Figma CEO says job titles are merging thanks to AI — and everyone is a 'product builder' (www.businessinsider.com)

Figma CEO Dylan Field told Lenny’s Podcast that AI is blurring traditional job boundaries in product development, producing a “shifting and merging of roles” where designers, engineers, product managers and researchers increasingly act as generalists and “product builders.” Figma’s internal survey found 72% of respondents cited AI tools as a top reason for role expansion, 56% of non-designers now do design tasks “a great deal” (up from 44% the prior year), and 53% said deep domain knowledge is still needed to do tasks well even with AI. Field, who scaled Figma to a public company of 1,600+ employees, expects this trend to accelerate over the next five years. The technical implication is that AI and low-code/no-code “vibe-coding” tools are lowering barriers to formerly specialized work, enabling non-engineers to take on more technical and design responsibilities while employers emphasize upskilling. At the same time, the survey’s finding that over half of respondents still value deep expertise suggests hybrid roles will require both broad tooling fluency and preserved domain depth. For AI/ML teams this means hiring, tooling and training strategies will likely shift toward cross-functional competencies, collaboration workflows, and platforms that let diverse contributors co-create product features using AI-augmented interfaces.