I’ve spent the past six and a half years at a place as the only (and the first) in house industrial designer. As above, I wish that I had read a thread like this as soon as I came on board. Also in the same line as the above poster, I came on board as an intern at first, then a “staff” designer (read this like a junior designer in terms of hierarchy with a lead designer responsibility).
So a couple pointers that I’ve learned so far:
-Everything is collaborative, so go into meetings and discussions in that mind set, you’re never going to do all the work alone and present it to an engineering team. (this may hold true at most places tbh)
-Before you were there, some of your tasks were done by other people, who may not like giving them up. Work with these people as your allies since they have experience you don’t within the company. Many of the design engineers where I currently work took their positions because the way it was structured they have a lot of creative control and outlets within the product development process, they may view you as coming in and taking that away from them, squash this thinking, you’re there to help them, and working together take the quality of what they were doing in the past and push it way farther (together).
-Many people may not understand what design is (especially this thing called industrial design), be patient with them, try to educate them (as much as you may not think this is your job to do, it is one of the most important parts of your job early on).
-Be flexible, I cannot stress this one enough. Especially in your process early on, you’re most likely walking into a pretty defined product development process that may only include something like “get outside designer to do some concept sketches of final product” with no real research phase. This is ok, you will show them why the research phase and ideation phase will help them, but early on you may need to curtail your preferred process in order to jive with projects that are already underway.
-Try your hardest to not become cynical at the company, change happens slow sometimes, quick other times, often it’s out of your control. If you feel too locked down, start working on a pet project that becomes your creative outlet. Becoming cynical will only hurt your relationships with your colleagues, and when it comes time to move on to another company, it will hurt your chances of landing that job.