🤫 The Silent Career Killer #33

You Think You're Being Evaluated on WHAT You Do? You're Not. | Unmasking 50 hidden threats to your UX career | part 33 of 50

There’s a moment in every experienced UXer’s career when the rules quietly shift…

You’re doing more.

You’re thinking deeper.

You’re influencing decisions behind the scenes.

And yet… nothing moves.

No new opportunities.

No elevation in status.

No invitations to bigger tables.

You’re visible... but not seen.

Valued... but not advanced.

What’s going on?

Welcome to one of the most overlooked UX career traps ↴

You're not being evaluated based on what you do anymore. You're being evaluated based on what people eq you're trying to do.

This is where intent signals start running the show.

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🛑 The Real Problem

When you’re early in your career, effort gets rewarded.

You take initiative? People notice.

You do extra? You get points.

But once you hit senior levels, the bar changes.

It’s not what you did.

It’s why they think you did it.

Did you share a framework to help the team? Or to show off?

Did you push back in that meeting because you care about outcomes? Or because you always challenge authority?

Same actions. Different reads.

And those reads aren’t always fair.

But once someone assigns a motive to you…

…they start interpreting everything you do through that lens.

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Why This Becomes a Problem

At a certain point, most experienced UXers fall into one of 2 traps:

1. The Overexplainer - constantly defending your intent, overcompensating for being misunderstood.

2. The Undercommunicator - assuming your work speaks for itself, then feeling confused when it doesn’t get traction.

Both stall your growth.

Because the more ambiguous your intent feels, the more others fill in the blanks.

And people rarely fill those blanks in your favor.

Especially in high-stakes rooms where:

• There’s limited context

• Decisions happen fast

• Everyone’s scanning for signals

When your intent isn’t clear, your influence gets capped. And often, you don’t even know it.

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What Experienced UXers NEED to Understand

At senior levels, reputation compounds - in both directions.

• If you're seen as thoughtful, even dissent is read as valuable.

• If you're seen as difficult, even agreement feels suspicious.

This means:

• Your current actions are being interpreted through your past signals.

• And once a narrative sets, it takes real effort to shift it.

So the real work isn’t just execution. It’s shaping how your work—and your motives—are perceived.

Not in a manipulative way.

In a conscious, strategic way.

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A Simple Framework ↴

The Intent Signal Filter

Before you act, especially in visible moments, run your move through this filter: