Specializing Too Early In Your Design Career Can Limit You

Don't specialize early on in your design career.

Start broad and learn as much as you can.

Be comfortable in every stage of the product dev lifecycle - research, strategy, interaction design, visual design, etc.

Learn to understand what steps are necessary for your project and what steps aren't, ensuring you move towards some positive outcome which has a measurable impact.

Activities (in product design) are like tools in a large toolbox and it's up to the designer to determine what makes sense to apply depending on the various factors of the project like time, constraints, etc. The design process is never a linear journey.

Learn about popular technologies and frameworks so you can be confident when communicating with developers.

Partner with product management to understand how you can compliment their efforts and drive impact for the business.

Work with other cross-functional teams as much as possible to better understand how to collaborate with them, leverage their knowledge, how they operate and how design can compliment.

Start wide, then narrow in. Over time you'll realize what you enjoy most and start to specialize as you progress.

Start off as a generalist. Be involved. Be a sponge.