It’s a regular Thursday sync until my manager cuts our Figma license and hands the whole product team one month to go fully AI. In this one I walk through who made that call, the surprisingly solid case for it, and the very selfish panic running through my head while I said nothing.

When the tool you spent a decade mastering loses its market value in a single meeting, what exactly are you afraid of losing: your job, or your identity?

This is the episode about the day the call actually came down. I’m at my kitchen counter with a fresh coffee, hopping on a normal weekly UX sync, when my manager announces the entire product team is moving to a 100% AI workflow by the end of the month. And by the way, the Figma license is getting cut. No debate, no “what does everyone think.” The decision was made in a room I wasn’t in, then delivered to a room full of designers who had about a month to deal with it.

I do two things in this one. First, I try to be fair to the decision, because it deserves it. I get into the cost math leadership was staring at in early 2026, the pricing question Bob Baxley raised after I posted about the switch, and why ripping the band-aid off with a brutally short deadline was probably the right move and not the reckless one it felt like. Then I tell you the less flattering half: what was actually going through my head in that meeting. Spoiler, not one of those thoughts was about our users or the work. Every single one was about me, my title, and whether being “the person who knows Figma best” was ever a real skill to begin with.

I also get into the part nobody sat us down to talk about, which is that these tools blur the lines between design, engineering, and product in every direction at once, and introduce the “in the loop, on the loop, out of the loop” question that runs through the rest of the season. If your company hasn’t had this meeting yet, I’d gently suggest not assuming it isn’t coming. Give this one a listen, then let me know about your own version of the kitchen counter moment.

Topics:

• 0:00 The day they cut our Figma license

• 3:00 The cost play: why pay for two tools?

• 4:05 Not my call: where I sit in the org

• 4:50 Nobody said "adapt or quit" (the soft mandate)

• 5:30 The fair case, and Bob Baxley's pricing question

• 7:15 Ripping the Band-Aid: off the dock, into the boat

• 8:40 What was really in my head: "just UI engineers now?"

• 9:45 Kevin the plumber

• 10:50 Watching a decade of skill depreciate

• 11:50 How remote teams process shock

• 13:10 Does engineering even want us in the code?

• 14:00 Every role blurs at once

• 15:10 The walk

• 15:55 In the loop, on the loop, out of the loop

• 17:10 Next time: what we traded away

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