to get a sense for motion without
seeing the motion.

There should never be a need for a designer to be as efficient as a front-end
developer when coding, or you should just hire a front-end developer.

On the note of: > data analysis for research or MVP building Being able to
take complex data and show it in a meaningful and understandable way, is a
much more valuable skill (in my opinion) for a UI/UX designer to have than the
ability to write some code.

