I have my portfolio review coming up and was wondering if there is anything specific I should focus on for staff level. This is what the recruiter mentioned "We ask that you walk us through the problem you were solving, your range of explorations, and the solution you arrived at" This seems general and very lean - Should I also include exp navigating organizational complexity, Cross Domain co-workings, stakeholders and tradeoffs, key challenges, etc... or is that something they will be looking for signals for later on in the process? #design #interviews #ui/ux #coinbase
I would hope that anyone who is interviewing people for staff roles would want to see more than just product designs in a presentation. I would definitely recommend showing how you manage organizational challenges.
How would you demonstrate this
By presenting a project that was riddled with them but still successful thanks to your efforts. It can still be a design project (although it could be something else as well), but instead of focusing on how or why you designed a feature or product in a particular way, you focus on how you managed a redesign through a reorg or how you led the design of a feature set that involved 3 distinct areas that your team didn’t own or how you managed up to stop a nightmare HiPPO from ruining a project.
Staff level needs to show strategic work that was led with high quality craft (problem framing, strategy, interaction, and viz) to improve a line of business and made measurable impact. Typically this will require some cross team influence. Did you evolve the enterprise design system? Did you push for change when it wasn’t easy to do so and have a compelling reason why it needed to happen? Strategically why did your work fundamentally change the business (not just a sub-feature) for the better. Showcase systems design thinking. Your work should demonstrate building block architecture thinking. A “redesign” of a website won’t be enough. By doing x project what line of business does it unlock. Be prepared for your leadership style to surface, very few staff roles in tech company and individuals in those roles are scrutinized to uphold the bar for themselves and others. Don’t be boring. Have a real personality come thru in your storytelling.
Yes you should. Dm for a review session
Do you have any tips for structure - This is my first time interviewing for staff level roles and not sure how to structure. I usually cherry pick projects but as a Staff Designer I have a handful of projects I led for the product area I own - How should I frame my experience owning a product area vs just deep diving into constituent projects. Currently my approach is to just take it up a level so outline from a highlevel - Business, User goals/needs as they pertain to the product area - My role and co-working (e.g cross functional partnerships, navigating organizational complexity, etc...) - Show the different projects explorations to move those metrics, (show some visuals) - Outcome/Results
Just a tip from having interviewed with them earlier this year. They care A LOT about visual design finesse (my friend who is a staff designer there confirmed this), so make sure you put in extra effort to make your presentation and the work you present in it look as slick as possible while still covering all the non-visual aspects of being a seasoned designer that I would think are more important. They ultimately passed on me because they felt my visual design skills were not up to snuff... That all said, everyone who interviewed me was exceptionally nice, and I had a very pleasant interview experience despite the outcome.