Tom Scott

Thank you for looking at my LinkedIn! 

For the TL;DR folks:

I help companies build leadership teams to preserve and build their legacy. Want to meet or know more? https://linktr.ee/tomscottt

Longer version: 

I am a two-time founder. I sold my first company, Fearless, in 2023 after growing it from £0 to 10m in 4 years. In that time, some companies I've worked with (in many capacities) include BP, London Stock Exchange, Klarna, Skyscanner, Wise, Miro, Toyota, Google Ventures, Handshake, Fantasy, Jio, Attio, and Gravity Sketch. 

Now, I'm building Verified. We are an executive search company building the teams of tomorrow. 

Companies globally trust us to build world-class teams that have a lasting impact on their enterprises.

With our executive search and board advisory services, we build high-performance design and engineering teams for clients ranging from FTSE 100 companies to VC/PE portfolio companies, placing their senior teams.

I believe I've been put in this world to help others realise their purpose by finding great work and enabling companies to support them. 

My credentials:

- Advisory to global CEOs and VCs on building design teams.
- Public speaker on all things talent, design and building companies.
- Most followed design recruiter on social media
- Built my own design agency, so I understand design well.
- Interviewed the world’s best leaders on various topics.

Outside of work, I am a man of God, a devoted father and an Olympic weightlifter. Glory to God! 

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/tomscottt

Co-Founder & CCO

A list of REMOTE Design roles in Europe: 

1. Canonical - Visual Designer (EMEA remote)
2. GitHub - Senior Product Designer (Spain remote)
3. BJAK - Senior Motion Designer (UK remote)
4. ThriveCart - Product Designer (UK/EU remote)
5. SmartRecruiters - Senior Product Designer (France remote) 
6. HubSpot - Senior Product Designer (Ireland remote) 
7. Mozilla - Creative Lead (UK remote) 
8. Addepar - Senior Product Designer (UK remote) 
9. Consensys - Design Director (EMEA remote) 
10. Contentsquare - Staff Product Designer (UK/Italy/Germany/Spain remote)
11. Vivid - Senior Product Designer (EU remote) 
12 Kraken - Senior Product Designer (EMEA remote) 
13. Smartsheet - Senior Product Designer (Bulgaria remote) 
14. Hostaway - Senior Product Designer (EMEA remote) 
15. GitLab - Staff Product Designer (EMEA remote) 
16. Protex AI - Brand & Digital Designer (Hungary remote) 
17. LastPass - Product Designer (Hungary remote) 
18. Mediafly - Midweight Designer (UK remote) 
19. Metalab - Design Lead (Global remote) 
20. Prolific - Lead Product Designer (UK remote) 

Even though there is a lot of push to go back to 3-4 days in the office, there are still a ton of companies offering remote options which I know is vital for so many people. I hope this list helps! I'll continue to post remote roles. 

All links to jobs in the the comments. Happy Monday!

1x Exit. Building my 2nd company: Verified. Design and Exec Recruiting.

A real issue for design teams when hiring:

Some design teams are so far ahead, prototyping with newer AI tools and, in general, ways of working, that it’s difficult to find designers who have done this and meet every requirement. 

This is why we need to hire on potential, not just polished portfolios. 99.9% of the time, the perfect designer just does not exist. 

This is why hiring more interns and early-stage designers would be great, as they are often far ahead with AI understanding and the newer ways of working in design, as it’s all they’ve known.

I've been hiring designers for 10 years this year. 

What started as me needing a job has turned into a labour of love. 

I still love: 

- The buzz of taking on a new client brief.  
- Seeing someone you place get a 30k pay rise. 
- Help a company build a genuine world-class team. 
- Someone change their LinkedIn to the new company. 
- See someone you place becoming your hiring manager.

We're building a new design team in London from scratch for a client, and getting feedback that we've built an interesting team full of great design talent, and everyone is settling in well, is truly rewarding. Nothing beats that. 

Here's to another 10 years.

“We need more designers who wear hats" 

This is the best comment from a CEO recently.

In all seriousness, though, more companies than ever want to hire designers for deep, hard-earned product and interface design skills and are obsessed with their craft (not just visuals), sweat the details, and live and breathe making highly crafted products. No politics, just building.

Bonus points if they wear a hat and smoke a cigar when designing.

