You know what's tough? Articulating technically complex concepts visually. And if you're like me, designing in Tech really pushes your skillset. To thrive, you need two things. Grasp and Grit.
Designers must be willing to tread technical waters to grasp concepts well enough to bridge the visual gap. Once you've got a grasp, your next task is to pair that understanding with messaging and story telling that builds adhesion in the minds of your audience. Use idioms, use metaphors, dig deep. A well articulated story will massively cut down your design cycles. Then you have to try it out. A fun test for this is try doing an elevator pitch on your product to a non-technical stranger, and then on a seasoned technical person. Do they track with you?
You also need Grit. To me, design grit is just a refusal to give up and go back to the comfort of what you know already. Learn new skills, take new risks, choose to ship when your design concept communicates strongly and accurately enough, even if still abstract. Your competitors are likely not pushing boundaries here. Perhaps they're still drawing from the same stock photo "networking" renders built in 1995 and crushing everyone's soul. (Please let those images die...) Your sheer commitment to trying (and failing) will put you ahead. And then you can perfect your technical skills on the go.
Anyway, I don't share much on LinkedIn. This is just something I've been concepting recently and it jogged some thoughts about this challenge. I know I'm not alone in it.