Ultimately, we shouldn't fall in love with the tools we use. We should fall in love with the openness to change. If your team is asking for Figma ditch Sketch and forget it. Today I'm using Figma and I really REALLY love it, but if tomorrow comes a new tool and solves a problem Figma isn't, I won't hesitate a heart beat to try it and if this new app is sound, ditch Figma.

Given the years of experience throughout my career, I feel that all the main design tools have really tiny differences purely for pixel pushing, which means you can pick up any of them and go with zero learning curve. Now, the reason I choose a design tool is how they help me, my team and stakeholders communicate and deliver better and stronger outcomes. Tools like Figma and Miro are doing this today for my product design. Everything else i.e. Sketch, Adobe CC, Invision, Abstract, Zeplin and whatever else, only if for some random reason, I'm requested to use them.

This is a very challenging question and situation for designers. As some of the comments here suggest, I don't think the solution is 'go solo and start your own thing'. I mean, that's fantastic if is what you desire, but still, doesn't solve or address the problem inherent to the question raised here.

Some companies like Atlassian and Zendesk have created paths for designers to choose what direction they want to take their careers i.e. Management vs IC; and help you progress on those 2 directions, which ever you choose. Also, it won't mean that those in management will earn more than those IC's. Salaries are divided equally on both. Given that now design is a more ingrained cog in the overall business strategy of any company and designers are not cookie cut versions of other professions where the obvious road to progression is management, like sales or accountancy, the companies that understand this, will be the ones that will win on design and produce better design. It's only a matter of time till the scope of motivations designers have and how they want to grow their careers becomes more obvious and as a result it'll have a much larger impact on companies.

How are they going to monetise or are monetising atm? I can see why they are offering the tool for free now but the plan for the future?

I'm 41 and I work as a Lead Product Designer.

Not surely settled on an exit plan or strategy for the next 20 years. Many things could change and will change till then.

What I’m sure about is about investing in the craft of design and the industries I work on to become a better designer day by day. Observing everything around me that might help me take next steps to feed this interest. Ultimately, I’m making moves on investments and plans for a more solo-preneur move for now while trying to find ways to spend as much time as possible with my family. We'll see where it leads :)

Really looking forward to the Figma to Sketch converter.

Photoshop (and ImageReady /me shivers remembering which, it was the app incorporated into Photoshop to slice and dice to generate

When you hear "x tool designed for the web" and then "download only for mac" there's something there fundamentally wrong.

There's no denying the incredible talent that exist today on Facebook and of companies like Google, Twitter, etc.. From a couple of engineers I asked them about the CA fiasco what they thought about, I noticed a hint of shame and not so much pride on their response of the events that surfaced. On twitter, however, I saw some others saying they are proud to be working for Facebook. So, I guess for some depends where their morals and ethics stand. I've doubt anyone will quit as a result.

Anyways, let's all watch some FIFA 2018 now that we have been provided an streaming link ;)

I'm still hoping Sketch to implement the Cmd + J—very handy feature I use a lot on Illustrator—to join to separate nodes from different shapes. Good to see that I'm not the only having similar workflow as you :)

Fair enough and thanks for taking the time to explain. I'll keep an eye though and keep up the cool features coming! ;)