Prologue
The designer making complex advertising effortless
At Adrop, there's a product designer whose job is to take a complicated advertising business and turn it into something anyone can use easily. She designs the AdTech SaaS platform that automates the entire ad operation process, and she does it in a way that directly drives business impact. Meet Jinny, Product Designer at Adrop — someone who learns the language of the business through design and keeps rethinking how teams collaborate. Here's her story. :)
01 / Jinny, a product designer who speaks brand
Hi Jinny — quick intro and your career path?
Hi, I'm Jinny, Product Designer at Adrop. Before this I worked as a brand designer, mostly focused on visual expression — logos, brand imagery, that kind of work. But over time I started to feel that what I was doing wasn't really tied to the success or revenue of a business. It felt like making something pretty for show. I wanted an environment where design could directly move the business, so I switched to product design.
Most of my brand-design career was in agency-type roles, planning what a company should look like and what image it should project, then building the visuals. The problem was once I handed it off, I had no idea how it actually got used. I'd been longing for in-house work, and now that I get to manage and evolve what I design end-to-end, it's much more rewarding.
What drew you to Adrop?
Two things stood out when I was applying. First, that this was a company where design actually drives business. Second, there were so many real problems to solve.
Adrop is automating and redesigning a lot of complex structures in the advertising industry. That means there are a lot of "problems for design to solve," and every one you solve translates directly into business outcomes. I knew it would be a real step up for my career.
02 / From "how it looks" to "how it's used"
First impression of Adrop after joining?
My immediate impression was that this is a company genuinely focused on solving problems. And they're really good at separating what's essential from what's nice-to-have. Solving any problem usually requires a lot of features, but in a startup you're short on both time and people, so you have to filter ruthlessly for what'll help you right now — Adrop is excellent at that. That's how they keep moving the business forward this fast.
What's your role and what are you solving?
I'm responsible for design across all of Adrop's products — from product planning through UX architecture to visual design. Early on the focus was on "making it possible to run an ad business through Adrop." Now we're focused on "making it possible to run that ad business better."
Advertising is inherently complex — targeting, budget allocation, performance measurement. My job is to keep the user from feeling that complexity. I simplify UX and information architecture, reinterpret ad-industry jargon from the user's perspective, and present only the right information at the right moment. That's how a beginner can manage an ad campaign intuitively and confidently.
Any insights from the brand-to-product transition?
Brand and product design are pretty different jobs, but they share something interesting: both are about constant decision-making. Whether through communication or planning, you keep making choices and finding reasons for those choices.
User-centered UX/UI sounds obvious, but coming from a brand background I also think a lot about how the product should look and feel. Beyond just making a feature work, I think about what emotion and trust the feature creates for the user.
We just did a brand refresh and defined Adrop's core values as Trust, Clear, Supportive. Trustworthy and forward-looking tech that makes complex ad technology approachable, while feeling like a partner that's there to help. Those three values are now baked into the product design itself.
03 / A co-worker who makes others better
Where have you grown the most since joining?
Collaboration, by a mile. Before, I had this mindset of "I have to handle everything myself." That doesn't work here. The problems are too hard, and you can't crack them without people from different functions putting their heads together. I get feedback from many teams and consistently find things I would have missed on my own — and the final result is dramatically stronger. I've ended up producing better outcomes in less time.
What do you value when collaborating?
The most important thing is helping your colleagues do their best work. Engineering and I are different disciplines but we're solving the same problem. If we operate like we're on totally different boats, it's just inefficient. So when I make something, I think hard about whether the person receiving it can understand it. That means I have to know them well — so I ask a lot of questions, study, remember feedback, and apply it next time. I sit in on engineering and sales meetings to understand how other teams work and why certain requirements exist. Our customers likely have similar team structures, so understanding internal teams is also how I understand our users.
Who do you collaborate with on decisions?
Mostly engineering and the business team. We just need to keep asking: "Does this decision actually solve the problem we set out to solve?" Keep that center of gravity, and the rest follows. When I share a design, people give feedback, but it's rarely emotional. As long as it looks like it'll solve the problem, we move forward — so even across disciplines, decisions can be made on logic everyone can buy into. Designers usually suffer through subjective feedback like "I don't love that color," "isn't this button too big?", "the font feels off" — here, that kind of comment almost never comes up. It's a relief.
04 / Dense, honest people
One word for the team vibe?
Dense. For our team size, the level of the product we're building is high. Meetings and feedback happen on logic, not emotion, so every conversation is dense. The bar is high, the talent density is high, and everyone here thinks carefully about their role and what they specifically need to be excellent at.
It's also a transparent team. Feedback is based on actual facts and not loaded with feelings. You don't have to read between the lines. What people say is what they mean.
What makes a good designer?
In my view, a good designer isn't someone who works well alone — it's someone who can grasp the context of the work and collaborate well.
Start by understanding where this work sits, why it's needed, who'll use it. Know how your design connects to the business objective, what user problem it's solving. Without that context, no design — however beautiful — carries weight.
Then, when feedback comes, you have to be receptive. Your work feels like your child, so criticism can feel like a personal attack. But you have to keep stepping back and asking, "Does this actually solve the problem?", "Does this work from the user's perspective?" That's when colleagues' different angles make your work tougher.
Finally, learn to draw on your colleagues' strengths. Engineers know technical constraints, business knows the market, sales has heard customers' voices. Instead of assuming you're enough on your own, figure out what each person is good at and use it. Ultimately, a good designer is someone who collaborates well and pulls a team's varied strengths into one product.
Most memorable praise or feedback?
The best is always reactions from our customers. When someone using the product says "this feature is amazing," "can't believe how easy this is" — those are the moments that hit hardest. That's when I feel "making complex things simple" actually reached the user.
Internally, I felt great when someone said I'm a designer who fits the company's pace well — thinking fast, making fast, closing things out fast, and adjusting course through active feedback. That's the kind of designer a startup actually needs, and being recognized for it meant a lot.
What are your goals here going forward?
Personally, I want to be a designer with PM-level thinking. Right now PM gives me the business goal and required features, and I take it from there — user-perspective UX, architecture, planning. I want to go deeper, getting involved at the strategy stage so I can have real business impact.
I won't become a PM overnight. But as more of that type of work lands on my plate, the role grows into me naturally. I'm already leading more projects than I was at the start. The goal is to combine a strategic business view with user-centered design — and to be the kind of person who can solve problems at their root.
On the company side, a lot of people don't know us yet. We don't just cover one slice of advertising; we cover several. The goal is for anyone running ads to be able to use this product. Ideally, any service company will end up reaching for Adrop as a default.
Who thrives at Adrop?
Adrop is a company that has to find the answers, so self-directed people who can ask their own questions and chase down the answers do really well here. You don't go alone — but in the group, you have to move actively, not passively.
Also, people who can give and receive help naturally. Treating helping each other as the default, and supporting each teammate so they can do their best work — that mindset is what grows here.
Epilogue
Jinny's design isn't about decorating a screen — it's about changing how the team and the user work. Inside a complex advertising domain, she simplifies problems and designs environments where people can solve things themselves. That lets our team move faster and more consistently, and our users feel like getting to their goal got easier. When design meets the language of the business, the product gets sharper and stronger. Today again, Jinny is turning complexity into simplicity and ambiguity into clarity — designing the product, the people, and the way we work. :)
Editor: Jensen
Published: 2025.11.04