A list of live design leadership roles in EUROPE: 

1. PandaDoc - Design Director (EU remote)
2. Bolt - Head of Product Design (Tallinn) 
3. duvo.ai - Head of Design (Prague) 
4. Preply - Creative Brand Director (London/Barcelona) 
5. the LEGO Group - Global Creative Director, Masterbrand (Copenhagen) 
6. Sinch - Director, Product Design (Stockholm) 
7. iChoosr - Head of Product and Design (Amsterdam) 
8. Text - VP of Product Design (EU remote) 
9. AKQA - Product Design Director (London) 
10. Kraken - Product Design Director, Growth (EU remote) 
11. Zoopla - Head of Product Design (London) 
12. HSBC - Head of Product Design (London)
13. OpenTable - Director, Product Design (London) 
14. Nothing - Director of Software Product Design (London) 
15. Vinted - Area Director of Design (Berlin) 
16. The Trade Desk - Creative Director (London) 
17. Pattern® - Creative Director (London) 
18. SS&C Technologies - Product Director, UX & Design (London/Essex) 
19. King - Creative Director (Barcelona) 
20. Rapid7 - Director, Product Design (Belfast) 

All job links are in the comments. I hope this helps!

A live list of design INTERN jobs: 

1. Robinhood - Product Design Intern (NYC)
2. Cloudflare - Product Design Intern (Austin, TX)
3. Anduril Industries - Product Design Intern (Costa Mesa) 
4. Stripe - Product Design Intern (Toronto) 
5. Waymo - Digital Product Design Intern (Warsaw) 
6. Cresta - Design Intern (Toronto)
7. Agoda - Product Design Intern (Bangkok) 
8. Datadog - Product Design Intern (Madrid) 
9. GoFundMe - Product Design Intern (SF) 
10. GitHub - Product Design Intern (US remote) 
11. Microsoft - Product Design Intern (Dublin)
12. Diligent - Product Design Intern (Hungary) 
13. Notion - UX Research Intern (NYC) 
14. Tencent - Game User Research Intern (London) 
15. MongoDB - UX Research Intern (Dublin) 
16. Xometry - UX Research Intern (Waltham, Massachusetts) 
17. Picnic Technologies - Visual Design Intern (Amsterdam) 
18. Edenspiekermann - Digital Product Design Intern (Berlin) 
19. BYBORRE - Visual Design and Branding Intern (Amsterdam)
20. Revolut - Product Design Intern (Europe wide) 

We need to do what we can to help the next generation of designers, so the more intern programmes the better in my opinion. You can't beat learning from people on the job. 

I hope this helps!

Design hiring in 2025 had similar issues: 

- Many companies ran into the same problems. They needed “Super IC” unicorn designers, did not know what top designers actually earn, ran long, outdated interview processes, and were too slow and too vague when selling and closing.

- Many companies tried to hire without a clear view of what they actually wanted. 

- Hiring top-tier designers is not about volume. It’s about being targeted, intentional, knowing what you want and and being willing to pay for it.

Design hiring in 2026 looks like it will be busier than ever. 

I'm here for it.

The design hiring market has been wild. I’ve spoken about this from a candidate’s point of view. There’s a huge juxtaposition, and it’s not getting be

Open article: The playbook to hiring designers in 2026 by Tom Scott • 9 min read

I used to spend hours scrolling Dribbble back in the day. I found SO many world-class designers, a lot of them I still I work with today. 

Where is the design community these days?

I miss when Dribbble was good. Read.cv was the nearest thing before it got shut down. 

It seems like we have X where designers are posting cool things and Substack is growing. We need a place again for a great design community.

Hiring designers is constantly evolving, so it's important to share what I am observing to help people find great work. 

I thought I would put together a list of reasons I’ve seen candidates not pass recent interviews at a range of companies. 

TL;DR:

1. Not enough real product work
2. Weak craft
3. No product sense
4. Incoherent storytelling
5. Tied to old playbooks
6. Low ownership signal
7. Lack of technical depth
8. Not thinking like a product designer
9. Slow pace
10. Not enough experience in AI tools

If anyone has any additions to this, I would love to hear! Let's share and learn.

Open article: 10 reasons designers do not pass interview processes by verifiedinsider.substack.com

10 reasons designers do not pass interview processes

Most of the proposals for Hatch Conference have been from outside of Europe, mainly the US. 

Europe's start-up scene and the level of design quality is incredible at the moment, but we need to be better at talking about ourselves more. We need to share the work. 

Hatch is an incredible opportunity built for European Designers. 

The call ends February 15th. I know most submissions will come in the last 24 hours, but let's not wait. 

I've had a lot of messages about people wanting to submit proposals, do it. 

Help Damian Martone find the best facilitators and speakers in Europe, tagging them here so they apply.

