Knowing when to stop—the sign of a great product builder
An incredibly simple rule of thumb for evaluating IC leveling.
Great designers don’t just know when to ship—they know when to stop. And, at the highest levels, when not to start.
This clicked for me after interviewing Dan De Mars, a design and product leader at Current Backyard, an outdoor cooking company. We were talking about judgment in motion—when to brake, when to idle, when to redirect. That conversation surfaced a simple way to see the difference between levels.
The Lens: Judgment in Motion
Design isn’t only about pushing work forward. It’s about sensing when momentum helps and when it hurts. Early in a career, you learn to move. Later, you learn when to resist movement—and when to halt it completely.
Junior: Learning Where the Brakes
A junior designer often doesn’t know when to stop. They chase promising threads past the useful point, and they need a senior to pull the brake before a dead-end consumes time. The work can be energetic and inventive—but without timely stopping, quality and direction drift.
Mid-Level: Braking Late, But Braking
A mid-level designer has started to feel the edge. They recognize the signs, just a beat late. You see skid marks: extra explorations, late pivots, effort that could have been spared. It’s progress. The instinct to stop is forming; the timing needs refinement.
Senior: On-Time Stops Within Scope
A senior designer can stop on time within a clear team scope. They manage quality and pace, they know when “good enough” truly is enough, and they ship reliably. Their judgment holds inside their lane. They can shift work without burning cycles.
Lead: Protecting Attention by Not Starting
A lead designer exercises a different kind of restraint. They often don’t start the wrong work at all. They protect attention. They redirect effort before momentum builds in the wrong direction. Their impact comes as much from the roads they refuse as the ones they green-light.
Principal: Proposing Direction With Strategic Stops
A principal designer sets the path. They propose direction based on strategy, decide how far to take it, and stop at the moment that preserves speed and clarity for the whole system. They move just far enough to ship with confidence—and no farther.
Where Performance Measurement Shifts
Up to senior, you’re given a direction and judged on execution: when the work is “good enough,” how cleanly you stop, and how reliably you ship.
From lead to principal, the measurement changes. You’re judged on not wasting time, on where you refuse to spend effort, and on proposing a direction others hadn’t considered.
Leveling Up: Two Muscles
If you want to level up, focus on building two essential skills.
First, learn to stop sooner than feels natural. Most people keep working long past the point of diminishing returns—adding polish, chasing one more angle, or tweaking for the sake of movement. The real skill is knowing when to put the pencil down and call it done. That’s how you protect your time and energy for what matters next.
Second, develop the discipline not to start work that doesn’t matter. The fastest, most efficient work is the work you never do. To get good at this, broaden your perspective: understand the basics of marketing and business, know your customer, and figure out how the business actually makes money. Make sure you’re solving the right problem for the right person—before you even sketch your first idea.
Leveling up isn’t just about doing more. It’s about knowing when less is more.
Cheers!
Caden Damiano