Canva Product Designer Interview Questions
& Process

It started with an initial chat, then a case study, followed by a take-home challenge. The final stage was a behavioural interview. For the IC/Craft take-home, I'd suggest focusing more on a unique/flashy UI approach rather than just a practical one. Since Canva is primarily a design company, feedback indicated a preference for something more 'dribbble'-esque. However, be ready to back up any design choices you make. I got to the last round but didn't succeed because I blanked on a question and needed a nudge to get back on track. Definitely take notes. I found the interview tough because, in my experience, the final round can be unforgiving. It was a bit strange that you might not interview with someone from your potential team, as attendees seem to be randomly assigned. This meant I couldn't really gauge my potential team until after the final interview. The talent team was really helpful with feedback between stages and guiding me through the whole process.

My first interview was with a recruiter, and it turned into this 40-minute Q&A session that wasn't great. The recruiter seemed totally disengaged and uninterested, which was a bummer. They didn't talk about Canva's culture or values at all, and there was no mention of creativity or innovation. It was also weird that we didn't really dive into the actual opportunities there. It felt like I was just talking at them, not having a real conversation about the role. Given how Canva is known for being creative and dynamic, this felt pretty average. Hope they change it up to be more meaningful.

The fastest hiring process I ever experienced. I sent my application online last Monday, the recruiter contacted me the next day with a bundle of exercises to be done, 4 exercises to be exact. They asked to not spend more than 45 minutes for the exercises, that's why I sent them over a hand sketch instead of creating with tool. Today the recruiter announced that their UX team has reviewed my exercises and won't be moving forward with my application due to the reason that other candidates showed better propositions. I believe I did propose good solutions for the task by minimising cluttering steps on each interfaces. I'm wondering if this is because I sent sketches instead of shiny mockups, cause I just found out today that these exercises are created by other talent recruiter, not even a UX Designer (which explains why the language used on the exercises sounds strange sometimes, for example : "revise this xxx (interface)" - instead of asking "how would you improve this interface?". Overall a good experience, even though I'm disappointed to not be able to pass to next step, at least to really meet one of their UX Designer / Product Designer.