Agency, startup, in-house, freelance; where should I work as a UX designer?

The pros and cons of the various environments, from the perspective of a UX designer

22 min readApr 30, 2023

My dad was sort of a Dutch Don Draper. Well, obviously less cool. But from time to time still a mad man. He had his own advertisement agency, where I found my very first design gigs. In the ’90s, that was where the cool kids worked. And I.

Since then, agencies don’t have a monopoly on cool anymore.

In my career, I have experienced what it’s like to work as a UX designer for agencies, start-ups, in-house, and as a freelancer.

Each of these corporate environments has very positive aspects. Needless to say, also negative ones. Sometimes you might even wonder if you work in the right environment.

In your mind, the grass is always greener on the other side.

Let’s discuss agencies, startups, in-house orgs, and freelancing. And a little bit of big tech. What are the goods, the bads, and the uglies?

I will share general observations, supplemented by personal anecdotes.

Agency

An agency provides services to other companies. Design or digital agencies offer UX work, but can even deliver complete digital products, and online marketing campaigns.

Companies usually pay agencies for a period of time to work on a clearly defined scope. Once the work is done, the fun is over, although additional aftercare is not uncommon.

The good (agency)

1. Project variety:

Agencies have a big turnover of projects and often serve multiple customers simultaneously. You can thus work on many designs in a relatively short period of time.

This allows you to discover multiple domains, work in different corporate cultures, and even receive feedback from various perspectives.

I had moments where I was working on a fitness tracking platform, a business intelligence system, and a web shop at the same time.

The variety is definitely a big plus, but should not be taken for granted, as Elsa Ho points out:

This may be interesting, but I have seen some people feel, at the end of the day, that the processes they went through in the projects are still very similar, despite the industry and type of product. In the long term, they might still feel bored.
— Elsa Ho, In-house UX team versus consultancy

2. Building a diverse portfolio:

You can quickly add many case studies to your portfolio. Although remember, Some projects might be under a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). Because companies pay agencies by the hour, they have a strong incentive you wrap up the work quickly. Your work will often be done relatively soon before you’d move on to the next project.

Looking back at my agency life, I often think, “hmm, I did a lot in that period.” I have way too many case studies in my archive for my portfolio. I leave most of them out.

3. Sense of community:

Agencies operate in teams. if they don’t, you can consider them consultancy firms or freelancers. You will be working intensively with colleagues. This can create a real connection. Of course, you have colleagues and good relations anywhere, but agencies feel more like you are in it together. You, as a team, are sent on a mission.
I still consider many of my old agency colleagues, whom I worked with more than 10 or 15 years ago, as real friends. To date, we still go on weekend trips once a year.
Next to the fun, you can also learn a lot from your colleagues. You will work with them daily. They usually work in the same field, but everyone has their own strong points. Completing each other's weaknesses is really powerful and helps you develop your professional foundation.

4. Networking:

Besides being mates with your colleagues, you will also create a good connection with your customers.
This can help you in your future career. It’s not uncommon for talent that works at agencies to be approached by their customers. They receive job offers and are asked to come “in-house”.
Sometimes, you have a Non-Solicitation clause in the contracts.

I started freelancing when I left the agency I worked for. It took only a few days to receive calls asking if I was available for freelance work.

The bad (agency)

1. Pressure on delivering quickly:

Your customer pays for every hour you spend. You are a ticking money bomb.

They expect you to deliver ASAP. You often need to skip some of your design methods. The project budget might not allow for elaborate user research or for discovering multiple creative directions.
In the end, the output quality can be compromised because of time or financial constraints.

I can’t count the times I have argued about the value of user research. Insights are not a real deliverable in the eyes of customers. Therefore, that’s the first thing they try to cut. This is why agencies spend a lot of time on shiny research reports. They sell the report, not the insight.

Natalie Howells shares her thoughts about the pressure agencies undergo:

“Agencies can be faster-paced and have plenty of variety, but they tend to come with tougher deadlines and bigger expectations. Every project is the number one priority for the client, so you’re juggling a lot of number one priorities at once.”
— Natalie Howells, Agency versus In-house — Thoughts from the Front Lines

She also points out another great observation:

“You need to make sure your client can see that you’re working hard, which isn’t always easy when you’re not visible to them.”

