Product Designer

Ryan Mahoney

Ryan Mahoney

Director of Product, FirstWho

“At this level, craft and ownership actually have to coexist, and most hiring processes miss that distinction entirely. You need someone who can run research without a script, build prototypes that engineers genuinely want to implement, and push back on PMs demanding impossible timelines. The real challenge is finding people who've done this work solo, not as backup support. Plenty of candidates show polished portfolios but fall apart when you ask how they validated something after launch, or how they used their own data to change a stakeholder's mind. You're looking for judgment that comes from being wrong in public, repeatedly, and that rarely appears in case studies.”

Skip the setup

Use as-is, or remix to fit your team.

Start hiring now

Competency Questions

1 of 18

Core Design Practice

End-to-end design execution encompassing user research, interaction design, systems architecture, and technical implementation. At the mid level, this domain emphasizes autonomous ownership of feature design with high craft standards and efficient handoff to engineering.

Design Engineering & Technical Implementation

Implements medium-complexity features independently, maintains design tokens in code, and troubleshoots layout issues.

Interview round: Portfolio & Craft Deep Dive

Your engineer suggests a technical approach that would significantly simplify implementation but changes the interaction model you designed. How do you respond?

Positive indicators

  • Seeks to understand magnitude of technical benefit
  • Proposes quick way to evaluate user impact of change
  • Considers partial implementation or phased approach
  • Makes decision based on user outcome data
  • Maintains collaborative tone throughout

Negative indicators

  • Rejects automatically without exploration
  • Accepts without understanding user impact
  • No proposal to validate changed interaction
  • Decision based on who proposed or effort to change
  • Damages relationship through process

Attitude Questions

1 of 12

Active Listening

The disciplined practice of fully concentrating on, understanding, and retaining communicated information while demonstrating comprehension through verbal and non-verbal feedback, suspending premature judgment, and probing beneath surface statements to uncover implicit needs, constraints, and emotional subtext—particularly critical when bridging disciplinary boundaries where shared mental models cannot be assumed.

Interview round: Recruiter Screen

In a design critique, a peer raises a concern that seems to miss your core intent. The concern resonates with others in the room. What do you do?

Positive indicators

  • Asks questions to understand the concern more fully
  • Acknowledges the resonance with others
  • Considers whether the design actually communicates the intent
  • Explores modifications that address the concern

Negative indicators

  • Immediately explains the intent more forcefully
  • Dismisses the concern as misunderstanding
  • Assumes others are wrong without examining the work
  • Pretends to accept feedback while planning to ignore it

Progression Framework

This table shows how competencies evolve across experience levels. Each cell shows competency at that level.

Core Design Practice

5 competencies

CompetencyJuniorMidSeniorPrincipal
Design Engineering & Technical Implementation

Makes minor UI updates in code with close engineering support and follows existing component patterns.

Implements medium-complexity features independently, maintains design tokens in code, and troubleshoots layout issues.

Owns design-to-code pipelines, builds prototyping environments, and advises on frontend architecture decisions affecting design fidelity.

Creates design engineering infrastructure, establishes technical standards for design-tool integration, and leads cross-functional platform initiatives.

Design Operations & Analytics Instrumentation

Follows established workflows, maintains file hygiene, and implements basic analytics tracking per specifications.

Configures analytics dashboards, optimizes team workflows for efficiency, and maintains design tool licenses and access.

Defines design metrics frameworks, implements advanced instrumentation strategies, and scales design ops across multiple squads.

Establishes organizational design ops function, creates ROI measurement frameworks for design investments, and drives enterprise tool strategy.

Design Systems & Component Architecture

Consumes existing system components correctly, identifies visual inconsistencies, and follows documentation standards.

Contributes new components with proper documentation, defines usage guidelines, and ensures accessibility compliance at the component level.

Leads system evolution roadmaps, governs contribution workflows, and defines component APIs in collaboration with engineering.

Architects multi-platform design systems, establishes token strategies across codebases, and drives adoption across organizational boundaries.

Interaction Design & Prototyping

Produces low-fidelity wireframes and simple click-through prototypes for straightforward user flows with guidance.

Develops detailed interaction specifications and high-fidelity prototypes for complex multi-step scenarios across devices.

Defines reusable interaction patterns, critiques team deliverables for consistency, and architects complex stateful interactions.

Invents novel interaction paradigms for emerging contexts, establishes industry-standard pattern libraries, and scales interaction standards org-wide.

User Research & Problem Validation

Assists in moderated research sessions, organizes raw data, and documents participant feedback under direct supervision.

Plans and leads research studies, synthesizes findings into actionable insights, and validates design concepts through usability testing.

Defines multi-method research strategies, mentors others on methodological rigor, and drives cross-functional research programs that shape product direction.

Establishes organizational research frameworks, scales research practices across multiple teams, and influences executive strategy through insights.

Strategy and Specialized Design

4 competencies

CompetencyJuniorMidSeniorPrincipal
Complex Systems & AI Interface Design

Assists in designing simple AI interface elements such as suggestion chips or feedback buttons following established patterns.

Designs functional interfaces for AI features incorporating confidence indicators, feedback mechanisms, and transparency controls.

Creates frameworks for human-AI collaboration, designs for probabilistic system outputs, and establishes patterns for explainable AI.

Defines paradigms for emerging AI interactions, publishes on novel interface patterns, and leads industry discourse on responsible AI design.

Enterprise & Compliance Design

Applies basic accessibility standards (WCAG 2.1 AA) and follows security guidelines for UI elements under review.

Solves complex compliance challenges, designs for enterprise admin scenarios, and conducts accessibility audits.

Leads accessibility and privacy initiatives, architects secure-by-design patterns for sensitive data handling, and governs compliance standards.

Establishes enterprise compliance frameworks, influences regulatory standards adoption, and ensures global readiness at scale.

Growth & Monetization Design

Implements growth experiments under supervision, ensuring brand consistency and basic usability standards.

Designs monetization flows and optimizes conversion funnels through iterative experimentation and data analysis.

Strategizes growth loops and pricing model interfaces, ensuring sustainable value exchange and long-term user trust.

Architects platform-level monetization strategies, defines ethical frameworks for growth design, and scales revenue-generating design patterns.

Product Strategy & Vision

Understands product goals and ensures individual design work aligns with team objectives and user needs.

Contributes to strategic discussions, balances user needs with business constraints, and influences feature prioritization.

Defines product vision for major domains, drives roadmap prioritization through design leadership, and aligns cross-functional executives.

Sets multi-year design strategy, shapes company direction through design thinking, and establishes design as a core competitive differentiator.