By Michael Carbaugh Finding a sense of belonging across disciplines as a design team of one After spending a decade on large enterprise design teams as a user experience designer, I couldn’t shake my curiosity. I wanted to know what it would be like to lead design at a small company that aligned closely with my values and interests. With fortunate timing and a little bit of luck, I’ve been able to spend the last year as a solo UX designer for a summer camp management software company. While I was ecstatic to find my dream position, I struggled to let go of the fear of feeling isolated knowing I’d be a design team of one. I assumed that I’d need to exhibit more self-reliance and independence at work than I had as part of a large design team. How wrong I was! All it took was working on my first major feature that incorporated the input of many different roles, a revamped email communication tool. Starting out uncovering our user’s needs and the pain …