Engineering Manager Alice Ching discusses how Figma draws inspiration from the gaming world in its development process. There are similarities between video game engines and Figma’s tech stack, with collaboration and creating delightful user experiences being the key aspects.

Regardless of going to the in-person Config this summer, this is a great intro of the international designer advocate team. Here is the full list for you to follow — Lauren Andres, Hugo Raymond, Hiroki Tani, Julia Kestner, Mallory Dean, Corey Lee, Alexia Danton, and Sebastian Metel.

Jenny Wen, Product Design Manager at Figma, had a virtual AMA with the Designer Fund community, where she answered questions about leadership, the value of a ​“riffing” culture, designing for moments of delight, and where she goes for product design inspiration, news, and updates.

“In 2020, Figma’s infrastructure hit some growing pains. With database traffic growing ~3x annually, Engineer Tim Liang and the databases team set out to reduce potential instability and pave the way for scale.”

Every time someone posts pictures of Figma’s SF office, I’m blown away by its beauty and creativity.

Nadia Singer, Chief People Officer at Figma, shares why she believes anyone can become a skilled talent evaluator, her best interview questions, and how Figma leverages transparency across the org.

For this April Fun Day, Figma added a snake game to a Section tool inside FigJam. I don’t expect it to be around for too long, so give it a try if you can! See also a thread from Mihika Kapoor on how the team came up with the idea and built it.

I love reading about how design decisions are being made! This story shares a few anecdotes from the designers and engineers behind the current shipment of Little Big Updates, including multi-select search, background blur in prototypes, on-canvas previews, and hanging punctuation.

Figma published their internal design team career levels and accompanying Skills Chart widget to the Figma Community! Last year they refreshed the leveling framework and Design Manager Sara Culver wrote a detailed post documenting this work. For additional context, I highly recommend Noah Levin’s thread on this project. Also, don’t miss their templates for performance reviews and calibration.

Yuhki Yamashita’s talk from WebSummit 2022. I shared slides and an article based on this talk last November. In it, Yuhki explores how design is changing and how we need to change with it. He also offers practical advice on navigating our new always-in-progress world and Figma’s approach to developing collaboration features designed with that in mind.

The Figma Store is now available in the EU, and to celebrate the occasion they’ve dropped a new swag collection. My favorite additions are the new washi tape, Dress Code hat, and Toolkit mug!

“Having scaled the APAC region for 3 US companies, with a big emphasis on building culture as a foundation for success, Scott will speak of his learnings and lead a discussion for: Recruiting, Enabling, and Creating Culture.”

“Jesus [Requena] now leads Marketing and Growth at Hex, the data platform for data scientists. Before that he built and led the Growth Marketing team at Figma, the PLG darling that Adobe intends to acquire for a whopping $20 billion, which was the focus for much of this conversation. […] Keep reading to learn from Jesus about the role of growth marketing in a PLG business, how Figma does product-led sales, why you should consider product-qualified accounts (PQAs) one of your top KPIs, and how emerging tools like Endgame help accelerate your time-to-market.”

Bloomberg reports (see the Google cache version without the paywall) that the United States Department of Justice is preparing an antitrust lawsuit seeking to block Adobe’s $20 billion acquisition of Figma. A case is expected to be filed as soon as next month. ​“The antitrust division is concerned the deal — one of the largest takeovers of a private software maker — would reduce options for design software used by creative professionals.”

Video and transcript of a fireside chat with Dylan Field on Figma’s origins, AI, and education.

Examples of fun prompts and highlights from the Figma design team warmups in FigJam: ​“Overall, we ask a question, put a generous amount of time on the clock with some tunes, and let folks explore and have fun in FigJam. You don’t need to over-engineer an icebreaker for it to feel meaningful! And letting the room react and respond really lightens the exercise.”

If you ever wonder what Designer Advocates do at Figma, Clara Ujiie just gave a mini-presentation to Figma interns answering this question. While community engagement is the most visible part of advocates’ jobs, they also spend a lot of time on customer education and learning how customers and the community use Figma.

Sean Whitney, Craft Ventures investor and early Figma team member, sat down with Toni Gemayel, Figma’s first growth marketer, to talk about how he scaled growth marketing at Figma. While at Figma, Toni launched their Design Systems website, built an experimental Variable Fonts plugin before the native support was shipped, and was heavily involved with the design community.

Robert Bye reflects on his first full year at the new Figma Native apps team and how much their desktop, iPad, and phone apps have changed in 2022

Lenny Rachitsky talks to Yuhki Yamashita, CPO (Chief Product Officer) at Figma. ​“In today’s episode, we talk about operationalizing quality, the case against OKRs, and how Figma isn’t just known for product-led growth, but also for building a community of empowered users. Yuhki also shares why he thinks storytelling is key to being a great product manager, owning the ​“why,” and the potential impact of Adobe’s acquisition of Figma.”