Marina Krutchinsky
Leadership Coach, former VP & Head of Design, ex-JPMorgan, Amex. The designers I coached in the past now lead teams at Amazon, Meta, Spotify, Google. (I only coach on Wednesdays. Spots are limited.)
Weekly career acceleration strategies → https://uxmentor.substack.com/
Ask Me Anything - Career Strategy Session (30 min)
FREE-FORM career session. Bring your questions, and we'll work through them together.
Before the session (send at least 48 hours ahead):
→ Your questions
→ All relevant career material
→ Linkedin and/or other links you want me to look at and take into consideration.
During the session, we’ll work on:
→ Real-time feedback on your positioning, case studies, or how you communicate your business impact.
→ How you pitch yourself, tell your professional story, and come across "on paper" vs in real life
→ Map out your next move
→ Anything else you need clarity on
You’ll leave with:
→ Clear answers to your questions
→ A grounded perspective on where you stand and how to position your unique value
→ Tactical next steps tailored to your immediate career goals.
→ Newly found (or re-confirmed :) confidence
1:1 Interview Prep for IC Roles (30 min)
A focused 30-min session for UXers interviewing for individual contributor roles. We work your answers through a hiring manager / VP lens, so you know exactly how the people deciding your future are reading you.
This session is for you if:
→ You have an IC interview coming up
→ Your suspect your answers may run too long, too vague or too tactical
→ You can't tell which of your stories make you sound "more senior"
→ You want direct feedback before the real thing
Before the session (send at least 24 hours ahead):
→ The job description (if you have a specific one, or just the level you are aiming at)
→ Link to your Linkedin
→ 2–3 career stories (or story ideas at least) you want to polish
→ Any interview questions you're worried about
I read all of it before we meet, so we skip the catch-up and go straight to the work
--
During the session, we’ll work on:
→ Your opening pitch ("Tell me about yourself")
→ Your 2–3 interview stories
→ How you explain your decisions, tradeoffs, and impact
→ Where you sound strong, and where you sound under-leveled
→ What a hiring manager will question or doubt
You’ll leave with:
→ A sharper interview narrative
→ Clearer, more senior answers
→ Specific language to use
→ A short fix list before the interview
→ Your newly found confidence
1:1 Director Interview Prep for ICs (60 min)
[Reframing your IC work as Leadership] You're interviewing for a Director role and you've never held the title for. This session pressure-tests your stories so you walk in sounding like a leader, not a senior IC who got lucky.
This session is for you if--
→ You’re a Senior, Lead, Staff, or Principal UX professional interviewing for Director roles
→ You’ve never held a Director title before., OR held one at a small company
→ You have interviews in the next 2–4 weeks
→ You suspect your answers may still sound too tactical
Before the session (send at least 48 hours ahead):
→ The completed prep brief (I'll send it to you to fill out right after booking)
→ 4–6 career stories drafted using my structure (about an hour of work)
→ The job descriptions for the roles you're interviewing for
I read and pre-audit everything, so we spend the full hour working and fixing.
---
During the session
→ We audit your stories for Director-level altitude
→ We find which answers land and which sound under-leveled
→ We reframe your weakest stories in real time
→ We sharpen your language around leadership, judgment, influence, and business impact
→ We run 4–5 live mock questions and coach your answers on the spot
You’ll leave with
→ A clear read on which stories work at Director level
→ Reframed language for your weakest answers
→ Live feedback on how you come across under pressure
→ A specific fix list for the days before your interview
1:1 Positioning your narrative for PLAYER-COACH leadership roles - 2-Session Bundle (2 x 45 min)
The 2026 market wants player-coach leaders: directors who set the bet AND can still drop into the file to unblock the team.
The problem is, most people interviewing for these roles are coming at them from one side or the other, and getting read as the wrong hire.
This 2-session bundle gets you positioned for the player-coach role from wherever you're starting:
-> If you're a super-IC, you have the hands. What the panel can't see yet is that you set direction and move the business. Right now you read as "the best maker in the room," and that tops you out at Staff IC.
-> If you're a leader who's drifted from the work, you have the altitude. But in a leaner, AI-shifted org, a manager who hasn't touched a file in years reads as a coordinator role companies are cutting, not filling.
Two different starting points, same destination: proof that you can do AND direct, in the same breath.
How the sessions are structured ↴
Session 1 -> Work review + diagnostic (45 min)
We go through your actual materials: portfolio, resume, the way you talk about your work.
First we figure out which gap is yours (too much "maker," or too far from the craft), because the fix is completely different depending on the answer.
Then I give you a clear plan: what to cut, what to reframe, and which pieces of evidence to add so you read as a player-coach instead of one half of one.
You leave with a specific rework list.
---
Session 2 -> Rework review + mock interview (45 min)
You come back with the changes made.
