Today, in 10 minutes or less, you’ll learn:
- 🚀 Why a 15-year design veteran chose to work on a new continent & industry
- 🎯 The brutal truth about AI hype vs. what AI skills actually matter
- ⚠️ How to dodge the "vibe coding" trap and create something people love
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🖊️ From Grab to AI Products at Canva | Jay Demetillo
In 2023, we featured overseas tech job search tips from Jay Demetillo, previously a lead UX designer at Grab.
This post was a hit!
Since then, he moved from Singapore to Australia to help build Canva Sheets — a top secret AI project until recently announced to the public.
Today, I’m excited to bring Jay back for round two to discuss:
- How he moved his tech career to a new market (yet again!)
- How he finds the signal amidst the noise in the AI Era - especially in navigating his own tech career
Curious about how others are navigating their tech careers in a rapidly shifting landscape? This edition is for you.
Here’s Jay:
Jay Demetillo is a design leader and consultant. He has 15+ years of experience working with tech companies such as Canva, Grab, Twitter, Pinterest, and Yahoo across the US, China, Singapore, and Australia. He was an adjunct professor at CCA in San Francisco and has taught in China for ACG.
🎨 What motivated your transition from Grab (Singapore) to Canva (Australia), and how did you position yourself for an AI-focused role?
I felt I was given an amazing opportunity to work on something totally different that could impact people at a large scale. Grab is great. I have no regrets working there. I have some amazing memories and products I’ve built there, but Canva gave me an opportunity to level up.
I’ve told other people this as well. If I were a sports athlete, I’d love a chance to play in different leagues. This is no different. Working in a different market, getting to know a new space.… it’s super fun.
As for an AI-focused role, I wouldn’t say I positioned myself for it. It just happened and I caught the wave at the right time. Being in the right place and in the right time seems to be a theme of my career.
🤖 What AI skills actually matter in building products versus what's hyped on social media?
I think it depends. AI is wonderful as a thought partner. It’s great at starting a project from the ground up, and it’s awesome at creating designs to a certain extent.
That being said, we’re now hitting the era of everyone creating their own app. To a degree that’s cool but just like when people figured out how to code their Myspace home page and show off, the shine is going to wear off.
The experience and design is going to be the differentiator with all these applications. Sure, it’s great to build something from 0 to 1 but in reality, everyone is building from 0-50 in the Age of AI. The last 50% is actually getting into the weeds, giving your users a delightful and meaningful experience that’s different from competitors.
One example I talk about is looking at the car industry. Car models were relatively similar until Tesla came around. When Tesla came out, people mocked the experience of having a large screen while you were driving, but turns out Tesla was right. This actually improved the driving experience and now you see all other car models adapting with screens as well.
So in the end, a smart and delightful design experience matter even in the Age of AI.
🛠️ What were the biggest challenges in building Canva Sheets from scratch, and how did you overcome them?
Like any other new product, there are always challenges navigating between serving users who are considered experts to certain types of experiences versus newbies. I think if you ask any product or design person, there is a balance to strike here.
How do you make your product accessible and inclusive to scale for all user types? Some people will assume AI can save you in this regard. AI cannot give you all these answers even if it does tests for you because it’s built on existing data.
You still need to talk to real users to get those on-the-ground truths or insights as user behaviors change over time whether it’s due to uncontrollable factors like the economy or tech rapidly changing. It’s happened to products I’ve been a part of whether it’s in finance, sports, ride-hailing, e-commerce, etc...
Having a proper obsession with serving your users and testing consistently when you find product market fit is the key to success.
💭 What's your reaction to trending AI developments like vibe coding? Overhyped or underrated?
Personally, I feel it’s a bit overhyped but there are some really nice feel good stories and applications that have come out of this wave of AI Development.
You are starting to see that as folks post more about their vibe coding builds on social (like when folks figured out how to build out their Myspace or Xanga back in the day). There is nothing wrong with being proud about vibe coding cool apps, but the problem now is there’s a saturation of applications.
There is no differentiation on how this product is considerably better than others. It’s really hard to tell especially when the word “AI” is thrown around and everyone assumes it must be amazing.
I’m not trying to be negative. Personally, I think it’s great to see designers (and anyone else who hasn’t coded) jump into space of building because the differentiator at the end of the day is delightful and easy to use applications.
But if you’re going to deliver true user value, the story you tell needs to change to ensure your platform is accessible and people understand it’s value for daily habits. Also what you build needs to be stable as the lack of code QA on some of these experiences is concerning.
I do predict though a lot of folks will have their own products for personal use. I think that’s awesome but if you’re truly looking to make a difference, I’d love to see more folks push for their own differentiated products and startups that makes a difference around the world.
💡 What advice would you give to tech professionals looking to incorporate AI into their career growth?
Just jump in and don’t be scared of the learning curve. Try tools like Cursor, Claude, ChatGPT, V0, Tailwind, Railway and making AI agents through various tools.
I love that companies are giving employees a chance to figure out how to better use AI in their workflows. How are you using these abilities to speed up a project or better collaborate with teammates? We’ve just done this at Canva and it was super helpful.
I’d find the right communities of people to surround yourself with as well. Product & design people to follow: Joe Natoli, Mia Blume, Andy Budd, Harrison Wheeler, Ha Phan.
I am not part of the rah-rah AI crowd but I build on the side, at work, or for experimentation. I have my own startup ideas but I would rather build in secret instead of sharing them for now. I also surround myself with realists which has helped my perspective on AI.
If you are serious about building products with AI, put your money where your mouth is, invest in the tools, the right people, and the right messaging. As we learned anything from politics and social networking in tech, your messaging and story matters long term. Embrace AI because it’s not going away anytime soon.
🔗 Where can we go to learn more about you?
- Connect and shoot me a message on Linkedin
- Subscribe to my Substrack “The Drifting Frame”
- Get mentored by me on Mentor Cruise
- See me speak at Design Matters Tokyo
💎 Last Week’s Gems
🧒 My wife & her friend are helping kids become illustrated book authors (TIMS)
🤔 Zero-sum Thinking and the Labor Market (Kyla Scanlon)
💭 When o3 Plans Your Career Better Than You Do (Katie Parrott)
📆 Upcoming Workshops
- August 7th, 6pm PST / 9am SGT: Offer Design 101 → Register
- September 4th, 6pm PST / 9am SGT: Growth Engine 101 → Register
- October 2nd, 6pm PST / 9am SGT: TBD → Register
Want replays? You can access our vault of workshop recordings here.