2. Limited control over the outcome:

The one who pays decides. You might have brilliant ideas, but if you don’t convince the customer, you must follow their orders.
Customers regularly hire agencies when they already have the outcome in mind. This can be frustrating. Your client can have strong beliefs, and their internal marketing team has done all the research. Or so they claim.
Even creative directions can be already set. You might need to have more discussions with the customer than you are willing to have.

Or you comply and swallow your design and user-centred ideals.

“Agencies bend over backwards to please a client, almost to the detriment of the end consumer. When you charge clients per person per hour, there’s no time for unbillable work so change that. Allow staff to research and develop campaigns which suit the customer. Your client may wear a suit but your customer probably doesn’t”
— Danielle Newnham in Startup Vs Agency

One of the biggest mistakes I frequently made at the beginning of my career was presenting multiple designs. Then, the customer starts to combine aspects from multiple designs. Your design becomes some sort of calico cat. An entity that’s stitched together from various sources.

The ugly (agency)

Stress:

Let’s face it. Working for agencies can be bloody stressful.

You can be subject to the impulses of your customer. They can call and want something done. Yesterday! You might be working on various projects in parallel so that the pressure can come from multiple directions. Context switching is really hard. This led to some agencies allowing only one project per person.

If you work as a UX designer, you will hopefully be protected by a good project lead.

I worked in both roles. The project lead role was wearing me completely out. I was the link between various customers and internal teams. The pressure came from both sides.

Working as a designer is easier, but you will still be expected to deliver your work within an unreasonable time. You can also find better-protected roles in agencies if you don’t fancy doing the real innovative work:

“If your intent is a quieter life, you can still find agencies that would be glad to welcome you — look for those that specialise in day-to-day management and maintenance activities rather than big projects.”
— Natalie Howells, Agency versus In-house — Thoughts from the Front Lines

Startup / Scale-up

A startup is considered “a company that is newly established as a necessity in the market, generally in the technology field, with growth potential,” whereas a scale-up is “a relatively young, rapidly emerging, innovation-driven company” that’s experienced a high level of growth over the past three years.
- Techpoint

We all have an idea of what a startup is. In this section, I include scale-ups too. A scale-up: perhaps existing for around 3 years, with relatively new products and, let’s say, a workforce of a hundred people. These companies are usually funded by venture capital.

I’ll use the word startup in the texts below, but, for the sake of ease, also mean scale-ups.

The good (startup)

1. Direct impact on the product:

The smaller the organization, the closer you are to the core of the product. As a UX designer in a startup, you can really help shape the product. Big parts of the product might not be defined, so there’s a lot of creative freedom.

Your ideas can come to life really fast. Some of them can become visible within days. When you join a startup from the beginning, the product almost becomes your identity.

Seeing your work quickly come to market can be really satisfying.

I’ve worked on quite a number of apps that had to be designed from scratch. In most cases, there wasn’t even any branding in place yet. This is definitely one of the most interesting contexts you can have as a UX designer.

2. Little tech debt:

Design choices are limited in older companies. Code is often written ages ago, so if you want to suggest a modern design pattern, chances are that it’s technically almost impossible.

Startups don’t have much code, so you won’t hear “that’s impossible” so much from your engineering peers.

3. Variety of work:

You can see this as a positive or a negative.

When an organization is small, its roles are not well defined. You, therefore, might be expected to do more than only design work. This will give you the opportunity to develop a wide range of skills, learn new techniques, and gain a well-rounded experience.

Working in small organizations, whether an early-stage startup or something a little more established, allow you to test and polish your skills. […]
working in these environments is a place that not only allows you to improve your design skills: it allows you to learn how to make a significant difference with your designs as well.
— Kai Wong, Starting out in UX? How a startup might offer you better opportunities

The most successful designers are the ones that understand how business works and speak the boardroom language.

I’ve handled administrative, legal, commercial, and HR-related tasks for most of my career. This has definitely made me a much more competent UX professional. It gives a good idea of what’s going on behind the UI. It makes you more efficient at connecting business objectives, operational systems, and user desires.

