Mastering product design interviews
Hiring your product design job, part 1: finding the right environment
Identifying a company that supports your growth and helps you reach your potential faster
Now that you’ve done your skills self-assessment it’s time to think about the company that can help you grow. When we’re looking for a job we usually think of “searching” for work. What if instead we thought of hiring a job for our needs? A supportive environment will feel like wind at your back—presenting you the opportunities to do your life’s best work.
Think through the company’s characteristics that are important to you as if you’re evaluating a candidate. What makes them great? Who would you pass and who would you hire?
We’ll look at 9 things in total:
- Design maturity of the company you’re applying to
- Your future manager, their background and expertise
- Culture at a micro and macro level
- In-house design or design agency
- Consumer or enterprise positions
- Platforms, mature or emerging
- Location of the company and the surrounding ecosystem
- Industry specialization or breadth of expertise
- Impact and outcomes you’re interested in driving
Your dream job
Before we begin, feel free to follow along by grabbing the dream job template from Google Drive which you can copy and fill out to brainstorm potential future options.
One way to think about your next job is to think about your most recent role or the previous ones you’ve had. What worked there? What didn’t? What do you want to do more of or less of? Think of it as a personal job retrospective.
Design maturity
A mature design company has internalized and established proven design processes that it has honed over many years. Design is not a layer on top but an integral piece for how a product portfolio is put together—a company’s strategic advantage.
High design maturity companies are great places to learn quickly and with rigor. You can continue to stay and develop your skills further to become a skilled specialist (i.e. design lead) or a manager. Alternatively you can seek a different challenge altogether by going to a low design maturity company to build their design culture and acumen.
High design maturity → focus on the work
For a designer who’s just starting out, it’s best to go to a company that already has the design process established. This means you can focus on what you do best — honing in on your craft and getting your craft skills refined while at the same time expanding your collaboration skills by building relationships with your team and across departments.
You will be paired with a mentor, a peer and a manager, giving you the opportunity to get continuous feedback and help you quickly accelerate and grow. This is an invaluable experience and will pay dividends in the long-term. It is like being in design school all over again, except in this case you’re being paid to learn and the org is vested in your success.
Low design maturity → opportunity to build a process
Usually companies that have low design maturity are on a smaller size. Though I’ve worked in companies that were tiny and had better design sensibility than some of the larger orgs. It all varies — but with low design maturity companies you’re facing the challenge of defining design.
This is more of a process and management role which places less emphasis on craft skills. This type of challenge is perfect for industry veterans who have their craft down, have developed processes before and now have the responsibility and autonomy to establish a design process at this company.
Resources
There are many different definitions out there and some great resources on this topic such as the Level Up by Heather Phillips or InVision’s recent report — InVision about design maturity. Lastly, another way to look at design maturity is through the lens of culture. Companies that have a low design maturity but a culture that’s open to design and experimentation can be a great fit as well and can accelerate your growth.
Your manager
Your future design manager will play a huge role in your career. They will have the final say about your performance — if you did well, if you did poorly, if you get a raise, if you’re eligible for promotion or if you should be let go because of poor performance or because the company’s not doing well. What kind of manager would you like to hire?
The design manager
Think about the skills that you’re trying to improve and how your future manager can support you. Ideally they come from a design background — either they’ve studied design formally, or they’ve learned on the job and progressed to a high level of craft and collaboration. This type of manager will help you grow as an individual contributor, put you in a position that plays to your strengths, while also supporting your efforts in navigating the company.
The non-design manager
Now depending on where you go—your manager might actually not come from a design background at all but instead they’ve come from adjacent fields (e.g. product management, engineering). That’s not a bad thing necessarily. In fact, some strong designers as individual contributors get promoted to manager level and end up performing poorly.
Wanna learn more?
Continue reading to all about design maturity, good management and culture for UX and Product Designers.
Land Your Dream Design Job is a comprehensive book about landing a product design role in a startup, agency, or tech company. It covers the entire design interview process from beginning to end, and will arm you with techniques and strategies to navigate the (at times) turbulent waters of job searching with confidence. This book will help guide you to a role that plays to your strengths while providing enough support for professional growth.
You’ll learn:
- What skills are expected of designers
- How to demonstrate those skills throughout the job search process
- How to identify your next opportunity
- How to target your job search process to stand out
- How to build a stand-out portfolio and tailor it to your dream opportunity
- The ins and outs out of various design interview types from portfolio presentations, whiteboard challenges, app critiques, to take home design exercises and many others.
You’ll also find in-depth advice on how to apply beyond the job boards, and how to conduct due diligence, negotiate compensation, and accelerate onboarding to your new role.
