Design Technical Interview Formats

Technical design job interviews evaluate your creative aptitude and talent for design thinking along with your technical design skills. As a result, they often contain elements (whiteboarding exercises, design challenges, portfolio reviews/presentations, etc.) that distinguish them from more traditional job interviews or technical interviews for software engineers.

Design/Whiteboard Challenges

Design Challenges

Design challenges are exercises that require more time and may involve your working on it at home or for a set time during the interview and then presenting your deliverables to the hiring manager or team.

Whiteboard Challenges

Whiteboard challenges are exercises that happen live, in the room with people from that company. Examples of Whiteboard design challenges:

• Design a checkout solution for an online bookstore
• Design a step by step plan for creating “one” website for a hair salon that has two websites, a marketing site where they get the bookings, and an online store. The business wants to have only one website that combines both.

For samples of design challenges, please reference the Design Challenges course in your program curriculum.

Resources

• Website: Daily UI is a series of daily design challenges that are 100% free.
• Lynda.com: Job Interview Strategies for UX designers
• YouTube Video: How to prepare for a UX job interview
• YouTube Video: What to expect in a design interview
• Article: The Beginner’s Guide to Whiteboard Challenges
• Article: 5 Steps to Master Whiteboard Design Challenge
• Article: The Ultimate Guide to Salary Negotiation for Designers