We review them, then run a real mock interview for the role you're targeting.
I push on the exact questions a hiring panel uses to find out whether you can lead and still build, and we sharpen your answers live until they land.
You leave ready to walk into the actual interview.
---
The outcome
A portfolio and an interview story that prove both halves: judgment that moves the business, and taste that's still live in the work.
1:1 First 90 Days as a New Design Leader - 3-session bundle (3 x 60 min)
You signed the offer. Now you have to deliver in a room full of people who didn’t hire you, inside an organization you don’t fully understand yet.
This 3-session bundle helps you enter strategically, uncover what’s really happening, and turn what you learn into visible evidence that hiring you was the right decision.
This bundle is for you if:
→ You just accepted a Director, VP, or Head of Design role
→ You haven’t started yet, or you’re in your first few weeks
→ You’re stepping into a bigger scope than you’ve held before
→ You’re entering an organization with incomplete information
→ You want to build credibility without making premature promises or changes
Before Session 1
Send at least 48 hours ahead:
→ Your role scope and reporting line
→ The mandate described during the hiring process
→ What you currently know about the team and organization
→ Why you were told the position was open
→ Any expectations, concerns, or promises already discussed
You are not expected to have the full picture. We use what you know to identify what still needs to be discovered.
Session 1: Enter without stepping on landmines
Before you can build the right plan, you need to know what to look for.
→ Separate what you know from what you’re assuming
→ Identify the gaps you need to investigate
→ Build the questions to ask during your first weeks
→ Determine which relationships to prioritize first
→ Identify the changes and promises you should avoid making too early
→ Create a listening strategy that helps you uncover the real mandate
You’ll leave with:
→ A first-30-days discovery plan
→ An initial stakeholder map to validate
→ Questions for your manager, team, and executive peers
→ A clear first move for your opening weeks
Session 2: Decode what you walked into
After you’ve had time inside the organization, we make sense of what you’ve learned.
→ Compare the role you were sold with the role you actually inherited
→ Map the real political and organizational terrain
→ Identify who holds formal power, informal influence, and critical context
→ Diagnose the team’s strengths, risks, and unspoken expectations
→ Surface conflicting agendas before they become your problem
→ Clarify what success means to the people evaluating you
You’ll leave with:
→ A validated stakeholder and influence map
→ A clearer definition of your actual mandate
→ The people and relationships you need to prioritize
→ The early warning signs to monitor
Session 3: Build the plan leadership will notice
Now that we understand the real environment, we turn that knowledge into a focused plan.
→ Build or recalibrate your 30-60-90-day plan
→ Select early wins that matter beyond Design
→ Decide what to protect, change, investigate, and leave alone
→ Define how you’ll make progress visible without overpromising
→ Prepare for difficult stakeholder or team conversations
→ Shape the leadership narrative attached to your first 90 days
You’ll leave with:
→ A 90-day plan grounded in the organization you actually joined
→ Clear priorities and visible success signals
→ A communication plan for your manager and executive stakeholders
→ Scripts for the conversations you need to have next
→ A strategy for turning early credibility into lasting authority
By the end of the bundle, you’ll know what you walked into, where the real risks sit, and how to prove your value without moving faster than your understanding.
1:1 Mock Interview Bundle (30 min x 2)
A two-session bundle (30 min each) for UXers/product designers who want to walk into the real interview with sharper answers, stronger stories, and a clearer sense of how they come across through a hiring manager / VP lens.
--
Session 1: Interview Prep (30 min)
We’ll review the role, the interview format, and the stories you plan to use.
We’ll identify:
→ Which stories are strongest
→ Which stories sound too tactical
→ Where your answers may raise doubt
→ What the hiring manager is likely listening for
→ What needs to be tightened before the mock interview
You’ll leave with a focused prep plan for the second session.
--
Session 2: Mock Interview (30 min)
We’ll run a realistic mock interview based on the role you’re targeting.
I’ll ask the kinds of questions hiring managers and senior leaders use to assess:
→ Judgment
→ Ownership
→ Collaboration
→ Tradeoffs
→ Strategic thinking
→ Business impact
→ Communication under pressure
After the session, I’ll give direct feedback on what landed, what sounded weak, and what to fix.
This bundle is for you if:
→ You have UX interviews coming up
→ You want more than generic practice questions
→ You need to know how your answers sound to senior decision-makers
→ You want to catch weak stories before the real interview
→ You need cleaner, more confident, more senior responses
Bring:
→ The job description
→ Your resume and/or LinkedIn profile
→ 3–5 career stories you may use
→ Any questions or interview rounds you’re worried about
You’ll leave with:
→ Stronger interview stories
→ Clearer answer structure
→ Hiring manager / VP-level feedback
→ A specific fix list
→ More confidence before the real interview