Pixels & Priorities
Candid conversations and real-world stories about the ever-shifting landscape where product and design meet. Join us as we explore product management, UX/UI design, and the evolving craft of building meaningful products - occasionally featuring guests from across related fields. If you’re curious about creating better products, growing as a designer or product leader, and staying resilient in a fast-moving industry, pull up a chair and join us. New episodes drop Tuesdays.
Episodes
Have you ever finished a full day of work only to feel like you're supposed to spend your evening learning AI just to keep up?
You're not alone in facing that pressure. But does everyone need to learn AI the same way, or should organizations rethink how they help people adapt?
Brandy Schade, founder of Strengthology, joins Metsy and J to explore how personal strengths shape our response to uncertainty, why taking one small step can...
When was the last time you worked through a design problem without immediately opening Figma or asking AI for ideas?
Dallas College educators Lisa Gabriel and Sandy Harris join us to explore what happens when technology makes it easy to skip the difficult parts of learning.
Why does sketching on paper still matter? How do we build confidence in defending our work? And what happens when AI can generate answers before we've had time ...
Lisa Gabriel and Sandy Harris, Dallas College educators, join Metsy and J to explore what tutorials, online courses, and AI can’t fully replicate: critique, collaboration, productive friction, and learning alongside other humans. For product and UX professionals, those experiences help build the judgment, communication, and adaptability the work actually requires.
Ever leave a meeting thinking, Why didn’t anyone say that earlier? Or find yourself smoothing over tension just to keep things moving?
In Part 2 with Nikhil Wadhera, Metsy and J explore four roles that show up in workplace conflict: the avoider, mediator, fighter, and conflict entrepreneur. Through real stories from product, design, engineering, and facilitation, they examine how each role can help a team, what happens when i...
A roadmap can show where a product is going, yet it can’t eliminate the difficult conversations required to get there.
Nikhil Wadhera, Director of Product Management at DaVita Kidney Care, joins Metsy and J to explore conflict as a normal part of product and UX work. We discuss hidden trade-offs behind stakeholder requests, what happens when teams bring conflicting data to the table, why avoiding uncomfortable conversations c...
Leadership coach Whitney Schreck joins Metsy and J to explore how constant change, shifting priorities, long-running projects, and career uncertainty can keep us stuck in cycles of stress. Whitney discusses the importance of intentionally “closing the loop” through movement, play, connection, joy, and experiences with a clear beginning and end.
For product and UX professionals whose backlogs keep growing even after the ...
Leadership coach Whitney Schreck joins Metsy and J to explore self-trust as an important career skill. Metsy and J share the rocky start to their own working relationship and how choosing compassionate curiosity over assumption helped them build trust. The conversation also touches on how assessments like DISC and TriMetrix can become useful career tools instead of one-time team exercises.
Metsy and J share real “workmares” from their careers and explore what happens when workplace stress follows you home. From psychological safety and leadership behavior to failure, innovation, and AI, they examine how the culture employees actually experience can matter far more than the values a company claims to have.
Anita Barraco, UX Manager at Goosehead Insurance, joins Metsy and J to explore what product and UX teams actually need from their leaders. We discuss impactful mindset shifts to help your people do their best work.
UX manager Anita Barraco joins us to explore the realities of remote work, return-to-office expectations, and hybrid teams. For product and UX professionals navigating distributed teams and meeting-heavy calendars, this is a thoughtful conversation about designing work around how people actually function.
Dana “DeltaDana” Akins-Adeyemi joins us to explore burnout prevention and recovery. We also examine how bias, exclusion, and toxic environments intensify burnout for marginalized professionals, making supportive communities, allies, and workplaces where people genuinely belong even more important.
What happens when you survive a layoff but inherit the work, fear, and emotional fallout left behind? Dana “DeltaDana” Akins-Adeyemi joins us to explore burnout during organizational change, including survivor syndrome, AI-driven job anxiety, the hidden cognitive load carried by marginalized and neurodivergent professionals, and the strain of supporting coworkers while protecting your own health. This candid conversatio...
What happens when every project is priority one, timelines change overnight, and AI is supposed to make everything faster? Metsy Rose and J Schuh unpack the pressures many product managers, UX designers, and creative professionals experience while trying to create thoughtful work inside constantly shifting environments.
Shane Ward, Manager of Product Design at Storable, joins us to explore AI-era hiring, life after a layoff, authentic networking, and why trusted communities can advocate for product and design professionals in ways AI cannot.
Metsy and J sit down with Shane Ward, Manager of Product Design at Storable, to explore the rise of AI builder roles. Who owns quality? How do teams make decisions when everyone can generate more ideas? And what happens if AI becomes a shortcut around experience instead of a support for it? Pull up a chair and join the conversation.
We explore how AI is blurring product and design roles, why trust matters more than ever, and how curiosity, communication, and feedback help teams move faster without losing perspective.
If the thought of networking makes you want to hide behind your laptop, this conversation is for you. Metsy Rose and J Schuh continue their conversation with Brian Sullivan, Executive Director of Big Design, about community building, professional connection, and why product, design, research, and strategy professionals need to get out of their bubbles. Brian shares practical advice for introverts, explains why community should be b...
If you’ve ever wondered why great research still gets ignored, this conversation is for you. Metsy Rose and J Schuh talk with Brian Sullivan, Executive Director of the Big Design Conference, about UX research, stakeholder empathy, product strategy, and how AI is changing the work ahead. Brian shares why “stakeholders make or break every project,” how cognitive, emotional, and compassionate empathy show up in resea...
Product and design teams talk a lot about empathy for users, but what about empathy for each other? J and Metsy explore the moments that first taught them empathy mattered more than skill, then connect those lessons to the daily partnership between product and design. They unpack the hidden pressures both roles carry, why playbooks are often “always in progress,” and how curiosity, positive energy, and small systems can...
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