Product Designer

Product Designer qualifications to look for

A product designer is all about the consumer digital product from concept to design and development. 

They may be tasked to improve existing digital product designs by analyzing working concepts from competitors. Or they may be charged with designing a completely new product from conception. 

Your top hire may hold a bachelor's degree and should have solid work experience.

The best designers will know the ins and outs of a specific software system used for digit products, and have an excellent concept to launch mindset. 

Look for candidates with a passion for design beyond the boundaries of their own specialties. 

Keep an eye out for candidates who are:

• Critical-thinkers
• Observant about everyday life and the objects that make it possible
• Naturally curious
• Innovative
• Always on the lookout for better ways of doing things 
  

Top tip: Hire candidates willing to grow by making sure their personal career goals align with your company's mission.

Behavioral questions

• How do you relate to the end-user when designing a product? What research methods do you do when starting a new project?
• What do you do when a project doesn’t go as planned? How do you solve any problems?
• What was your favorite course or seminar you’ve taken? What aspect of your course did you find most engaging?
• What are you currently working on?
• What was your design process for this (portfolio piece selected)? What problems were you trying to solve? How did you make a certain design decision?
• How do you take ownership of the work in your portfolio? 
• What’s your prototype process like? How do you narrow down your best ideas?
• Do you have a side project you're working on?
  

Role-specific interview questions

• What solution would you choose for adding icons to the interface on a project?
• Explain what development environment you prefer such as text editor or version control.
• Walk me through how to optimize a website’s assets and reduce page load time. 
• Define progressive enhancement and graceful degradation. What are the key differences? 
• What existing CSS/Sass frameworks have you used in production?
• Can you explain BEM and SMACSS? What do you like/don’t like about these conventions?