I used to hear people call it an “army of one” and nod along, thinking I got it. Now that I've actually lived it, for two years, I realise I didn't understand a thing.
Two years ago, I started at Seek Sophie as a solo designer. It was my choice, after years at FPT Design, the largest design team in Vietnam, to trade a big team for working alone. But the choice doesn't make it easier.
So let me tell you what it's really like: the good and the bad.
The good: I've touched… everything.
As the only person in the design department, I've had to become 6 people at once. I design all three systems: admin, partner, customer. I test the product myself, write my own test files, and work directly with my CEO (also my PM/PO). I debrief like a BA would, and other days I hand designs straight to developers. It's the full process, start to finish, and I'm the one carrying it. The upside is I get to touch everything: I understand the whole system now, not just a corner of it.
Over these two years, I've built almost every feature Seek Sophie has. The first thing I did when I joined was update the customer dashboard UI. After that came the ambassador program, messaging between hosts and guests, then the admin side (payouts, prebooking, availability), and most recently, a CMS for our site. Being in every process means I now understand how the whole e-commerce system runs. And not just design, but testing, and how developers think when a file lands on their desk.
The bad: growing in every direction at once.
Wearing this many hats means constantly picking up skills I've never had to use before. I can learn what a job is in theory pretty fast, but getting good at it is a different level.
Growing in so many directions at once, in so little time, has worn me down. It's stressful because I actually want to do this well.
The strange part is that working alone, trying to expand in every direction, sometimes makes me feel like I'm not growing at all. Everything feels stuck. There's no one to share the load with, no one to tell me where I stand. I just keep moving without knowing exactly who I am or where I am in the process.
And when I'm overwhelmed, I can't even step back to catch my breath, because I am the department. The job doesn't pause for me to figure things out. So the stress compounds: stressed about the work, and then stressed about not being able to stop being stressed, while still carrying everything at once.
Standing still while stretching thin.
Honestly, there have been so many moments over these two years when I wanted to quit, not because I want to stop working, but because I've felt stuck, like there's nowhere left to go. Trying to stretch in every direction at once makes me feel like elastic pulled to its limit. I still feel that sometimes, even now. I don't know how much longer I can keep going like this, probably not much longer.
Still, I'm grateful for this stretch of time. I don't often get the space to look back, because there's no one around to compare notes with or tell me how I'm doing, so most days I genuinely don't know where I stand. But when I do glance back at where I started versus where I am now, I can see how much I've grown. Whether it's enough for whatever comes next, I honestly don't know. But I grew, and I learned more in this short stretch than I expected to. I'm grateful for that.
So, is being an army of one good or bad?
Depends who you ask. For me, two years in, I know I'm a team player at heart. I want to work alongside people who are good at what I'm not, and who need me for what they're not, and build something together. As a designer, I stay in the middle of everything, and deciding alone isn't easy. It’s much better if having someone next to me to help figure out which way is right.