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Overcome imposter syndrome and accelerate your career | Julie Zhuo (Sundial, Facebook)

Julie Zhuo is the co-founder of Sundial, a company that helps builders make meaningful use of data to fulfill their mission. With over 400K followers across social media, she is one of the most influential leaders in product design, and product thinking broadly. Julie started her career at Facebook as a product designer and eventually led teams of 100+ designers as the VP of Design. Her experience leading at Facebook motivated her to publish the Wall Street Journal best seller The Making of a Manager in 2019. On the side, Julie shared her thoughts on technology, design, and leadership in The Looking Glass, the blog that inspired Lenny’s Newsletter. Find the full transcript here: https://www.podpage.com/lennys-podcast/julie-zhuo-on-accelerating-your-career-impostor-syndrome-writing-building-product-sense-using-intuition-vs-data-hiring-designers-and-moving-into-management/#transcription — Where to find Julie Zhuo • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julie-zhuo/ • Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/joulee • Sundial: https://sundial.so • Book: The Making of a Manager: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079WNPRL2/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1 • Substack: https://lg.substack.com/ • Medium: https://medium.com/the-year-of-the-looking-glass — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — In this episode, we cover: [00:00] How Julie found her way into product design [09:24] How Julie navigated impostor syndrome at Facebook [12:31] Advice for people feeling imposter syndrome [16:57] The challenges Julie faces as she transitions from VP to founder  [20:48] What goals Julie was able to achieve through writing [26:00] What did she do to build a habit of writing? [29:56] Why Julie decided to write a book [38:16] Tweeting vs blogging [40:50] How to become a successful online writer (and what to avoid) [43:48] Three tried-and-true steps to develop product sense [48:35] When to choose intuition over data [54:28] The secret to facilitating great product/design review meetings [1:02:33] How to give valuable design feedback [1:05:28] What can you do to unblock your path to become a manager? [1:09:50] A must-know trick in competing for design talent [1:13:05] Where to find Julie — Thank you to our wonderful sponsors for making this episode possible: • Amplitude: https://amplitude.com/ • Productboard: https://www.productboard.com/ • Sprig: https://sprig.com/lenny — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.

Julie ZhuoguestLenny Rachitskyhost
Sep 7, 20221h 15mWatch on YouTube ↗

At a glance

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

Julie Zhuo on imposter syndrome, product sense, and leadership growth

  1. Julie Zhuo, former VP of Design at Facebook and founder of Sundial, shares her career journey from immigrant kid discovering MS Paint to leading Facebook’s core app design team and now building a product-analytics startup.
  2. She dives deeply into imposter syndrome, explaining how long it lasted for her, how she reframed it as a signal of growth, and the concrete tools she uses (asking for help, vulnerability, support networks) to manage it.
  3. Julie explains how writing transformed her clarity of thought and communication, why she moved from long-form essays to Twitter threads, and how to build sustainable writing habits that double as deliberate practice.
  4. She also offers tactical advice on product sense, product/design reviews, giving feedback to designers, breaking into management, and how founders can become more attractive to great designers.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

Imposter syndrome often accompanies fast growth—and never fully goes away.

Julie felt like an imposter for 7–8 years at Facebook, even as she became VP. She reframed discomfort as evidence she was stretching into new territory, and learned that even senior leaders regularly feel unprepared when doing something unprecedented.

Ask for help and share struggles instead of “faking it.”

Early on, she tried to ‘fake it till she made it’ and kept doubts to herself, which slowed learning. Over time she realized that openly asking for help, building support groups, and being vulnerable with peers and reports leads to faster growth and deeper relationships.

Use writing as a tool to think, not just to broadcast.

Her newsletter began as a personal challenge after feedback that she was too quiet in large meetings. Committing to 52 weekly posts forced her to clarify her thinking and voice, which directly improved how she communicated and contributed at work.

Build product sense via structured observation and data, not magic instincts.

Julie recommends systematically analyzing your own product experiences, discussing products with others, reading deep product breakdowns, and marrying qualitative observation with A/B tests and analytics to refine intuition about what works and why.

In design/product reviews, collect lots of feedback but prioritize by problem and layer.

All opinions are ‘true’ opinions, but you can’t design by consensus. She suggests: first ensure the product is truly valuable for the target user, then make it easy to use, and only then focus on delight and polish—synthesizing feedback into those buckets.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

Every single week I felt like an imposter. The constant refrain was, ‘Do you really deserve to be here?’

— Julie Zhuo

Being in an uncomfortable situation coincides with the fastest and most intense periods of growth in your career.

— Julie Zhuo

I always approached my writing as letters to myself—the advice I most needed to hear.

— Julie Zhuo

All opinions are valid because they are a true opinion. The question is how do you then prioritize?

— Julie Zhuo

If you really want those opportunities, sometimes you just have to be at a smaller place that’s growing fast.

— Julie Zhuo

Julie's nonlinear career path: artist, engineer, designer, VP, and founderUnderstanding and managing imposter syndrome over many yearsHow writing (blogs, Twitter, books) sharpens thinking and leadershipDeveloping product sense through observation, critique, and dataRunning effective product/design reviews and synthesizing feedbackTransitioning into management and preparing to become a managerHiring and attracting strong designers as a founder or PM

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