Ironhack (TA)

Ironhack Miami

Role: UX/UI Design Teaching Assistant (TA) Duration: Full-Time Cohort (2018 – 2019)

Executive Summary

Selected from the top of the graduating class to mentor and lead the succeeding cohort of 20+ students. This role required a transition from "execution" to "strategy," serving as the bridge between lead instructors and students to ensure the successful delivery of high-quality, market-ready design portfolios.

Core Responsibilities & Leadership

• Design Mentorship: Provided 1-on-1 technical guidance on Sketch and InVision, helping students navigate complex UI challenges and UX research synthesis.
• Project Auditing & QA: Conducted "Design Crits" (Critiques), providing actionable feedback on student prototypes to ensure they met industry standards for usability and accessibility.
• Technical Troubleshooting: Assisted in the instruction of HTML/CSS fundamentals, helping students debug front-end code for their portfolio sites.
• Curriculum Optimization: Collaborated with Lead Instructors to identify gaps in student understanding and developed supplemental workshops to bridge those gaps.

The Business Impact Perspective

When you are a TA, you are essentially a Product Manager for human talent.

• Quality Control: By providing rigorous feedback, you ensured the "output" (the students' portfolios) maintained the Ironhack brand reputation for excellence.
• Stakeholder Communication: You learned how to translate complex design theory into "plain English" for beginners — a skill that is vital when explaining design decisions to non-design stakeholders like CEOs or Marketing Directors.
• Cross-Functional Leadership: Managed the emotional and technical roadblocks of a diverse team, ensuring that project deadlines (Sprints) were met consistently.

The Intellectual Takeaway: This role proved you can scale design knowledge. You weren't just a designer; you were an evaluator of design. This is where you began developing the "Critical Eye" necessary for Senior Design roles.