The role of Content Design Director in the tech industry is crucial in shaping the way users interact with digital products, services, and platforms.
The primary focus of this role is on maintaining a high standard of content quality, aligning with the brand’s voice and tone, and ensuring that the content meets the needs of the target audience.
We sit down with Candi Williams, Content Design Director at Bumble, to tell us all about her role at the dating app, advice for those wanting to work in design, and shares what life is like working at Bumble.
hello everyone thank you for tuning in again I am Kaye bitman the content director at shean code and today we are
asking what does a Content design director at Bumble do all day the role of content design director in the tech
industry is crucial in shaping the way users interact with digital products services and platforms and luckily I’m
joined by The Fabulous candy Williams content design director at Bumble today who is going to tell us all about her
role at the dating app share her advice for those wanting to work in design and reveal what life is like working at
Bumble welcome candy lovely to have you on here thank you thanks so much for having me appreciate it thank you for
agreeing to come on and have a chat um You probably have one of the busiest days ever so thank you so much can we
kick off with a little bit of background about yourself to set the scene please yeah of course absolutely so I guess my
kind of entry into the tech industry may not have been a tradition additional one
if there is such a thing so my background in kind of where I studied was in
linguistics um and specifically in the kind of Realm of social Linguistics and
psych Linguistics which is a fancy way for talking about way that language
impacts how people think how they act how they feel how they make decisions
and how they make sense of the world and after that I went down again a
non-traditional route of doing what I what every graduate did back then which was get an office job um and I remember
one day I was filing back in the days where you file paper um old school I
know um and I just realized that I was really
missing the creativity The Innovation side of things um and all of the things
that I kind of loved about my degree I’ve always been really passionate about learning and I was just missing using
kind of that side of my brain um so at that point I took an internship um at a
fintech before they were called back in the days of kind of SEO it was very much a startup um back then and I was working
in the kind of early stages of SEO and I really became really fascinated with not the um the kind of more negative sides
and keyword stuffing such like but actually like how we can really use that
to really understand how people navigate the internet the really important role that language plays there as well
because I think often we think about you know the behind the scenes but really with that front end people are typing in
things because they have a clear need or ask so I really became fascinated with that and how I could create content back
then it was a lot of blogs and articles but how I could create content based on what people need what was going to help
them get to what they needed to do um quickly and you know what was going to solve real problems in their life at the
time and it’s kind of been yeah upwards um for many iterations and tools since
then amazing and it’s it’s so interesting that you said you went into Linguistics and and as you said um the
the language that we use in the decisions that that people make based on that um and now obviously working at
Bumble that’s so interesting that that that you that overlapping of those skill set we have this conversation regularly
on this podcast that everybody thinks you have to be very Tech to go into Tech and actually your
crossover skills were Linguistics and just you know as you said you were doing lots of things that were solving
problems um and helping people make decisions and they’re not necessarily what people think the tech industry
would be you know they always think you have to have that computer science degree um but you didn’t go down a
traditional route like many other ladies that that that I have on um on the podcast um do you do you have a team
like that as well do you have a mixt of colleagues that have kind of come from a traditional background and
non-traditional what is is there kind of a mix there yeah definitely and I think you
know content design is a newer term for roles that have been around for some
time so there’s you know definitely not such a kind of traditional background for a Content designer but for me I
completely agree with what you je said there and and when I really kind of strip it all
back pools and methodologies kind of come and go but my experience has been
that people are always at the heart of it right and that’s been the case if I’ve worked in B Toc or B2B like at the
end of The Experience we’re creating is something that people want need need to
be able to understand so I think that backgrounds you know I have a team with
a real Myriad of backgrounds but I think what they all share is a deep empathy
for people understanding people and creating experiences that um people find
really useful and I think that that goes both ways right because if you can do it on the the user side it’s also really a
pial and important on the business side because businesses are also made up of people um of many many different skill
sets so I think like that is what I would say is really like the key skill
um if we have one that kind of brings content designers together yeah is that kind of what first
sparked your um interesting to going into Tech or were there other things um you know like there there are lots of
