Tell me about the hardest thing about your job?

I think there are 2 hard parts for me and my team in the design research role.
The first is the ways of working - as a relatively new team, we are trying to get brought in earlier and influence 'build the right thing' with lots of good discovery. We want to help to shape the strategic direction that product teams take, but often we are just too far down the funnel with roadmaps quite well set by the time we see it. We tend to focus a bit more heavily on 'build the thing right' which is absolutely important, though just one part of the puzzle and the benefit user and design research can bring.

The second is the demand - which is a double edged sword! As a small team, and as we build the awareness of what we can bring to product teams, we are in demand but short on capacity. It can be stretching to be across multiple product teams. It's great that we are wanted and it's hard to say 'no' or 'not now' and sometimes you see great opportunities slip away as a result... I'm confident those opportunities will come again as everything matures, we recruit and can dedicate people to specific domain teams.