Today, we chat with Rina Kang, a fellow ex-Architecture student who’s now working as a UX Designer at Amazon. Rina studied Architecture at Cornell, and was previously an intern at OMA. We check in with what her work is like on a daily basis, and her pivot journey.

Hi Rina! Tell us about yourself. Where are you from, what do you like to do?

Hi there! My name is Rina. I’m a Chinese, British-Canadian, Architecture-turned-UX Designer. I recently graduated and have since been living in Seattle. In my spare time, I like to practice non-traditional instruments, watch true crime Netflix shows, practice Japanese, and talk to others about career transitions. I also like to pretend we are currently not in a doomsday scenario!

I was born in the UK, but my family immigrated to Toronto, Canada when I was around four. For college, I moved to upstate New York, where I studied architecture for 5 years at Cornell. After graduating, I relocated to Seattle for my current full-time job at Amazon.

What do you like about Seattle?

The greatest thing about Seattle is that it promotes a well-balanced lifestyle. The access to nature is unparalleled, and the ever-present greenery is therapeutic. If work piles up, or my personal life goes into disarray, all I have to do is look out at Mount Rainier and bury my nose in a few plants to feel OK again. It’s true what they say about Seattle, though–it’s gray and overcast most of the time, which makes all of us Washingtonians Vitamin D deficient. But the oysters–and the hot-but-not-too-hot summers–make Seattle worth it! 

We’re Vitamin D deficient in New York, too. So, what drew you to study Architecture?

When I was in high school, I was in an accelerated math and science program. The kind where everyone came in with dreams of becoming a doctor, a lawyer, or an engineer. I realized halfway through the program that I was more interested in expressing meaning through the arts than I was in solving differential equations. But I wanted to make sure it wouldn’t be too difficult to support myself in the future. In my mind, I had to marry what I thought was a “practical” career choice with my true interests. Architecture, at that time, seemed like good middle ground. 

It wasn’t until volunteering at an art gallery that I realized it was truly what I wanted to study. Every Wednesday after school, I’d intentionally spend a few minutes getting lost at the gallery, admiring the building. I began to understand the importance of intentionally designed spaces, and how they shape feelings and encourage positive behavior. In college, I grew to love studying and designing for the built environment. It was like studying culture, history, politics, and religion at the same time. Now I’ve made the transition into designing for technology.  I hope I can find another middle ground between technology and architectural design one day.

Was there anything you learned from your time in Architecture you’d like to share?

One great takeaway from Architecture school is that it’s taught me to always question and challenge the status quo. Not just in design, but in many aspects of life. Something that applies to my current job, however, is being able to think in terms of big-picture systems and details simultaneously, from strategy to execution. I find it is usually broken up in linear stages in the industry, but I believe it’s far more efficient and valuable to think about design from a holistic POV.

When did you start to move away from the traditional practice?

I loved the education I received and the people I met at Architecture school. But I quickly learned that the industry was not going to be the most encouraging environment for me to grow in. As a student, I made sure to experience a range of firms. I interned at small studios, big corporate offices, and even Starchitect firms across America and in the Netherlands.

I had fun. But through my experiences, I saw that the industry was stuck in the past. It was hierarchical, inefficient, and didn’t have any work-life balance. I saw myself as a young architect, spending late nights at the office without the opportunity to exercise all the conceptual and strategic design thinking I had learned in school. 

I also saw the traditional business model of Architecture as problematic. This trickles down to how workers are treated, devaluing the profession in a way that brings everyone down. As for reaching personal success in the industry, there were Architects who were able to launch successful practices on their own. These Architects were either independently wealthy or had powerful connections to jumpstart their careers. Basically, they had resources I didn’t have. 

That said, I still love Architecture. After all, nothing makes me more excited than seeing a beautifully placed reveal! But I truly believe the industry needs to undergo a paradigm shift in order to create a more welcoming future for generations ahead.