things that are we say on here the best kept secrets of the tech industry like the salaries are good you can have
flexible working and you know there’s lots of um opportunity to move around what kind of spark do your interest
about going into Tech yeah that’s such a good question um
um I think for me I have always been like I would
describe myself as a lifelong learner like I’ve always been like passionately curious and interested so I think Tech
is really good for that because as we know it’s always changing like there’s always a new tool always a new thing to
learn so I think like that has really sparked my interest and kept me um
really engaged in the tech industry I think the other thing that I really enjoy is I really enjoy unpacking
complexity and kind of unpicking it and looking at how we can make it clearer so
I think in my role you know in various different places that I’ve worked whether it’s in um Finance or it’s in
e-commerce or obviously in the dating space there is so much you know um
complexity and things to get your head around so you can really explain those and help people to understand those
in the simplest easiest way for them so I think that that’s another thing that has also really attracted me is being
able to get my teeth into some things that you know on first glance you might be like whoa okay this is going to be a
tough nut to crack uh for one of a better idiom but then you know that beautiful feeling when you can kind of
really help to unra and unpick it and add some Simplicity yeah it takes quite a mindset
doesn’t it to to want to work in the tech industry and and as you said what that constant learning um as well is one
of those main things that you know uh we’ve had lots of ladies on here that have said something similar that you
have to stay ahead of the curve um working in Tech and that that takes a certain person to to want to continually
learning to to continually learn it’s not I’ve just graduated and I can stop
and that’s that’s kind of it you know if you want to keep up with the good jobs you you have to keep um learning um and
that’s that’s can be quite a commitment um I wanted to ask you a little bit about how how did you land your current
role and was it was it planned yeah really good question um no
I wouldn’t say it was planned um but I was working in a not a similar roles I
was working a man as a manager um in another content design team actually in fintech too so there’s a theme there um
and I’ve been on quite a journey with that role so I started it around the time that content design was becoming
popular it was pretty new um Sarah Winter’s kind of first book about content design was out so it was kind of
a new exciting thing and I had started as part of a team of two and helped to grow that
te to 25 people um and it was a really amazing experience where it had kind of
gone from content designers you know not necessarily being included or people not
knowing what we did to you know the business not being able to get enough
content designers and really seeing the value that they had and then being involved in kind of every area whether
it’s web Transformations new product propositions Etc so that was really exciting and at the time my role had
moved Beyond just to kind of focus on the digital experience in the ux side to
the wider content strategy and operations so really looking holistically across the
organization at measurement how the contents work working how is content
engineering coming together how can we join up content with other Communications teams more efficiently
how can we get some standards in place around things like accessibility some of those um big important issues and I got
to a point where I was loving what I was doing but I think the maturity I i’ seen the team go on a journey and the Bumble
Jo came around just at the right time really where I kind of thinking you know absolutely this sounds interesting
like a new challenge um yeah it was one of those things I’m not going to say fake but it was just like the timing
kind of aligned aligned pretty well yeah yeah and that’s nice that you kind of
worked your way through lots of different places and then kind of you know that’s always nice when things just
turn up out the blue and you think that company was definitely had my name written on it um at that that moment in
time um we are all dying to know um what is life like working at Bumble because
it does sound and look like a lot of fun so what what is your day like what is the average day like for
you yeah I mean that’s the question isn’t it I don’t think I’ve had an average day since about 2009
um uh but I think you know and I reflect on this a lot I think one of the strongest skills in a leadership role is
adaptability and what changes quite a lot as a leader is I think like gone are
the days where you you know your progress might be as linear as it once
was and I don’t mean that as kind of upward progress I mean like when you’re in ic you will be working on a specific
project it will have an endo Etc when you’re a leader like you’re you’re
managing people not just product experiences and and not just processes
and I think inherently people are are wonderful um that there can be changes
and there can be unpredictability in your in your week so I think yeah average day um average days
don’t really happen but I think one of the best things I love about Bumble and
it might sound cheesy or cliche but the relationship um that you’re able to
build and one of my strengths hopefully and one thing that I really enjoy doing
is being able to kind of connect the dots and bring people together and you know that might be across completely
different functions and at Bumble I guess on an average week I could be working with anyone from my closest
peers in product design product management engineering right through to