When you design new interaction paths, you might have to convince your company to change its processes too. You need the vocabulary for this.

4. Shaping the design unit:

The immaturity of the organization brings a great opportunity: you can make it mature yourself.

You will have the chance to set up the design operations, shape the creative direction, and recruit new colleagues.

You can grow together with the organization. The bigger the design team gets, the more significant your role becomes.

The bad (startup)

1. Tight budgets:

Every penny that’s spent needs to be justified. If you want to buy a Figma plugin, you might be unable to. Want a dovetail licence? You probably just have to use Google Sheets and Drive instead.

A craftsman relies on his tools. You might not be working with the best tools. The budget for training can be low too, so reading a book will be your alternative to attending a course.

2. The VCs push for growth:

Startups have a tendency to focus blindly on growth. This satisfies the venture capitalists and will make them likely to invest more. Your startup needs those investments to survive.

You will be designing to attract and retain users. This is something different than creating the best experience. You might need to compromise some of your design standards, sometimes even your ethics, to deliver what will put the VCs at ease.

3. Unpredictable future:

The market can be unpredictable and your colleagues can be impulsive. You perhaps work with a well-thought roadmap, but the direction can change daily. This can be really frustrating. You just put all your energy into a new feature that will be ignored because someone decided to change priorities abruptly.

I’ve once been very enthusiastic about a complete redesign I worked on. I did very elaborate research for 3 months and gained brilliant insights. Many things that we couldn’t foresee came to light, and I was eager to put all my learning into practice. This would completely change the direction of the product.
And then… someone decided to kill the entire project.

A complete motivation killer. Impulses happen, especially at startups.

4. Long Hours:

I think we all know this. You might need to work day and night to succeed. Your work-life balance might be neglected for a while. It’s sometimes even romanticised in TV series.

I once worked for a startup that was calling me day and night. For very trivial things. They were even upset that I didn’t voluntarily come in on Saturdays. They looked at work very unhealthily, and I wasn’t willing to compromise my private life and well-being this much.

I’m sure that they thought I wasn’t a right fit for their startup culture, and they were probably right.

“Working until crazy o’clock became a way of life because we all knew that if we didn’t, someone elsewhere would.”
— Sandra Berko, Inside Out: From in-house to ‘agency’

The ugly (startup)

An economically unstable future:

You might not know for how long your startup will survive. Will you even get your salary next month?

Scale-ups are definitely more stable, but they are usually still subject to venture capital. If the investors stop pouring in money, you can lose your job.

A startup is not for you if you care about long-term security.

I chose to work for start-ups because I saw it as a fun and interesting thing to do. I was more motivated by the experience than by the pay.

In-house

Big cooperations that have their own designers can be considered in-house operations. They choose not to use external expertise, like agencies, but to develop and design their own software.

Banks, governments, webshops, and other organizations, have so much UX work that it makes sense to have dedicated internal designers. These designers usually work closely with the technical people, who manage all the internal systems.

The good (in-house)

1. Deep understanding of the business objectives:

Like startups, you will have the time to understand the company's mission and goals deeply. In big companies, these missions are usually much better established but also harder to change. You will get a good idea of what you want to achieve with your designs and how it helps the organization succeed.

Getting access to people who can explain or support strategic decisions is fairly easy.

Although it’s our job as designers to identify business objectives, there are always underlying and unspoken objectives.

For instance, when I worked for CERN, its core mission was to provide scientific facilities for physicists (the large hadron collider etc.). A less disclosed objective of the organization is to train its talent so they can return to their member states better prepared for the job market.

This is a big part of the organization’s role and impacts your designs. You will only know it when you work there for a while and have spoken to the right people.

Josh Sassoon describes his desire to work in-house:

My jump over to an in-house team was born out of a desire to go deeper on problems than I was able to with contract projects, and to work closely with cross-functional product teams to ship and iterate on ideas and get to great solutions. The transition wasn’t easy, but it was worthwhile.
[…]
The in-house experience is all about cultivating relationships with your cross-functional teams and building a deep long-term understanding around a problem space.
— Josh Sassoon, 5 tips for making the jump from freelance and agency design to an in-house UX team

2. Sufficient resources:

Budgets are usually a lot less of an issue for in-house teams than for the other types of employment we discuss. You are more likely to get the licences, training, and other resources you want.