“I grew to love studying and designing for the built environment. It was like studying culture, history, politics, and religion all at the same time…But I truly believe the industry needs to undergo a paradigm shift in order to create a more welcoming future for generations ahead.”

What steps did you take to get into your current position or field?

In school, I tried my best to branch out of studio when I could. Years of enduring 24-hour studio culture left little room for anything else! So I realized it was important for me to use my remaining time in college to explore other interests. Whatever free time I found, I dedicated it to familiarizing myself with the startup community at school. Working part-time at startups gave me a taste of business, engineering, and UI/UX design. This piqued my interest further. The summer before my last semester of college brought me into my current job. My goal that summer was to find an internship, with the only stipulation being that it couldn’t be at another architecture firm. Fortunately, I was hired as a Visual UX Design intern at Amazon with an amazing manager who supported my hire for a full-time role!

I still feel like I’m transitioning, but I’m having fun learning more about product design each day.

What does your day-to-day look like at Amazon?

As a UX/Visual designer, I’m working within a design organization that ships experiences for Alexa devices and services. My work on a regular basis includes:

• Participating in team design crits
• Attending stakeholder meetings with Product and Engineering, attending standups to report work progress for that week
• Solo design time! Playing around with design ideas in Sketch, and creating wikis and presentation decks
• Lots of instant messaging with coworkers, especially since work is all remote now!

What fulfills you–or doesn’t fulfill you–in your current role as opposed to your work in Architecture?

Things I appreciate about working in the Digital Product Design industry as compared to Architecture:

• Shorter design cycles. Being able to ship experiences in months as opposed to years
• Working on products that millions of people use on a daily basis, as opposed to a select, and sometimes elite few
• The ability to “test” out solutions and design iteratively as opposed to having only one shot to get it right
• Huge emphasis on teamwork and working cross-functionally
• Good work-life balance & high salaries
• A strong focus on career and personal growth
• An overarching sense of optimism towards the future

Did you encounter any doubts or roadblocks when you were transitioning into a different role?

Yes! I found it a little challenging to transition while in school, as I was juggling the transition with studio.

In my junior year, when I was ramping up to find other opportunities, my petition to take Human Computer Interaction classes was denied by the Architecture department. The classes overlapped with studio time. And the overlap was only 40 minutes. When I applied for my college’s app development team, I was rejected. Friends and classmates gave me their unsolicited advice that it was too late for me to be thinking about other careers. Spoiler alert: it’s never too late! I agreed with them, too.

Doubt is one of the most pervasive things. Even when I accepted my fulltime offer to pursue a different field, I was unsure whether or not I made the right decision. I felt like I was focused on becoming an architect for so long that it had become closely tied to my identity and self-worth, so it was difficult to let go. It was also challenging to not know anyone who had changed careers as well. Not just to tech, but simply out of architecture!

What’s the biggest takeaway from your current field of work that you weren’t able to find in the Architecture field?

Failing fast is a prerequisite for success in technology. Tech operates on the currency of speed. It’s far more valuable to put a design out there than it is to ruminate at your computer, searching for the perfect solution. Product designers get thousands of shots, with each version hopefully a little better than the last. Architects, on the other hand, get only one shot for a finished product so there needs to be a lot of upfront work. You have to focus on the details.

Would you say it was worth it to pivot to another career? Is there anything that you miss?

I’m grateful for all the experiences that have led me to pivot! So far, I’ve been enjoying this new career path. It’s fun, challenging, and offers a great lifestyle with foreseeable career advancement. Of course, there are still things I miss about working in Architecture, such as:

• The strong bond between “Archies” that I have yet to find elsewhere!
• The international nature of the industry, from the people to the projects
• Learning about cities, culture, and history as necessary precursors to jumpstart design
• The satisfaction of designing a real object or building that you can touch, move around in, or inhabit one day
• Working in 3-dimensions instead of 2, and the fun mental stimulation that brings
• Nerding out on design philosophies, “Archi-speak,” and building details

Read more about Architects who have changed their careers here on our blog.