working with like some of the smartest Minds in legal policy safety um and
amazing marketing and brand teams and I think like that is one of the things I
just love the most about Bumble because while an average week always looks different like I’m always getting to
work with such a like amazing range of skills talents expertise which I find
really really heartening and wonderful to get to learn from so many awesome
people did you did you think it was going to be like that again that’s another stereotype of going into the
tech industry you kind of you work quite siloed and you would just um you know put your headphones on and code and and
and that’s kind of it in the tech industry but you there just said you work across all different types of teams
and you have to be able to communicate with lots of you know different um uh
different employees and make those relationships um and is that did you
kind of know that that was going to happen or did you have some kind of other thought about what it might be like working in
Tech yeah great question I think a bumble specifically um
um I’m not going to say it’s like Narnia but I think on the surface it’s is
stating up um which has a wonderful represent reputation I think that when you get
through it really opens your eyes to the amount of important components that go
into helping people make connections right and I think one of the things that
will always stand out to me and I’ll be very humbled by is the work that goes into to safety and the work are amazing
member safety and safety policy teams do not just on a kind of day-to-day basis
but actually like lobbying changing you know working to change policies and
improve things for women um and many many other people been are making
connections all over so I think that breath you know I probably wasn’t aware
of and just the the Le the incredible level of work that we do so not just
dating but also helping people make connections with friendships and when
loneliness is so rif you know that’s such an important important perspective
and there’s just so much to it we’ve been doing a big piece of work around
accessibility um and I have visual impairments I think things like that are like really really close to my heart it
feels like you know it’s much much broader than what some might perceive to
just be a dating art and I think you know many of those components are what makes me excited to kind of get out of
bed in the morning as they say yes definitely and and and that’s think about tech isn’t it if you find yourself
at the right company and you find you’re not just doing a tech job you’re actually making an impact um a little
bit about content design what qualifications have you found most useful um to to hold to be working in
content design because yourself you came in from a non-traditional background but actually you have quite a few
qualifications under your belt that sound like they also apply to content design is there is there anything that
has really helped you along the way yeah so it’s an interesting one because my I
will never forget when I was in a lecture and they basically said that
with the degree that we had so English language and Linguistics that your two options were really you could go and be
a journalist or you could go be a teacher and I remember sitting in on the teaching um talk and uh they said you
know if you’re 99% sure that you want to be a teacher um you know you should
leave now because you need to be 100% sure and I remember leaving University
and I’m sure many can relate to this being pretty confused around what I wanted to do not knowing what the path
was and Tech wasn’t really up there um at the time or something that I thought that I would go into with all I think
it’s it’s great that it’s come full circle but it definitely wasn’t a linear path with my degree and I think I see
that in you know many many people’s paths and like a controversial potentially opinion for me but I don’t
necessarily believe that qualifications are the most important
parameter for RO success um especially for a role like content design and I
seen so many people that you know may have no official degree but just have like amazing skills like people that
have been technical writers or they’ve worked in customer support and they’ve ended up being the person that writes
the emails you know like yeah just like there’s so many great skills um and
backgrounds that people come from that for me while there are kind of
affinities between my linguistic side and and what I do now I think that
things like um really you know people’s inquisitive
nature the empathy that they spoke about being able to problem solve and
pragmatism are just so so important although those things you know might not be in the textbooks I think that they
kind of stand out probably above some of the more um traditional routs um into
Tech careers and I get I I kind of get asked a lot about things like um boot
camps and courses and I think there’s some great ones out there for Content design now which is good but a lot of it
for me is really those skills that you know you might not learn or pick up in
the traditional way or might be transferable but from jobs that are you know very much outside of the um Tech
pathway so to speak yeah and I love that that you just picked up on that there um transferable skills because it is people
seem to think as as we said before if you don’t have that computer science degree you can’t go into Tech and it’s
it’s it’s bizarre because you know all those transferable skills that you use when you are in Tech um you almost don’t
don’t realize um you know all those jobs before you you went into the tech industry is so helpful um to have gotten
you to to that part and um I’ve spoken to ladies on on our we do um live
