Jeisson Ballesteros

Design @

[Jeisson Ballesteros @jeissonabc29]

Repository access for designers is a must...

Since getting direct access, my understanding of the product (and the features built before I joined) has jumped significantly. That context lets me make better, more informed design decisions.

[Ridd 🤿 @ridd_design]

ICYM Dive Club Live in NYC we're releasing the panel discussion today featuring 3 incredible guests:

1️⃣ @meaghaneschoi (design lead for Claude Code/Cowork)

2️⃣ @danshipper (CEO of Every)

3️⃣ @bradleyziffer (design eng at Ramp)

Enjoy this deep dive into AI design workflows 👇

[Jeisson Ballesteros @jeissonabc29]

@lennysan Very curious on these results…

[Jeisson Ballesteros @jeissonabc29]

@avstorm I like how the new icons look, but I’ve been having some troubles when looking for them. It takes me more time to get the Google app I need

[Jeisson Ballesteros @jeissonabc29]

I use AI every day in my design work. I agree with a lot of what Zeb says here. But one thing is worth thinking about.

He says user research is no longer a bottleneck because an agent can run it. A few sections later he says 1:1 customer meetings are sacred and shouldn't be automated, even when agents can handle video calls.

If human connection with customers is worth protecting for sales, why isn't it worth protecting for the people designing the product?

Insights are always valuable, but nothing replaces real empathy when designing.

Curious how others are navigating this.

[Zeb Evans @DJ_CURFEW]

Today we reduced headcount by 22%. The business is the strongest it's ever been. So I think it's important to be direct about what I'm seeing and why.

First, I made this decision and I own it. I did it because the way to operate at the highest level of productivity is changing, and to win the future, ClickUp needs to change with it.

Second, this wasn't about cutting costs. Most savings from this change will flow directly back into the people who stay. We'll be introducing million-dollar salary bands. If you create outsized impact using AI, you'll be paid outside of traditional bands.

Most importantly, I have the deepest gratitude for those affected. We're doing this from a position of strength specifically so we can take care of people properly. Everyone affected receives a package aimed at honoring their contributions and easing the transition.

I only see two options: wait for this to play out gradually in the market or be honest about what I'm seeing and act proactively.

THE 100X ORGANIZATION
The primary change is that we're restructuring around what I call 100x org. The goal is 100x output. The roles required to build at the highest level are fundamentally different than they were a year ago.

Incremental improvements to existing systems won't get us there. We need new ones. That means creating enough disruption to rebuild rather than iterate on what's already broken.

The common narrative is that AI makes everyone more productive. It doesn't. Many of the workflows of today, if left unchanged, create bottlenecks in AI systems.

These roles will evolve. But waiting for that to happen naturally means falling behind now.

The 100x org is actually heavily dependent on people - infinitely more than today. This is only possible with 10x people that have embraced and adopted new ways of working.

THE BUILDERS, AGENT MANAGERS, AND FRONT-LINERS

— THE BUILDERS: 10X ENGINEERS
I don't think most companies have internalized what's actually happening with AI in engineering. The common narrative is that AI makes all engineers more productive. That may be true in isolation, but at an organization level - that is the farthest thing from reality.

Here's what we've validated recently at ClickUp: the great engineers, the ones who can orchestrate, architect, and review, are becoming 100x engineers. They're not writing code. They're directing agents that write code. The skill is judgment.

AI makes the best engineers wildly more productive, and everyone else using AI slows these engineers down.
Think about it - the bottlenecks are (1) orchestration - telling AI what to do, and (2) reviewing - what AI did. Everything is leapfrogged and no longer needed.
So who do you want orchestrating and reviewing code?

And how do you want your best engineers to spend their time?

If your best engineers are spending time reviewing other people's code, then this is inherently an inefficient bottleneck. These engineers can review their agent's code much faster than reviewing human code.

The new world is about enabling your 10x engineers to become 100x.

The wrong strategy is to push every engineer to use infinite tokens. Companies doing this are celebrating 500% more pull requests. But customer outcomes don't match the volume of code being generated.

I call this the great reckoning of AI coding, and every company will face this soon if not already.

More code is just another bottleneck to the best engineers, and ultimately to your company's impact as well.

— THE BUILDERS: 10X PRODUCT MANAGERS
Product management and design roles are merging.

Designers that have customer focus, become more like product managers.

And product managers that have intuition for UX become more like designers.

The bottleneck of user research is gone. It takes us just one mention of an agent to kickoff research and analyze results.

The bottleneck of product <> design iteration is also gone. The product builder iterates on their own, along with agents and skills that ensure alignment with quality and strategy.

Also controversial today - I believe that the wrong strategy is to have your PMs shipping code - that just introduces another bottleneck that the best engineers will waste their time on.

To be clear, PMs should be coding but they should do this in a playground to iterate, validate, and scope. That code should not go to production.

Everything outside of managing systems, orchestrating AI, and reviewing output becomes a bottleneck.
That's why the other roles that are critical along with these are the systems managers (to reduce bottlenecks) along with a bottleneck you can't replace - customer meeting time.

— THE SYSTEM MANAGERS
Ironically, the people that automate their jobs with AI will always have a job. They become owners of the AI systems - agent managers. We have many examples of these people at ClickUp.

The underlying systems in which we operate are absolutely critical to get right. I think most companies are delusional to think they can iterate on existing systems and compete in this new world.

You must create enough disruption so that old systems are deprecated entirely. If there's any definition for 'AI native' that's what it is.

— THE FRONT-LINERS
In a world that will become saturated with AI communication, the human touch will matter more than anything to customers.

