My search for a new adventure is starting in earnest after some holidays.

Two weeks ago I wrote about two main options, one was getting a product designer role in a US startup/scaleup, the other one was restarting agency life.

I’ve been looking at jobs on read.cv and on workatastartup.com. Ideally I can find a role at a startup that does something exciting in the software space.

Another part of me thinks I should just build that startup. That’s been a lingering idea in the background.

The new agency idea seems pretty hard to pull off “from a distance” (my network is in Europe). I also feel like I could also do that in ten years, I don’t have to do it now.

I feel like I have to make use of the unique part of my life I am in now: no kids (yet), US time zone, easy flights to US, real-life access to build a local team (for example of local devs).

Back to the job sites – it’s pretty rare to see a cool job on the job sites. Some companies are already too big to do meaningful design work and make an impact. Most companies do something I can’t really get enthusiastic about (like crypto and blockchain things, ugh).

When I look at different companies I am focussed on the main ideas behind the company, their business model and (possible) engineering prowess. I am not stopped by a poor current state of design (I can come in to help fix that).

I applied to one company and got rejected outright because of my location in Mexico. Many US jobs are “US remote only” and “US and Canady only”. If anybody knows the logic behind that, I’d be happy to know. When I was an employer myself in Belgium, I didn’t like candidates outside Belgium for administrative reasons, so perhaps something similar is going on.

Some part of me thinks I need to fly to the US and network at the right conferences, but at the moment I don’t have a clear idea of where I would go or which conference makes sense.

In general, I plan to take enough time to find the right project/employer/business to work on and will be working as a freelancer while I figure it out.

These days, I am working on my side projects Screenshot to Layout and Obra Icons.

I am available for freelance projects. Check out my portfolio to get an idea what I could help with and get in touch if you think I could help you with your project.