webinars as well and I had a lady on there and she was saying you know it’s um it’s strange that to think that I’m
actually I’m quite Junior in Tech but I’ve been in work for the last 15 years but all of those transferable skills
that she took over to working in technology really helped her um so she didn’t have to remain that Junior um but
she said it it was strange for me thinking actually I’m far more experienced than a lot of my team um but
I’ve just you know crossed over um from from somewhere else and like yourself you took a lot of those skills uh with
you so I’m I’m assuming you can move quite quickly now um through through the world of tech because you have lots of
uh work experience behind you can I ask you a little bit about your career and what are you most proud of in your
career so far what am I most proud of I’m proud of a lot of things I think for
me one thing that really does make me feel proud is when I look at some of the
people who I might have supported in their careers or or people that I’ve hired you know whether we still work
together whether they ‘ve gone on to other things but being able to see their careers kind of grow and flourish and
content design hasn’t always had you know defined career paths or
opportunities in the way that you know some of the more um mature functions
might have so that always brings me great joy um I think diversity equity and
inclusion is also a huge one to me so um I’ve been able to do mentoring in places
like Nigeria um and support many many organizations and highight Equity
scholarships and things like that to really help people with um opportunities and that is just really really
critically um important to me and I do think if I’m honest from when I started
in Tech um to where we are now I do think that we’re making progress um on
the Dei front I don’t think we’re ever in a perfect place but it makes me
feel extremely extremely proud to see for
instance more black people working in content design or greater
representation um in Africa in Asia in many places where you know there weren’t
content designed team before and I think you know more organizations doing more
to to support that in the right way is uh really important to me and something
I feel proud to have played you know or be perhaps a small part in yeah amazing
it’s a it’s always amazing when people just remember to to um not pull up the
ladder behind them I suppose is is the thing and just thinking you know just
just sometimes remembering as well that it’s not always easy to to get into a particular area or do you know what what
you move into the space that you might want to next and mentoring um is so so
valuable for for other people I’m assuming when when they go on to become leaders as well you’ll be able to think
you know I I played a um a part in that um is so so valuable and talking of
developing careers um how does bumble continue to develop your own career yeah
it’s a great question um and I think it does it in a number of ways and you know one of the things that I’ve Loved about
Bumble since I’ve joined and that attracted me to join is
um how we try to treat things like Learning and Development So currently
and it’s always been the case since I’ve been here that people get a a learning budget which is defined and what’s
defined as a kind of budget but you know what isn’t defined is how you spend that so it’s how it’s a case of you being
able to work with your manager you being able to identif skills that you want to
to work on and really tailoring a pathway around that and so for me that’s
been really valuable because I think you know some places it can just be really hard to do to get signed off to do
anything whether it’s a conference whether it’s a course but I think that what helps with this is you can really
you know Drive some of your development and put tangible actions in place so I
have used it for a wide range of things from coaching sessions to content design
specific sessions to sessions on skills for leading through the pandemic and all
of the many things that we we couldn’t have planned so a real mix of the more kind of te technical side of things but
you know also really refining on on the people skill side of things which has
been been really really wonderful so I’ve really enjoyed that and I think
it’s critical as a leader because it becomes harder sometimes to
step back and actually think about what do I want to learn so for me it’s always a checkpoint okay like what do I really
want to focus in on what are my areas where I want to hone up and and polish
up on um and it’s been it’s been brilliant some of the things that I’ve been able to to do with it and learn
from it and that’s that’s really good to hear because some some companies it’s hard to
get a learning budget let alone um you know what you’re allowed to spend it on and I love the fact that you said that
you can it’s not defined what you you spend it on as well because like you said if you’re at the start of your
career you might be thinking Tech courses and I’ll do things to you know help my my own personal development and
career and then actually when you become a leader that’s very different and you might want to as you said do some
courses about you know being a good leader and and everything that comes with that and it will change whereas you
know if you if a company’s quite rigid on what you learn um what you how you use your learning budget um that’s not
really helping you grow as a person is it and and let alone a leader definitely and I think it also
accounts for different learning styles as well like I’ve learned a lot about my learning style and that could be very
different to um you know other people’s and what it allows me to do as a leader
is to really work with my team on their objectives things that they’re doing
really well but also areas they want to grow and actually put tangible things in place you know here’s things that we can
