01Owns
Research and discovery
Plans interviews and contextual studies, synthesises findings into problems worth solving and keeps evidence linked to design decisions.
Hire · Product design
Hire UI/UX Designers
Senior UI/UX designers who join your product team to own research, flows, interface design and the handoff to engineering. Before shortlisting, each has completed a paid design exercise: redesigning a flawed flow, extending a component library and planning a usability test.
Paid design exercise, not a portfolio glance
Senior, lead and principal designers only
Works in your Figma files and rituals
On your team
What a UI/UX designer owns on your team.
02Owns
Flows and information architecture
Maps user journeys, navigation and content structure, and tests labels with card sorts or tree tests before screens are drawn.
03Owns
Interaction and visual design
Designs states, transitions, error handling and empty screens, not only the happy path, with a clear typographic and colour hierarchy.
04Owns
Design system stewardship
Builds and maintains Figma components, variables and documentation so designers and engineers draw from the same source.
05Owns
Accessible design
Checks contrast, focus order, target sizes and readable copy against WCAG while designing, and annotates behaviour for assistive technology.
Reading a design portfolio critically
Polished final screens show visual skill but hide the decisions behind them. Ask candidates to walk through one project from the problem statement: what they learned from users, which ideas they dropped and what happened after launch. Designers who can describe a failed concept and what it taught them usually make better choices under pressure.
Vetting
Skills we test before a UI/UX designer joins.
01Tested
Figma craft
Auto layout, component properties, variables for themes and modes, and libraries that stay tidy as more people contribute.
02Tested
Prototyping
Builds prototypes at the fidelity the question needs, from clickable wireframes to realistic interactions for usability sessions.
03Tested
Usability testing
Writes task scenarios, runs moderated and unmoderated sessions, and reports severity rather than a list of opinions.
04Tested
Content design
Writes interface copy, error messages and labels that are plain and specific, and works with content owners on tone.
05Tested
Developer handoff
Annotates spacing tokens, responsive behaviour and edge cases, uses Dev Mode or equivalent, and reviews built work against the design.
06Tested
Product judgement
Balances user needs with business goals and engineering cost, and can explain which compromise they would accept and why.
Work sample
How the UI/UX designer work sample runs.
- 01Step 1
Critique a broken flow
The candidate reviews a sign-up flow with confusing steps and unclear errors, and writes up the problems in priority order.
- 02Step 2
Redesign one journey
They redesign that flow in Figma using an existing component library, adding any missing states. The exercise is time-boxed and paid.
- 03Step 3
Plan a usability test
They write a short test plan with tasks, participants and success measures for the new design.
- 04Step 4
Present to engineers
They hand the design to a developer in a short session, answering questions on edge cases and responsive behaviour.
Why we use a design exercise
A short, paid exercise with an existing component library shows how a designer works within constraints, handles edge cases and communicates intent to engineers. That reflects the real job far better than a speculative redesign of a famous app.
We also watch how they present: whether they lead with the user problem or with the visuals.
Levels
UI/UX Designers: what changes at each level.
01Level 1
Senior
Owns features from research to handoff within an established design system and critiques peers’ work.
02Level 2
Lead
Sets design process, research cadence and system governance, and keeps several squads consistent.
03Level 3
Principal product designer
Shapes product direction across journeys, leads strategic research and decides how the design system evolves across platforms.
Senior, lead or principal designer
A senior designer suits a team with a working design system and a clear roadmap. Choose a lead when design practice is inconsistent across squads or research happens only occasionally. A principal designer makes sense when the questions are about product direction, multi-platform consistency or a system several teams depend on.
Other options
When to hire someone other than a UI/UX designer.
01Consider
Front-end build capacity
If designs are ready and the bottleneck is implementation, a web developer adds more.
Open register02Consider
Immersive 3D or AR experiences
For spatial interfaces built in game engines or AR toolkits, bring in an AR developer.
Open register03Consider
Behavioural analysis at scale
When the main question is what thousands of users do rather than why, start with a data analyst.
Open registerGiving a new designer room to contribute
Share access to analytics, support tickets and past research in the first week, and arrange conversations with sales or support staff who hear from users daily. Ask the designer to audit one key journey and its accessibility before starting new work.
Agree how designs are reviewed and when engineers join. Bringing developers in at the sketch stage saves rework later.
FAQ
Questions to resolve before the build.
01Do your designers do research themselves?
Yes. Senior designers plan and run interviews and usability sessions. For large research programmes, a lead or principal will set up a repeatable cadence and recruitment process.
02Can they work in our existing Figma design system?
That is expected. The exercise uses an existing library, and we check whether candidates extend components properly instead of detaching them.
03How do you assess accessibility skills in a designer?
We review contrast, focus order, error messaging and annotations in the exercise, and ask how they would design a complex component, such as a data table, for keyboard and screen reader users.
Works alongside
Roles a UI/UX designer works best alongside.
01Pair with
React developers
To turn Figma components into coded ones with shared tokens and agreed states.
Open register02Pair with
QA engineers
So accessibility and visual regressions are checked on every release, not only at design review.
Open register03Pair with
Data analysts
To measure whether design changes moved completion, retention or support volume.
Open registerProduct delivery
Need the whole product built instead?
Primary sources
References behind this page
Dated official documentation, standards, and research that support the factual claims on this page.
- 01Nielsen Norman Group: why you only need to test with 5 users
Research-based guidance on iterative usability testing.
- 02W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) overview
The accessibility standard designers should check against.
How to read this page
Scope, cost and timeline figures are planning guidance until confirmed in a written proposal. Diagrams and screens are illustrations, not client deliverables, and source-code rights and handover follow the signed agreement. See the delivery process and the full disclaimer.
Next decision
Turn the brief into an accepted product scope.
Define outcomes, constraints, evidence, rights and handover before delivery begins.
Commercial rights, repositories, environments, documentation, acceptance and handover remain contract-defined.