The designers most at risk right now are not junior.

The designers most at risk right now are not junior. They are senior designers who became senior by accumulating execution.

Ten years of shipping clean work. Strong portfolio. Some people management. The credentials are real. But the seniority, in the way that is about to matter, is not.

Senior has never meant years or output. It means you can change the quality of a decision, not just the quality of executing one. A junior makes the screen better. A senior enters a room where the direction is wrong and leaves with everyone aligned on a better one.

Execution and seniority got bundled together for a long time because the work was slow enough that judgment and craft looked like the same skill. AI is unbundling that.

If your value is expressed primarily through Figma files, you are junior in the way that matters now.

Go find your last three performance reviews. Count how many sentences describe a decision you changed versus a screen you shipped.

More on this in this week's issue of Design is Dead. Link in the comments.