10 observations on how to attract and hire great designers: 

(From working and interviewing world-class design teams) 

1. They seek to understand the market first
2. Spend time crafting hiring materials
3. Double down on top of the funnel
4. They don’t get on a call unless they are excited
5. Test for the right signals
6. Test for craft early in the process 
7. Focus on live work
8. High agency is a must
9. Everyone leads through the work
10. They double down on storytelling

Open article: How to attract and hire great designers in 2026 by verifiedinsider.substack.com

How to attract and hire great designers in 2026

AI + UX • Raising Pre-Seed for UXpilot.ai • Founder @ UX Design Studio: adamfard.com • SaaS | Fintech | AI

I've designed B2B products for over 10 years

And there are 5 issues I kept seeing:

1 - Unnecessarily complex experiences
2 - Little (or no) user understanding
3 - Bad information architectures
4 - Major usability problems
5 - Lack of consistency

Over and over again.

As a result, companies see:

- Low activation & adoption
- Low retention rates
- High churn rates

Fixing these problems needs a special team and B2B focused methodology

Different from designing for B2C user experiences.

B2B products have:
- Complex workflows
- Multiple user roles
- Intricate decision-making

Here's a simple comparison:
B2C e-commerce: One-click purchase for a single item
B2B inventory system: Multi-step process for bulk orders with approvals

Solution?

I tackled that by building a technical team of product designers and researchers with PhDs.

Our expertise helps you:

- Understand users through research
- Create data-driven concepts
- Design user-friendly interfaces
- Build scalable design systems
- Ensure smooth handoff to developers

Using this approach, we've helped B2B SaaS companies:

- Create MVPs from scratch and raise $5 to $20m in funding
- Scale and improve their complex platforms iteratively
- Increased conversion rate by 400%

To take things further, I'm building an AI product (UX Pilot AI) to streamline the UX process for (our) product- and design teams.

If you want to learn more, go to adamfard.com

Adam Fard

Figma AI is practically dead

In the meantime, with UX Pilot you can generate designs and components directly inside Figma

Unlike other AI tools:
- It's not limited to a few predefined styles
- It's not limited to a few components
- It's not limited to only mobile

Test it for free: https://lnkd.in/dm5NzPDz

Founder of UX Pilot AI (0 → 5mil ARR) | Building New Era of Product Design

200,000+ ‌Figma users are about to move faster than ever ⚡️

For years, you've had to export/import your designs, between UX Pilot AI and Figma

But everything has changed

Now you just have to:
1. Click on “Copy Design”
2. Head to Figma and paste it 

Yes, it’s that simple

Now a couple of clicks is all you need to go from idea to product design 😎

Try UX Pilot for free: https://lnkd.in/ecZ3GyzT

Stop presenting slides —> start showing clickable prototypes 📲

Visualizing your product just got way faster
And a whole lot more interactive too

Here’s all you need to do:
1. Write out the general flow of your app
2. Hit auto-flow to instantly generate prompts for each screen
3. Click “Generate” to build the whole app flow
4. Pick the screens you want to connect
5. And tap “Prototype” to start exploring your own product

No more PowerPoints or clunky presentations
Now you can literally demo your product right inside UX Pilot AI

Start creating your UX/UI designs in seconds
And share your idea clearer and faster than ever

Try UX Pilot for free here: https://lnkd.in/dEfGsTCB

Free trials don’t kill revenue, but bad products do

When we launched UX Pilot AI, we ignored the advice to hide everything behind a paywall

We were generous from day one
People could actually try the product
Use it how they please
Feel the difference

And something interesting happened

They didn’t stay free for long
Most upgraded right away
Others within a few hours

Not because of discounts
Not because of pressure
Because the value was obvious

Today, UX Pilot has grown to 14k paid users on that model

The lesson?
If your product solves a real problem
You don’t need to “convince” people to pay
You just need to let them experience it

Paywalls don’t create value
But products do

And free trials don’t kill revenue
They simply expose the truth

This is how top UX designers are 10x-ing their productivity in 2026

After interviewing hundreds of UX designers we discovered one thing

They don’t start by perfecting screens
They start by generating one wireframe
And then they just iterate from there

With UX Pilot AI, pros use Variations to instantly spin multiple layout options, and Blitz Mode to generate up to 4 wireframe variations in under 15 seconds

Buttons move, layouts shift, and structures evolve instantly

This lets designers see how different decisions change the experience 
Without rebuilding anything from scratch

The result?
> Faster iteration
> More exploration
> Less friction.

In just 2 clicks
You get 4 variations

This is effortless ideation
And this is how wireframing becomes a creative accelerator

Want to win $262 worth of UX Pilot AI credits & pro features? 🙃

The last person to comment on this post
Wins 1 year of UX Pilot Pro, 100% FREE

If you want to speed up your product design process
Here’s how it works:
1. Leave a comment on this post
2. If no one else comments within 24 hours, you’re the winner
3. If someone comments before then, they become the new contender

It really is that simple, looking for the last man/woman standing
If there’s no winner until Feb 27th, the person with the most comments will receive a special prize 👀

PS: If this is your first time hearing about UX Pilot, you can give it a free trial for free.