In small organizations, I always had to make strong arguments for investments. In-house, my requests were usually instantly approved. The drawback for big organizations is that the purchasing process might take much longer.

3. Easy access to information and users:

Big companies have loads of data stored. If you want to get statistics on anything, they might have it. There’s always a data scientist around who can get you the analytics you want. You just might need to make sure you will have permission to access this data.

Getting access to end-users can also be much easier. You’ll work with them, sometimes even in the same building. Recruiting users for usability tests will thus be very easy. This is something that can be a real pain when working for startups.

It might sound crazy, but I’ve never received an in-house user interview rejection. I also never had a no-show. I could even just walk through the corridor and get some guerrilla testing done with real users.

4. No stress and a stable job:

Especially in Europe, it’s difficult to be laid off by big companies. If you just act normal, your job is guaranteed. Companies need to have an economic reason to lay people off. They usually don’t have any because they have enough resources to survive a recession.

The work itself is often also less stressful as big organizations move slowly. Tight deadlines are much less common than for startups or agencies.

5. Establishing the design practice and direction:

It usually requires some effort, but big organizations need a mature design practice. Sometimes, they are already mature, giving you a smooth UX ride.

More likely, they are less mature. You will then have a great opportunity to shape the design practices. You can have a big impact on how efficiently the organization will operate in the future. But, you need to have the courage and political willpower.

I’ve spent a big part of my career working on design maturity. It’s a satisfying but exhausting thing to do. It will be fun, but you can’t do this your entire life.

I put this one under the positives, but this can be a big red flag for some. Or for many, perhaps. It depends on whether you are a natural change-maker or not.

The bad (in-house)

1. The hierarchy and politics:

Big orgs mean many management layers, and even more meetings. Every action needs to be validated by someone. You won’t be very autonomous. You can’t make your own decisions, limiting your creative freedom. You will spend more time influencing the “important” people than being creative.

The C-suite will define the company’s direction. You will have very little influence on this.

I wrote more about this in my article: Why don’t your colleagues approve your mockups? UX office politics explained

2. Technical, procedural, and design debt:

You will be working on a big pile of legacy. Systems use old technologies, procedures are complex, and terminology is established. Changing something that has existed for ages is hard, so you will often hear, “that’s impossible.”

You might need to compromise on your ideal designs because of contextual limitations.

However, the ideal design is not what you consider ideal, but what’s best for the organization and users. If you understand this, you might find satisfaction in creating less radical UXs.

In-house organizations also spend more time maintaining the current systems than designing new ones:

“In-house positions don’t always offer the opportunity to create something new as many times you are maintaining a product that is already up and running. If you’re someone who likes to see things from grassroots to completion, in-house jobs may not be for you.”
— Career Foundry, Where Could a Career in UX Take You?

3. The dinosaurs:

Big corporations are full of people that worked there for most of their careers. Some of them are not so eager to see any changes. They just want to do their job until they reach retirement. The corporate death march. They want an easy latter part of their career. These people will try to block any progress.

You will be fighting a lot of change resistance.

You also won’t be surrounded by many people who can give you fresh perspectives on the design industry, or the business world in general. Staying for decades in your company’s bubble makes you blind to what happens in the outside world.

You might be surprised how often I’ve heard something completely detached from reality.

The ugly (in-house)

Big orgs are just bloody slow:

Although some of these organizations might claim to be lean and agile, they are definitely not.

Everything moves insanely slowly. The time it takes for a change to be made, or for your work to be implemented, can take months. Sometimes even years.

It can happen that your work will be obsolete before it’s had a chance to come to life. Patience is essential if you want to enjoy an in-house job.

Getting a licence for the entire design team for a tool like Dovetail took me forever. The purchasing officer, the digital security officer, and the data privacy officer, needed to scrutinise the contract, the privacy policy, and the terms and conditions. They had valid reasons for their concerns, but it doesn’t mean that it isn’t frustrating.

