You've submitted your UX Designer application, been screened by a recruiter and made it to your first in-person UX interview. It is a joyous occasion and now all you have to do is complete the interview cycle to land the coveted UX gig. It can be tempting to be so overwhelmed by excitement that you forget that your success and happiness as a UX designer at any company is largely based on said company's team culture, management and overall appetite for UX.
This article attempts to unpack some of the telltale signs when interviewing with a team UX lead that indicate you could be entering a company or culture that has fundamental issues at both a UX team and managerial level.
There are so many buzzwords and UX methodologies that it can be truly hard to keep up with them all. However, no matter which buzz word you throw at the industry - it should all go back to methodology and the iterative process of working with users and designing solutions for them. If your interviewer does not understand that or has limited experience with that process it may be good to re-evaluate the decision to move forward. Afterall, if the team lead does not have a firm comprehension of UX fundamentals then you can be sure other less-experienced team-members are in the same boat.
To succeed in UX you need a certain amount of autonomy, trust and support from your management team. If your interviewer mentions or alludes to pervasive issues with management run away from this potentially toxic environment. This is an issue that can truly derail or absolutely kill your ability to succeed since disruptions at the top trickle down to the team-level which is an unfortunate effect of managerial issues.
The bottom line is if you're an IC-level UXer you need support from management to make decisions, take risks or move political impediments. If you take a job with a shifty management team or one that has demonstrated the ability to disrupt a team dynamic or stand in the way of your UX processes - you could be setting yourself up for failure.
The thing that makes UX work is working with users to get feedback. It's surprising how many companies and organizations design without it. When you are interviewing poke and prod about existing UX process and get a feel for how often users are consulted. While there are situations where you will be making design decisions without user input - it should be more the exception than the rule.
Quite simply, if you are designing without user input you are not doing UX design. It is absolutely possible to make designs work without it using best-practices but when it comes to designing solutions that truly work you will be entering a world where you're guessing and working against your user base.
Interviewing for UX roles is an art and it requires a lot of prep and practice. Certain organizations will make you jump through hoops multiple times in order to find out your skillset. In some cases this is harmless and in other cases excessive interviews or whiteboarding exercises can point to lack of trust or uncertainty about how to understand value in a potential UX candidate.
Within reason, there should be some flavor of interviews that follow this pattern: recruiter > hiring manager > team / lead and potentially one whiteboarding design exercise. If you're going through multiple rounds of interviews and being grilled and feel like you're treading water there is probably a hidden disfunction you can't yet see - stay away.
That's all for now! Let me know some other red flags you've seen in the UX interviewing process.
