Spotify Product Designer Interview Questions
& Process

A recruiter from an agency working with Spotify reached out on LinkedIn, saying my resume was impressive and a good match for the role. I expressed interest even though I wasn't looking. They sent an interview invite. Unfortunately, I had two bad experiences: first, after an HR interview, they sent a rejection email saying my resume wasn't good enough, which was quite amusing. Second, the interview itself wasn't very friendly. While I understand people might not always be in the mood for video calls, it seemed unprofessional for the recruiter not to use their camera during a remote interview. They also interrupted me multiple times while I was answering questions directly. It felt like they already knew everything about me. I expected better professionalism from a company like Spotify, especially given they work with agencies.

The interview experience began with a 30-minute HR phone screening. This was followed by a 1-hour behavioral interview with the product design team via Google Hangout. The next stage was a full day on-site interview which included a portfolio review, a design challenge, one-on-one meetings with Product Managers, lunch, one-on-one meetings with engineers, and a meeting with the leadership team. The interviews with HR, designers, and PMs were positive. However, the interviews with the engineers and leadership team were perceived negatively and strangely. It felt like the product interviews followed a set structure with irrelevant questions. An odd aspect was interviewing with people in pairs who sometimes had not worked together before. HR provided timely feedback, which was a positive point. The interview with engineers was the worst part; they asked for a past design solution and then probed deeply into the technical aspects and how the tech stack interacted with each design element. Despite having experience working with developers and pushing front-end changes, the candidate was pressed for very specific technical details, which felt irrelevant given the UX/research-focused nature of the role. The engineers' response about designers not typically handling tech or front-end work further highlighted the disconnect. The interview with directors involved leadership questions not directly related to the team player role being interviewed for, like 'how do you build team morale?' and 'describe your management style', which felt out of place.

The interview process was pretty simple. I waited about a month for the recruiter to get back to me, but they were really flexible with scheduling, which was great because I had other interviews going on and the team was willing to speed things up. The portfolio review was only 45 minutes, which felt a little rushed to really dig into my projects and ask all my questions. The stages were: 1. A quick call with the recruiter who already had a team in mind for me. 2. The portfolio review, which was a bit short. 3. A whiteboarding challenge, which was the last step. 4. Then they made a decision.