Just drop a comment and let the games begin!

After analyzing how designers use UX Pilot, one thing became obvious:

The difference between “nice screens” and great UI/UX comes down to how you use the tool.

Here are the 7 UX Pilot AI performance hacks that change everything 👇

𝐇𝐚𝐜𝐤 #1: 𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐩 𝐝𝐫𝐚𝐠𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐢𝐱𝐞𝐥𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐅𝐢𝐠𝐦𝐚 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐔𝐗 𝐏𝐢𝐥𝐨𝐭
Generate a design once. Then use section edits to tweak small parts. Change spacing. Adjust hierarchy. No more pixel dragging, just write down your instructions. This is where UX Pilot gets ridiculously fast.

𝐇𝐚𝐜𝐤 #2: 𝐁𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐞… 𝐨𝐫 𝐛𝐞 𝐛𝐫𝐨𝐚𝐝 𝐨𝐧 𝐩𝐮𝐫𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐞
There’s no single “right” prompt. Sometimes you want freedom: “Design a playful onboarding flow for a fintech app”. Sometimes you want control: “Onboarding screen, single column, progress indicator on top, primary CTA at the bottom”. Try both. Each shines in different moments.

𝐇𝐚𝐜𝐤 #3: 𝐔𝐬𝐞 𝐯𝐨𝐜𝐚𝐛𝐮𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐚𝐬 𝐚 𝐬𝐤𝐢𝐥𝐥
Upgrade your design language: Clean Minimalist. Modern SaaS. Corporate Modern. Premium Dark Mode. Luxury / High End. Glassmorphism. Digital Brutalism. Illustrative. The more precise your style vocabulary, the better UX Pilot can follow your direction

𝐇𝐚𝐜𝐤 #4: 𝐃𝐞𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐲
Want consistency? Set brand colors. Choose fonts. Customize a theme. Upload brand guidelines. Sync UX Pilot with your Figma Design System. Do this once and every generation stays on brand. No more visual roulette.

𝐇𝐚𝐜𝐤 #5: 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐳 𝐦𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐥 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐟𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧
Designs generate in around 10 seconds with Blitz Mode. So use that speed. Test multiple prompts. Explore variations. Compare directions side by side. Take the best out of fast exploration.

𝐇𝐚𝐜𝐤 #6: 𝐊𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐠𝐨 𝐝𝐞𝐞𝐩
Quick idea or rough feedback? Turn Deep Design off. Complex flows, dashboards, or systems? Turn Deep Design and Max on. Depth is a lever, so use it intentionally.

𝐇𝐚𝐜𝐤 #7: 𝐎𝐧𝐞 𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐧 → 𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐨𝐟𝐥𝐨𝐰 → 𝐚𝐧 𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐩𝐩
Nail one screen first. Then click Autoflow. UX Pilot expands that screen into full flows while keeping layout, style, and brand consistent. This is how you scale design without losing coherence.

The truth? UX Pilot doesn’t replace designers. 

It rewards the ones who think in systems, intent, and direction.

Which hack are you stealing first? 👀

In a platform where most brag about success, it is good to remember:

The first Sam Altman project was Loopt. Not OpenAI.
The first Mark Zuckerberg project was ZuckNet. Not Facebook.
The first Steve Jobs project with Woz was the Blue Box. Not the Macintosh.
The first Elon Musk company was Zip2. Not Tesla.
The first Reed Hastings company was Pure Software. Not Netflix.
The first Marc Andreessen project was Mosaic. Not Netscape.
The first Evan Williams product was Blogger at Pyra Labs. Not Twitter.
The first Stewart Butterfield world was Game Neverending. Not Slack.
The first Daniel Ek company was Advertigo. Not Spotify.
The first Kevin Systrom app was Burbn. Not Instagram.
The first Reid Hoffman company was SocialNet. Not LinkedIn.
The first Patrick Collison company was Auctomatic. Not Stripe.
The first Vitalik Buterin project was Bitcoin Magazine. Not Ethereum.
The first Travis Kalanick startup was Scour. Not Uber.

Your first will not be your best.
But it is the only way to get there.

taplio

The Battle

Tom Scott

Adam Fard

Followers

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Performance ScoreTom Scott's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreAdam Fard's LinkedIn Performance

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taplio

The Battle

Tom Scott

Adam Fard

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Tom Scott's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreAdam Fard's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreTom Scott's LinkedIn Performance