work on together hear things you might work on on a project but also there’s some opportunities that are wider than
that because I think it’s also really important for people sometimes be able to step out of the dayto day um and you
know kind of hone up on on specific areas yes yeah that’s great and as well
I love it when companies do that because they’re also thinking that they might not say it but they’re also thinking you
know I kind of want to help you progress personally um and within your career
even for when you go on to your next job because all of those things help you whatever your next role may be anyway um
let alone helping you at your current company as well and that’s just really something that comes from really good
companies that just understand that you know as you said stepping out of that dayto day can really help you um
progress within your career um and and and wherever you move on to uh next good
companies really do recognize that um we are almost out of time I could speak to you for another two hours on this
subject but we were almost out of time so I’ve got one last question for you um what advice would you give yourself just
starting out and what advice would you give our listeners who might be considering a career in content design
great question and I think some of the advice mirrors what we’ve just been discussing in terms of different
learning styles different ways on learning I think the main advice that I
would give myself if I was starting out is not to chase Perfection or best
practice and I believe that when you start out in the US kind of industry
it’s really important to remember that you’re delivering the customers um and not to just prove that you followed
everything by the textbook per se and naturally when your early career you have this notion that you want to do
things right but one thing that I have learned is like arguably there are many many shades of right and it’s all it’s
often not as black and black and white as it might be um perceived In Articles
or such like um and the other thing I’d tell myself is you know as content designers we often spread quite thinly
and it’s really important to remember that even if you can’t achieve all of
the things you might like to On Any Given project you can almost always make
things that bit better for humans using the products or the check and that
really really matters because I think again it’s very easy for us working in Tech to want to solve every problem so
you can often get fixated on things that really aren’t out of your control and I think by grounding yourselves in what
you can achieve you often find that you achieve much more than you you think that you might and for someone starting
out I’d say probably similar thing there is so much thought leadership out
there um and a little bit of I guess like dogmatism in in some ways that it
can be really easy for people to feel like they’re not doing things right or achieving what they need to or they’re
not where they need to be in their career but I think if you look at look at my career it’s been pretty pretty
squiggly and you know even if things aren’t quite where they need to be now
or you’re not where you need to be or where you feel like you need to be now um it doesn’t it’s not a reflection of
of you so to speak and I think even if you are in those early stages and you
know you might want to be working on the big projects that you’ve heard about and you’re not actually able to at this
point like just remember like the progress that you are making and reflect on that and you know
every day you’re actually out there tipping away making things better
easier for people to understand more engaging more accessible and that’s cool
right like that really matters so just don’t lose sight of the seemingly little
things because more often than not like they are the big things and they do really matter yes I love I love that
it’s such good advice um for anybody uh want wanting to go into content design
and into Tech as well I think that’s something that women in Tech or women in general tend tend to do at the start you
said um not chasing Perfection and I think that’s what women do a lot and and
I’ve heard it so many times when people say um you know people don’t women don’t apply for a job unless they hit sort of
nine out of ten um o of the things um that are required whereas men tend to go
for the job even if they only meet a few of the requirements and you’re right it’s that chasing Perfection sometimes
can really put us at a disadvantage because you as you said you know you kind of lose sight of the bigger picture
and what is important um I think that’s that’s uh such um good advice um and I
take it’s something that you wish someone had told you before you started
out yeah definitely I I believe that especially when you’re starting out in a newer industry right like you cling to
what guidance that you have in front of you and that’s really important it’s really useful but every organization is
different every project I’ve worked on is different every you
know every set of customers is diverse so there’s no perfect approach and
that’s okay and I think it’s really being able to remember that you’re there for a reason you’ve been hired for your
skills and you bring so much to the table even if you know you might feel that you’re not following a perfect
methodology per se yeah yeah definitely and that is wonderful advice to end it
on because we are already at time is absolutely flown by so thank you um so much for joining us today candy it has
been an absolute pleasure having you on here for a chat thank you for having me it’s been great good thank you and to
all our listeners um everyone thank you so much as always for joining us and we hope to see you again next time
