I had a wonderful conversation with Divye Bokdia, head of design at Atlassian, on our podcast this week. Divye’s journey spans some of the most interesting chapters in design history from the early days when UX was barely a recognized field, through the hypergrowth of Indian fintech, to now leading distributed teams building the future of teamwork collaboration.
Here’s what stood out:
Divye didn’t set out to become a designer. Like many of us from that era, he was preparing for IIT with computer science in mind. When his rank didn’t get him into CS, he stumbled upon the design program at IIT Guwahati — one of the few institutions offering it at the time.
“I went in with the mindset that we’ll try it, and if it doesn’t work, I’ll give JEE again. But once I started learning how to draw a perfect circle, how different graphs work, how sub-domains connect — I realized why it was all critical.”
From there, he went to University of Michigan for his masters, not out of academic passion, but because “all my friends were going.” What he did intentionally, though, was stay connected to industry — juggling six to seven part-time jobs with NGOs while in grad school, building accessible websites and apps.
That pragmatism would define his career.
Divye’s first job title? Design Engineer. His second? Design Program Manager. Then UI Engineer. Then finally, UX Designer.
“Companies didn’t know how to utilize our skillset. They weren’t clear on how we’d contribute. So whatever title fit, they gave it to you. No one really cared about titles back then.”
He started at MicroStrategy during the iPad and Android boom, designing CXO dashboards for small screens. Then NVIDIA for 6.5 years. Then Amazon — where he experienced the machinery of scale.
At Amazon, Divye joined a design organization of over 1,000 designers. Every Monday, 500+ new employees joined. How do you maintain culture at that scale?
“Leadership principles. From hiring to promotion to daily prioritization — they were used as the foundational thing. They weren’t just written on the wall. They were practiced.”
He also learned how large products get built: component by component, team by team. At one point, he wanted to add a single image to a product detail page. It took one month to get approvals — because different teams owned the buy button, the product info, the load time SLA.
Later at AWS, he was the first designer hired for AWS Support — a service that had been using Amazon Retail’s support tools for 12+ years. Within months, they scaled to three designers managing 32 tools.
In 2021, Divye moved back to India and joined Upstox — his first startup, by choice.
“I always wanted to work for a startup. But in the US, visa constraints made it too risky. The moment we decided to move back, I knew the next job had to be a startup.”
What he found was a different world entirely.
At Amazon, a feature might take six months from PRD to launch. At Upstox? If a competitor launched something on Monday, you shipped by next Monday.
He grew the design team from 3 to 50+ — product designers, animators, illustrators, brand designers, researchers. He built the hiring framework, review processes, and design system from scratch.
And then came IPL.
“It was like doing a grand wedding. The whole team worked until 4am for a week. But it brought us together. Everyone knew the shared goal.”
One of my favorite frameworks from our chat: speed, quality, quantity — pick two.
“If you need 100 projects with great quality, speed will slow down. If you want to move fast, you focus on either quality or quantity — not both. You might say: these 5 projects are P0, high impact. We’ll do them with quality. The rest? We lower the bar.”
This is the conversation startups have constantly. Enterprises rarely need to.
At Atlassian, Divye now leads a team of ~20 designers spread across India, Turkey, and Australia.
The big shift in the last few months? AI is no longer optional.
“We’ve set new expectations. When a PRD is written, it should include a vibe-coded prototype. When designers explore solutions, they should use AI tools. The goal isn’t to replace anyone — it’s to raise the bar.”
They’ve trained AI agents to simulate user personas, review PRDs, and give feedback. Deep research that once took weeks now takes minutes. Market research, prototyping, documentation — all accelerated.
But the gap? Prompting.
“What you ask is what you get. If you can’t clearly explain what you’re looking for, the output won’t match. We’re all still learning how to ask.”
Divye was direct about what it takes to stay relevant:
Do more than design. Understand data. Learn some code. Speak the language of your cross-functional partners.
Know your business inside out. Which features generate revenue? Who are your high-touch vs low-touch customers? What’s the market doing?
Adopt the technology. AI isn’t here to replace you — it’s here to raise your bar. If you were delivering static screens before, now you deliver working prototypes.
“Don’t think of yourself as the person who just does design. Participate in prioritization. Ask: are we solving the right problem? And after launch, measure. If you don’t ask engineering to track the events, no one will.”
One UX principle you never compromise on? Function over form.
Tool you’d keep if you had to drop everything else? Figma.
Non-design habit that improved your leadership? Meditation and watching the sunrise every day at 4:30am.
Startup ritual you brought into enterprise? Tiger teams — small, scrappy groups with no approval processes, just guardrails.
Most overrated trend in design today? Motion design without purpose. And AI features that add no value.
Book you reread every year? Trillion Dollar Coach by Eric Schmidt on Bill Campbell.
“People confuse leadership with being in control. But it’s less about control and more about giving ownership. If you try to control everything, you curtail your team’s growth — and your own. You can’t scale yourself if you’re in control of everything.”
Divye runs a mentorship cohort every six months — six people, career-focused conversations, no resume reviews. If you’re interested, follow him on LinkedIn for updates.
🎧 Listen to the full conversation:
If this resonated, share it with a designer friend who’s navigating the startup-to-enterprise journey, or figuring out how AI fits into their workflow.
Until next time,
Shivam
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