Designing For Good: Klaudia’s Career Path to Purposeful Product Design

When Klaudia Skiba graduated with a degree in Spanish and Marketing, she expected to feel a stronger sense of direction. Instead, she entered a kind of limbo: capable, motivated and full of potential, yet unsure how to channel it into work that felt meaningful.

So, she pressed pause.

Those shifts in hospitality were not a detour. They sharpened skills Klaudia already had: empathy, communication, and problem-solving under pressure. But they also revealed a quiet misalignment.

She recognised that her challenge was not capability but direction. Hospitality had shown her she enjoyed helping people and improving experiences. It was simply the wrong environment for her strengths to grow.

In an Ask Me Anything webinar, Klaudia explained how she started to learn more about UX, began exploring different courses and eventually enrolled on the King’s UX & UI Product Design Career Accelerator. 

That decision set her on the path to becoming a Product Designer in the healthcare technology sector, and eventually Product Lead at Resolutiion®. 

‘I took the leap, even with no experience’

During her self-imposed “gap year”, Klaudia began reading about UX. The more she learned, the more it resonated. Designers she talked to spoke about user journeys and pain points in ways that matched her instincts. This made her think, “…UX would allow me to truly be myself.”

But one question lingered – the same one that concerns many career-changers: don’t you need technical skills to work in UX/UI?

She worried she lacked the right background. Yet the more conversations she had, the more those fears softened.

Those initial doubts would later highlight just how far her journey had taken her.“I was just a baby when I started this. Now I’m a full-on Product Designer. It can happen to anyone.”

What changed wasn’t that she magically became more “technical” overnight. It was that she found a route into UX that supported people at the very beginning of their careers.

That support quickly translated into practice. The Career Accelerator enabled Klaudia to build a portfolio of real, applied design work that reflected how she approached problems as a designer. By the end of the programme, her portfolio told a clear story through projects shaped by user needs, genuine constraints and measurable outcomes — a compelling proof point for early in their careers.

For Klaudia, and for many others like her, coming from a non-design or non-tech background is not a barrier. It can be a strength.

“Many people in my course were career changers from arts, from data science…. But there are so many different people with different backgrounds, and they make it happen. So it’s definitely possible.”

Learning by doing – and being treated like a designer from day one

From the first weeks of the programme, Klaudia noticed a difference from her previous study experience. This wasn’t months of theory followed by a distant assignment. It was a constant loop of learn → apply → get feedback.

“I remember the first week we were learning about the guidelines for UX and heuristics… and then in the same week we were given… an app, and then we had to audit it.”

Application was immediate, and so were the expectations. Learners were asked not simply to follow instructions, but to interrogate their decisions and justify their thinking.

Facilitators, all working industry professionals, played a central role in this shift. They pushed learners to articulate their reasoning rather than present polished outputs. They challenged assumptions, asked difficult questions and delivered constructive critique.

“I never felt like I was falling behind, and that was because of the help from facilitators and success managers who were there to help us.”

Through this process, she stopped seeing herself as someone “trying to get into” design and instead began behaving like someone already on the path.

The Employer Project and an unexpected job offer

The programme’s final stage, the Employer Project, was the closest thing to a first job while still studying. For six weeks, Klaudia and her team worked on a brief for a real organisation. 

“There were a lot of unknowns that we had to deal with…but it was so rewarding as well, because once we went through the six weeks of collaboration and designing, we thought, wow, we actually created an entire app that meets the business needs and the project goals.”

What she didn’t know was that someone was taking note. Her facilitator – an experienced designer working in healthcare – had not only observed her work, but her unique approach as well.

In a one-to-one session, Klaudia mentioned to her facilitator that she was applying for roles and asked, almost in passing, “If you know of any projects, whether paid or unpaid, short term, long term…I just want to apply my skills to practice.”

A few days later, the facilitator messaged her: “She messaged me… inviting me to work with her on a project.”

Not every learner receives a job offer from the Career Accelerator’s Employer Project. Yet Klaudia’s story shows what becomes possible when you treat the work like a real job – and someone in industry sees you as the kind of designer they would hire.

Designing for impact, not for aesthetics

After completing the Career Accelerator, Klaudia began working in the healthcare space as a Product Designer at Nuumad – a sector she once felt intimidated by. Yet it quickly became a natural home for her skills and values.

She was struck by problems that affect people at their most vulnerable: “If you’re trying to book an appointment, you’re either stressed or already overwhelmed, either about yourself or the people you love.”

For her, this was the moment UX stopped being abstract and became a question of responsibility. Klaudia elaborated, “Booking an appointment shouldn’t add more complications and more stress to it…Healthcare is something that we should all be able to access….it’s a human right.”

That, she says, is why she took the role. Her work is now not only about creating pretty interfaces, but about reducing friction during high-stress moments, making complex information usable for non-experts, and saving clinicians time so they can focus on care rather than paperwork. 

In short: it is about solving human problems.

Where is she now?

Since sharing her story in the live Q&A, Klaudia has continued to grow her design career – now working as Product Lead at Resolutiion®, leading product redesigns, collaborating closely with engineering and branding teams, and helping to shape the product’s direction. 

Her journey into a leadership role in tech shows not just a successful career change, but true acceleration – powered by clear purpose, applied skills, and confidence built during the King’s UX & UI Product Design Career Accelerator.

If you recognise yourself in Klaudia’s story, you should consider the King’s UX & UI Product Design Career Accelerator. The programme can help you pivot into design, build projects for your portfolio, and connect with people working in the industry. Download the programme brochure to find out more.