Sessions | Talks
14:45 - 15:15 ⋅ Afternoon
Bangalore International Centre
Many data viz practitioners don't end up doing data viz. They drift into UX. This talk names that pattern honestly, explores what transfers and what gets left behind, and asks what a data viz career actually looks like as AI commoditises the craft.
Sandeep Karmarkar
Head of Design·Atlassian
Here is something the data visualization community rarely says out loud: most data viz practitioners don't end up doing data viz. They drift into UX. Not because they failed, but because that is how most product organisations are structured, and because the skills transfer well enough that the drift feels natural until you look back and notice what got left behind.
Sandeep has spent years hiring, mentoring, and working with designers across experience levels. This talk is the honest conversation he keeps having with early-career practitioners who are trying to figure out where data visualization actually fits in the real world.
The first part is a reality check. Why does the drift happen? What does the career landscape actually look like, versus how it is described in job postings and course syllabuses? Is data visualization a destination role or a gateway skill in most product organisations?
The second part is about what compounds. Curiosity, fast domain learning, comfort with ambiguity, the ability to frame data in context: these are the skills that travel well across the drift and grow more valuable over time. Tool mastery is not on that list.
The third part looks forward. As AI automates chart selection, visualization generation, and interaction patterns, the traditional data viz skill set is being commoditised. Knowing which chart to use will matter less than knowing why it works, when it fails, and how to shape meaning, narrative, and clarity. The practitioners who differentiate themselves will do so through taste and judgment, not through tool fluency.
The talk closes with a call to leaders and organisations to think harder about what they are actually asking data visualization designers to do, and whether they are creating the conditions for that work to matter.
Sandeep Karmarkar is a design leader with over two decades of experience spanning visual design, UX, product strategy, and team leadership across global technology companies. He currently serves as the Head of Design for the IT Operations portfolio at Atlassian, where he leads teams focused on building effective experiences for managing complex systems at scale. He has previously held leadership roles at Uber, Google, and Nutanix.
Over the years, he has worked on products used by millions across mobility, cloud platforms, security, and public transport experiences in India. Deeply passionate about data visualization and information design, Sandeep has actively hired, mentored, and supported many young designers from Information Design backgrounds throughout his career. He is equally passionate about building high-performing teams and bridging industry with education through talks, workshops, mentorship, and teaching engagements.
A marathon runner, trekker, and digital artist, he brings the same curiosity and endurance from the mountains into the world of design leadership, innovation, and storytelling.