S4E4 Interview with Mike Heitzke, Lead Product Designer, CarMax Asurion on Management, Design Ops, Mental Health

Mike Heitzke is a perpetual hobbyist. Competitive powerlifter, three-pedal car enthusiast, tinkerer and watch collector. He served within the logistics space at CarMax as a Lead Product Designer.

In this episode, we talked about:

• MIke’s role at CarMax
• Design Operations and management
• Serving internal partners  CarMax
• Experience in managing designers
• The first failure in leadership
• Mental Health
• Life as a competitive powerlifter
• First design job from Craigslist

Links and Resources:

https://www.designbetter.co/designops-handbook

Org Design for Design Orgs: Building and Managing In-House Design Teams

Daring Greatly

Brian Brown books

5 Love Languages

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable

The five keys to a successful Google team

https://twitter.com/heitzke