Sam Hancock – The Skills That Will Carry You Anywhere in UX

Designing at Every Scale

What Harness Projects Mentor Sam Hancock Learned from Working With Banks, Startups, and Mentoring Aspiring UX/UI Designers.

We’re fortunate to have Sam Hancock as a mentor at Harness Projects for our upcoming UX/UI Design Career Launcher Course. He brings with him a wealth of experience that spans both ends of the UX spectrum. He’s led design work for major enterprises like Westpac, Macquarie, and the ASX — where a single project can involve months of stakeholder alignment and rigorous compliance checks — and for startups where products move from idea to prototype in weeks. Experiencing both extremes has given Sam an uncommon perspective on how UX operates in radically different settings — and the core skills that carry through them all.

“In a bank, you might be one of twenty people working on a single journey,” Sam says. “You could spend weeks aligning with legal, compliance, branding, and engineering before you’ve even touched the design.”

By contrast: “In a consultancy, you might be brought in for three months to take something from zero to one. You’re doing the research, the design, the testing — often while the client is still figuring out their product strategy.”

What He’s Seen in Others

As a Harness Projects mentor, Sam has watched aspiring designers thrive in both worlds.

  • A former teacher excelled in consultancy work because she could lead workshops, engage stakeholders, and make decisions in real time.
  • A customer service lead transitioned into an enterprise research role, using the same listening skills that once helped defuse complaints to uncover pain points compliance had missed.
  • One designer landed interviews by cold-messaging a product manager with three small, thoughtful suggestions for improving their onboarding flow. “The changes were never implemented,” Sam laughs, “but it started a conversation that got her in the room.”
  • Another mentee grew quickly by getting out into the design community. Whether through platforms like ADPList or at face-to-face events such as Friends of Figma, he built connections and sharpened his thinking by engaging in conversations about topics he had researched beforehand. “If you show up with an opinion and curiosity,” Sam says, “you’ll build relationships that can move your career forward.”

The Skills That Carry Anywhere

From his own career and from those he’s mentored, Sam has learned that the environment changes — but the skills that matter most don’t.

  • In enterprise, influence through process — align teams, bring evidence, and work within established systems.

  • In fast-moving settings, deliver through decisiveness — turn research into prototypes quickly, and make confident calls without endless approval cycles.

  • Everywhere, sell your thinking — show stakeholders the problem through your eyes so they’ll back your solution.

These skills aren’t built by accident. Sam says they come from deliberately putting yourself in situations where you have to use them — leading a workshop in front of senior stakeholders, making a design call when time is short, or defending a decision with evidence instead of opinion.

He’s seen mentees grow fastest when they’ve had to operate in conditions that are a little uncomfortable: new domains, complex problems, or mixed stakeholder groups. “That’s when you realise you can adapt,” he says. “And once you know that, you’re valuable anywhere.”

For aspiring UX/UI designers, hearing this kind of perspective is one thing — applying it on a real project, with real stakeholders and deadlines, is where the real growth happens. That’s exactly what you’ll do in Harness Projects’ upcoming UX/UI Design Career Launcher.

Putting Principles into Action

The UX/UI Design Career Launcher is built on this principle: you don’t learn design by reading about it — you learn by doing it. Across three live client projects, you’ll take on real briefs from real organisations, guided by senior mentors like Sam. You’ll practise the same skills he emphasises — influencing stakeholders, making confident design calls, and communicating your thinking — while building a portfolio that demonstrates them.

It’s a proven pathway for people breaking into UX/UI from all kinds of backgrounds. Whether you’re coming from teaching, customer service, marketing, or another field entirely, the program is designed to give you the confidence, experience, and credibility to step into the industry.

If you’d like to explore whether it’s the right fit for you, the best next step is to book a call with our team. We’ll walk you through the course structure, projects, and mentors, and help you map the pathway that aligns with your career goals.