Does anyone have practical advice for a developer looking to improve their skills in Figma and design? I think my hesitation can be summarized as "Afraid of making initial stuff look bad", with an accompanying image:

Try to make copies of your favorite interfaces. Then get a bunch of books about graphic design fundamentals like The Grid™ and Typography®!

I did see the advice for recreating stuff on Reddit - I just have to make sure I don't lean too much into it because I struggled with that during my Illustrator learnings. Are those titles by any specific authors or....?

Of course, the Bringhurst book is really old and and a lot of the typographic rules just aren't applicable when designing UI, websites, etc. but it's a good foundational exploration of typography in it's purest sense, and it was integral for my training as a designer

Will check it out! The ones I have on my shelf (read them...a looong time ago) are Thinking with Type, Logo design love, and The elements of graphic design which were all very helpful when I took a class on this stuff in college.