Freelance

Freelancing:
Working independently usually for various organizations rather than as an employee of a particular one
— Cambridge dictionary

It’s clear what freelancing means: You don’t have an employment contract. Instead, you are independent. You find your own gigs and send invoices to your customers.

The good (freelance)

1. Flexibility:

You don’t have a boss!

That sounds appealing to us all, doesn’t it? You can do whatever you want, whenever you want, however you want.

I, like many others, am insanely productive in the early morning, but my cognitive capacity diminishes quickly, especially after lunch. I’m definitely most productive when I can control my day and don’t have to comply with office hours.

As freelancer, you can pick the projects that suit your lifestyle. You can be much more flexible regarding your working hours and location.

2. Pick the projects that suit you best — on a case-by-case basis:

Working at an agency exposes you to a great variety of customers. But, you still depend on what your employer selects for you. As a freelancer, you are in control. You can choose the jobs that match your passions and your values. You can prioritise supporting your portfolio or the domains in which you want to develop your skills further.

In my case, my passion is multicultural sociology. I chose projects in India, Malta, and Cameroon because it helps me in the personal development areas that are important to me. This usually is only possible when you are a freelancer.

Maybe you want to work for a certain industry? Or on a particular aspect of UX. You can be selective with your projects.

3. Building meaningful relationships:

Human connections are a big part of doing business. As a freelancer, you can continue doing business with those you get along with. And obviously, ditch those that try to exploit you. Once you built your relationships, you can rely on mutual loyalty.

You, and your customer, can become real partners. This trust can be much stronger than connections based on contracts in traditional firms.

The bad (freelance)

1. Unstable income:

This one is an obvious one. You don’t have a basic monthly income. You might have great months, but also periods when you make less money.

The biggest downside… when you don’t work, you don’t earn. Your holidays or time off are unpaid.

If you do well, you can have a great salary, but if you don’t, you will earn less than when you’re employed.

2. Insurance can be insanely expensive:

You won’t have employment benefits. This means you want to insure yourself for illness absences and liabilities. These types of insurance are so expensive that a fair few freelancers choose not to be insured and accept the risk.

And even if you are insured, it’s not guaranteed that you are covered.

I’ve seen nasty cases where insurers were making people’s lives miserable and searched for loopholes in the terms. I guess that’s how a part of the insurance business runs.

3. Loneliness:

Working as a freelancer can be a very lonely experience. You might have projects that can be done remotely, so you hide in your cave. You will perhaps conduct user tests, but meeting someone for an hour is different than having daily banter with your office mate.

4. Your opinion is independent:

When you are employed, you are a representative of the company. Even internally, you must watch out for what you say, or you might affect your performance review.

You can be more unfiltered as a freelancer:

As a freelancer, you are expected to bring a different perspective to the conversation. In fact, people will love you for addressing the elephant in the room. Chances are high that many people agree, but you are the first one to ever speak out that something is wrong here. You will know by the nodding and private “glad you said it” messages in your chat window.
— Konstantin Escher, 12 things I learned during my first 12 months as a Freelance UX Researcher

4. The administration:

It’s something most of us don’t really like. Admin stuff. But you are responsible for managing your own administration and declaring your taxes. You’d rather spend this time designing something.

I’m a complete tax idiot, so I made some mistakes that cost me a fortune. I advise you just to find “a guy” to take care of this part of the business.

People underestimate the business side of freelancing — you really have to think of revenue, cash flow, marketing, and sales, and put effort into these activities. You need to be very persistent.
[…]
You generally need to put in a lot of work upfront to have the flexibility you want later on (you’re building a business, after all).
— Sebastian Mitchell in 5 awesome UX freelancers reveal their top tips for success, by Justinmind

The ugly (freelance)

The stress of continuity:

As a freelancer, you are always hunting for your next gig. You might need to invest some time in online marketing, personal branding, and networking.
Being insecure about whether you have something to work on can be really stressful. You might have to accept a less desirable or lower-paid project, or accept some time without income.

Or you work on gig platforms like fiverr or upwork, but I really hope you don’t need these, sometimes exploitative, systems.

