coming from a data/ BE background I feel extremely familiar with reasoning about systems and performance from the cloud-infra to the pipeline stack level. Or I'm super familiar with data visualization.
I feel like falling off a cliff when trying to extrapolate that knowledge to the more customer-facing world.
Despite having some tool ideas in the past, I realized I shy away from going towards the front end because I really lack any conecptual frame of how to think about and subsequently implement UI or UX.
I don't mean that in a nitty-gritty-designer focussed way but more like first-principle understanding:
What makes a good color scheme?
What makes a great wording and why?
What's a good form of presenting information?
I feel like I can recognize good UI/UX when I see it (as is often the case with HN company LPs), but I'd totally fail at distilling check boxes that such good examples tick.
Any pointers to how I can learn about these worlds and develop an understanding of what principles UI/UX should follow?
As someone who has been a hiring manager for both roles I would suggest that they are reasonably different skillsets and personalities and not sure there's a high degree of overlap. If you fall into one camp I think it's better to hire for the other than to try to do both, assuming you are trying to achieve any kind of higher-order quality of work product.