Companies hiring conversation designers
Conversation technology is hot, and the people who build it are in demand. This includes conversation designers, the people who build flows, write dialogue, and do the many other things involved in getting a conversational experience launched (e.g. NLP/NLU, UX, data analysis, research, etc…).
Demand for conversation designers is coming from different types of companies. In this article, I try to describe four different types of companies that are interested in conversation designers and the work of conversational AI. If you are interested in a job in conversation design, this could give you a sense of what is available, what expectations are for jobs in each type of company, and how to focus on what is a good fit for you (and them!).
This categorization of company types is based on my experience working in the space, networking with other conversation designers, looking at job boards, and interviewing with a mix of companies. It is necessarily partial. I don’t know every company, and I don’t know every detail of the companies I do know. But I hope this attempt to categorize helps bring structure to the landscape of options out there.
As I see it, there are four primary types of companies hiring conversation designers: 1) big tech, 2) startups, 3) consulting and professional services, and 4) other companies. Categories 1, 2, and 3 are tech companies, i.e. companies that build tech products, offer tech services, or generally make money in the business of technology. Category 4 is different. These are companies whose primary business is outside the world of conversational AI, but they see value in chatbots, voice interfaces and the like, and are building them. While some companies may outsource this process, others build internal teams to do it, often including conversation designers.
Big Tech
Examples: Google, Meta (Facebook, Oculus), Amazon, Salesforce
These companies often are focused on building platforms or tools that others use. They may set the standards that others get compared to. For example, Google’s Dialogflow is often referenced as an industry-standard tool, and a startup’s offering may be defined in contrast to Dialogflow. In general, these companies are big and financially stable, and so their needs aren’t immediately defined by a need to raise venture capital or make the next sale.
Product-focused startups
Examples: OpenDialog, Sensely, NLX, Voxable, Botcopy, Sense.ai, Liveperson, Drift, Conversation Design Institute, kea, Cognigy, Mindbehind, Rasa, Landbot, Colang, Haptik, MajorBoost, SlangLabs, Skit.ai, Botpress, Kore.ai, ElliQ, Jovo, NTT, SentiOne, formerly Botmock and Botsociety. And many more :)
Startups are often focused on building out a specific product, and in the world of conversational AI that product can be the platforms and tools to help others build bots. In the process of building out a platform and tools, a conversation designer may be essential to build prototypes, to validate and improve the toolset, and to bring the conversation perspective to the product development process.
Once a company has developed the product enough to be usable, the company may pivot to add a professional services component as they expand. This professional services component may require conversation designers to meet with potential clients, build prototypes, and build the business. There are other startups that focus on professional services, but that’s a different type of work.
Startups often are subject to the demands of venture capital. If they just raised money, they are probably hiring. If they didn’t, they may be doing the work so that they can raise more, and hiring is probably more limited.
Consulting and professional services
Examples: Deloitte, Vixen Labs, Master of Code, Cognigy, Quantiphi
These companies are primarily in the business of selling professional services. In the case of conversation technology, the professional service being sold could be conversation design. Your task as a conversation designer may be to meet with clients, help them strategize, and build out solutions.
The work may be structured around contracts and projects. The role may last only for the duration of the contract, which is often short-term, though some projects can last a long time. A consequence of this is that you may not see the project all the way through; you only see what you are hired to do. By contrast, life at a startup means living with a product through and through, from project to project, customer to customer, feature to feature.
Often, product-focused conversational AI startups start by building out a product. Eventually, they need to sell it and scale the sales process. If there is good enough product-market fit, they will need people to build the actual conversational experiences that customers are buying. The dream for these companies may be that the tools they build are so easy to use that no professional services are needed and customers can build solutions themselves. In some cases, this may be possible. But often the company has to have conversation designers on staff to help build out experiences. Over time, they may be able to train customers in the tools so that they can self-manage. That training may also be the work of conversation designers.
Consulting work is also the province of freelancers. Going solo tends to require more networking, a reputation, and a personality that thrives on managing one’s own projects. Two great people to follow who do this are Maaike Groenewege and Rebecca Evanhoe.
Big companies
Examples: Walmart, Expedia, GoDaddy, Home Depot, Financial institutions (e.g. US Bank, Wells Fargo, Chime), Best Buy, Disney, Intuit
These companies aren’t primarily in the business of making conversation technology. Instead, they are incorporating conversational AI, chatbots, voice and other conversation automation for the purposes of helping their primary business. Often, this means building out a customer support chatbot or contact center solution. It may be about offering new ways to engage with customers, e.g. Walmart or Instacart, or bringing characters to life, e.g. Imagineering at Disney.
Since these companies aren’t primarily in the business of conversational AI, they may have gotten into building bots in a variety of ways. Often, existing employees make a lateral move from adjacent disciplines, e.g. UX writing or product management, to take on building the first conversational experiences. If the initial efforts are successful and the conversation team needs to grow, they may need to look externally for more talent.
These companies may use different job titles and descriptions than the first three categories. They have preexisting organizational structures, and a new chatbot team would have to fit into the broader org somehow. If it is housed in product, you may see job ads for “product strategist, conversational AI”. If it is housed in UX, you may see job ads for “UX writer” but with information in the description saying it is for the chatbot team. In general, finding conversation design jobs in bigger non-tech companies may take more digging.
Job boards and job titles
Three useful job boards:
And what kinds of job titles might you see? Some examples:
- Conversation(al) designer
- AI/ML conversation designer
- Content designer/strategist (for conversation)
- AI architect
- Conversational AI specialist
- Solutions architect
- Voice user interface (VUI) designer
- Conversational AI solution architect
- Bot developer
- UX Design Sr. Experience Architect Conversation Design
As the examples above show, there are lots of different ways of advertising for people to do the work that conversation designers do.
In conclusion
I hope the descriptions above help you navigate the options for conversation design jobs. I’m curious if this lines up with your experience!