“Good clients aren’t on Upwork either!
Marketplaces like this are full of bad to mediocre freelancers serving naive or downright scummy clients.”
— Benek Lisefski, Freelancing ≠ Upwork

However, the best freelancers have a constant flow of requests and must select the customers they prefer to work for. Their network finds the work for them.

Big tech

We should probably also talk about big tech. This might be the 5th type of contract that can be on this list.

They can be considered in-house, but I see them differently than a non-tech company with an in-house team. Their tech is the main product. For most in-house orgs, tech is in support of the main product.

I’m not the right person to share the pros and cons of big tech environments. I’ve never worked for big tech and probably never will.

I got a design leadership role offered a while ago at one of the big tech firms, but I rejected the offer. I have issues with a few parts of how these companies operate.

I have quite a few friends who work for the FAANG, and they are great people. Everyone has their own preferences and values.

I think it’s safe to say that the pros of big tech are:

High salary — Big tech salaries are easy to verify. They are high, but usually adjusted per region. Github used to have a salary calculator on their website (very transparent) that used the “San Fransisco Factor”. Someone in Paris would earn 90% of the SF salary, someone elsewhere in France 80% and people outside of the EU usually 60%.
Prestigious name on your CV — I’ve been part of numerous recruitment processes, also for engineer roles. Some hiring managers start to salivate if they see a Big Tech name on someone’s CV.
Surrounded by competent people — The prestige and salaries mean that most people that work at these companies are talented. You can learn a lot from them.
Innovative culture — You might not want to overvalue this. These companies become older and are also dealing with technical debt.
Internal mobility — Big tech has so many interesting projects that it’s not so hard to move to another domain. They usually have systems in place to promote internal mobility.

And the negative sides would be:

Limited autonomy — You work with many people and in a hierarchy. You can’t make choices on your own like in a start-up.
Small scope of your work — These companies have so many teams that you usually work on a very small part of a product. A settings page, an edit function, the article view, etc.
Lay-offs — We all know. It’s not that those companies haven’t made any profit lately, but they still lay off thousands of people in a breeze. You have to keep Wall Street happy.
Ethics —Tax avoidance, lobbying, data privacy violations, labour law violations, advertisement issues, etc. I’m going to leave it here for the moment. This topic is worth a dedicated article.

Some other aspects worth mentioning

Learning

As a UX and talent experience manager, I believe that any organization should invest a proper part of their budget into learning. This is definitely not everywhere the case.

Working in-house gives you the highest chance of receiving an adequate training budget. Agencies usually have a decent budget too.

Startups might be unable to send you to the course or conference you would like to attend. And when you are a freelancer, you have to pay yourself.

Obviously, there are many ways to acquire knowledge, but an annual training course surely provides more job satisfaction.

If certification and training budget are important to you, ask about it during your interviews.

Career Advancement

Another aspect of job satisfaction can be your outlook to grow into a more senior position. If you’d like to stay in a UX role, you want to find the organization with the highest design maturity. The bigger the design unit, the more senior and perhaps executive roles you can grow into.

If you see yourself transitioning into a non-design role, opportunities exist everywhere. Organizations that promote internally, instead of hiring for senior roles, are what you want to be looking for.

Working with developers

You need to have a good relationship with your engineers if you want your designs to succeed. Startups and in-house environments usually put you together with the dev teams. This makes quick changes in the designs, or in the code, really easy.

Agencies and freelancers might work further away from the engineers, resulting in misunderstandings and more comprehensive design handover processes.

Conclusion

Any type of employment has many things to offer you as a UX designer. Whether it’s the impact you can have in a start-up, the variety you will find in agencies, the stability of in-house orgs, or the freedom of freelancing.

I realise well that you can’t apply all the aspects discussed to all the companies that fall under a certain umbrella. There are mature startups, and in-house orgs where you can have a quick and deep impact on the product.

I wrote this article on my own experiences. You might have different ones, so feel free to share them in the comments.

Which of the corporate environments suits you best depends on your context. If you realise that your current job doesn’t work, look elsewhere. The grass might indeed be greener on the other side.

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