This is a bottleneck that you shouldn't replace - even when agents are high enough quality to do video meetings.

One-on-one meeting time with customers is something that shouldn't be automated. The systems around the meetings should be - so that front-liners spend nearly 100% of their time with customers.

REWARDING 100X IMPACT
In a world where companies are able to do so much more with less, where does that excess money go?
In our case, much of the savings in this new operating model will flow directly back to those that enabled it.

We must reward people that create productivity accordingly. This aligns incentives on both sides. Plus, in a world where your best people create 100x impact, you can't afford to lose them.

You should aim to retain these employees for decades. The context they have and their ability to efficiently orchestrate and review will be nearly impossible to replace.

Compensation bands of today should be thrown out the door. We're introducing $1 million cash/year salary bands with a path available to nearly everyone in the company if they produce 100x impact by creating or managing AI systems.

THE FUTURE
Nearly every company will make changes like these. The ones that do it proactively will define what comes next.

The future is not fewer people. It's different work, new roles, and better rewards for those who embrace it. We're already seeing entirely new roles emerge, like Agent Managers, that didn't exist a year ago.

ClickUp is positioning to lead this shift, not just internally, but for our customers too. I've never been more certain about where we're headed.

[Jeisson Ballesteros @jeissonabc29]

@Pallavi_345 I gave up on cleaning it

[Jeisson Ballesteros @jeissonabc29]

@Flomerboy I do have it. To update my status when afk

[Jeisson Ballesteros @jeissonabc29]

@MMXN @freddier @kerulo @platzi Yo creo que quienes crecerán discapacitados serán esos que se volverán totalmente dependientes de la IA. Ya tenemos el ejemplo de los smartphones…

[Jeisson Ballesteros @jeissonabc29]

@lennysan Wouldn’t say the design process is dead. It’s just different, shorter, not as meticulous before prod — there is always a design process. But definitely an exciting time!

[Jeisson Ballesteros @jeissonabc29]

So much appreciated!

[ClaudeDevs @ClaudeDevs]

Usage limits are up, effective today we're:

1) Doubling Claude Code's 5-hour limits for Pro, Max, Team and seat-based Enterprise plans

2) Removing peak hours limit reduction on Claude Code for Pro and Max plans

3) Substantially raising our API rate limits for Opus models

[Jeisson Ballesteros @jeissonabc29]

@meag_han_c The good kind of jealous over here 👏
Real designer soul landing in a tool built for engineers (at least initially) is the crossover we almost never get. You should be deeply proud.

[Jeisson Ballesteros @jeissonabc29]

@NotionHQ Amazing interview. Easily one of the best free resources for designers in the AI era. A must-watch.

[Jeisson Ballesteros @jeissonabc29]

@TTrimoreau Definitely network. Most of skills will exist within LLM’s

[Jeisson Ballesteros @jeissonabc29]

@pmitu Not sure in “Always” but definitely now does

[Jeisson Ballesteros @jeissonabc29]

Totally agree on Agency &gt; Skills.

Wondering how they may affect the educational system and how the young generations and people in general will prepare for the future.

[Lenny Rachitsky @lennysan]

"We already have universal basic income. It's called knowledge work."

Max Schoening (@mschoening) is one of the deepest thinkers on how AI is changing how we build and use software. He's also what the future of product leadership looks like.

He's head of product at @NotionHQ, was VP of Design (and a part-time engineer) at @GitHub, head of design at @Heroku, a PM at Google, and a 2x founder.

In our in-depth conversation, we discuss:
🔸 What’s worked in getting designers and PMs to fully embrace AI
🔸 Why agency—not skills—is the thing that separates people who will thrive
🔸 Max’s “tiny core” theory of great products: iPhone multitouch, the GitHub pull request, Dropbox’s menu bar icon
🔸 How the first 10% of every project is now “free,” and what that means for product development
🔸 Why the amount of software has exploded but the quality hasn’t, and why that gap creates opportunity

Listen now 👇
https://t.co/PdboIWSlZk

[Jeisson Ballesteros @jeissonabc29]

@lennysan @mschoening @NotionHQ Totally agree on Agency &gt; Skills.

Wondering how they may affect the educational system and how the young generations and people in general will prepare for the future.

[Jeisson Ballesteros @jeissonabc29]

Yesterday I built a collapsible animated toolbar panel. Figma for exploration, then Figma MCP into Claude Code…

Visual fidelity was great. Spacing, motion, states — all there without me fighting the model. Just explained the interaction logic and a little UI refinement and it nailed it.

QA passed. Works great.

But I’m a designer, not an engineer. I can tell you it behaves right. I can’t really tell you if the code underneath is clean or maintainable. Honestly I’d still want a senior eng to look at it before I called it done.

When does that stop mattering? Like, at what point is the code AI ships just good enough that nobody cares to review it anymore?

Curious where other designers shipping with Claude Code are at on this.

[Jeisson Ballesteros @jeissonabc29]

This is great, I’m currently using a different subscription on Lovart to solve this need

[Figma @figma]

New ways to add references when generating and editing images with AI

→ Copy/paste
→ Add directly from a selection
→ Drag and drop files

Rolling out over the next week

[Jeisson Ballesteros @jeissonabc29]

@figma This is amazing… I was paying a different subscription Lovart to do these things.

[Jeisson Ballesteros @jeissonabc29]

@ItsPeterDesign It’s true! But I would change it to “Great human minds are way better than AI”

[Jeisson Ballesteros @jeissonabc29]

@jamesrichardfry But not all designers can ship good design… good judgement and good taste will be all that matters