Tech hiring Product, design & quality
Hire designers who think in flows, not screens.
A product designer decides how your software works and looks: who it is for, what steps a task takes and what each screen says. They research, prototype in Figma and hand engineers something buildable. We shortlist designers assessed on their reasoning and craft, not only on a polished portfolio.
01 The role
What designers do all week, and what comes out of it.
A product designer works out how a product should behave before anyone builds it. They talk to users, map the journey through a task, sketch options, test a prototype and then draw the final interface: layout, type, colour, wording and every state a screen can be in. The deliverable is a design an engineer can build without guessing.
The difficult part is not making one screen attractive. It is the cases a mock-up hides: the empty state, the error, the name that runs to forty characters, the user on a small phone with a poor connection. It is also saying no to features that clutter a flow, and showing the evidence when a founder’s favourite idea tests badly.
UX and UI are two halves of this job, and most product teams now hire one person for both. Brand and graphic design is a different specialism: logos, campaigns, illustration. Current practice centres on Figma, with variables and components that map to code, accessibility checked against WCAG 2.2, and AI tools used to explore options, never to supply the final answer.
What they ship
- User flows and wireframes for new features
- High-fidelity interface designs for web and mobile
- Clickable prototypes for usability testing and stakeholder review
- Design systems: components, tokens and usage guidance
- Research summaries from interviews and usability sessions
- Handoff files with states, spacing and behaviour specified
- Redesigns of flows where users drop off: onboarding, checkout, sign-up
02 Skills and stack
What designers work with, and what is optional.
Designers vary more than their titles suggest. Some lean towards research and flows, others towards visual craft and systems. Tell us which your team is short of.
Core
The role cannot be done without these.
- Interaction design and user flows
- Visual design: layout, typography, colour
- User research and usability testing
- Information architecture
- Prototyping
- Accessibility (WCAG 2.2)
- Design systems and component thinking
Tooling
Varies from team to team.
- Figma: auto layout, components, variables
- FigJam or Miro
- Figma prototyping, ProtoPie or Framer
- Maze or UserTesting
- Hotjar or Microsoft Clarity
- Storybook and Zeroheight
- Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop
- Lottie or Rive
- Notion or Confluence
Adjacent
Useful, not required.
- UX writing and microcopy
- Motion and micro-interaction design
- HTML and CSS literacy
- Brand identity and illustration
- Product analytics and A/B testing
- iOS and Android platform guidelines
- Webflow or Framer site building
03 When to hire one
Signs you need a product designer, and signs you need someone else.
We would sooner point you to a different role than fill the wrong one. Both lists are worth a minute.
Hire a product designer when
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Engineers are designing by default
Features ship with whatever layout the developer had time for. The product works, but every screen behaves slightly differently and users notice.
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Users drop out of a key flow
Sign-up, onboarding or checkout loses people and you do not know where or why. A designer watches users attempt it, finds the sticking points and tests a fix.
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A new product exists only as an idea
Testing a prototype with a handful of users costs days. Building the wrong thing costs months. Bring a designer in before engineering starts.
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The interface has grown inconsistent
Four button styles, three shades of blue and no shared components. A design system fixes this, and it needs an owner, not a tidy-up sprint.
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Your squads are waiting on design
One designer is spread across several teams and has become the bottleneck for every release.
Look elsewhere when
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You need the designs built, not drawn
A designer hands over Figma files. Turning them into a working interface is front-end engineering, even when the designer can write some CSS.
Hire React developers -
Nobody has decided what the product should do
A designer can shape a solution, but choosing which problem to solve, for whom and in what order is product management.
Hire product managers -
You want a logo, a pitch deck or social media graphics
That is brand and graphic design, and usually a defined piece of work. A freelance project fits better than a permanent product designer.
Post a freelance project -
It is a mobile app and you have no mobile engineers
Designs for iOS and Android are only useful if someone can build them to platform standards. Hire the mobile developer alongside, or first.
Hire mobile developers -
There is no product or engineering team yet
A lone designer with nobody to build or prioritise produces files that sit unused. If engineering and product are missing too, a team is the better unit.
See dedicated teams
04 How we assess
Four stages, before a product designer reaches your shortlist.
A CV says what someone claims. We test what they can do, then send you the evidence with the shortlist.
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Stage 1
Profile review
We read the portfolio as case studies, not as a gallery: what the problem was, what the candidate personally did, which options they rejected and what happened after launch. Attractive screens with no reasoning, or team work with no stated role, count for little.
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Stage 2
Practical exercise
For design roles the practical exercises carry the weight. The candidate works through a design problem and we look at how they frame it, what they prioritise and whether the result covers real states or only one ideal screen.
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Stage 3
Conversation with our team
The candidate walks our team through one project in depth. We ask why a flow is shaped the way it is, how it was tested, what engineering pushed back on and what they would change now. We listen for decisions grounded in users, not in taste.
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Stage 4
Review and levelling
Reviewers score accuracy, speed, problem-solving, communication and teamwork, then assign a level using our design framework. The notes say whether the person is stronger in research and flows or in visual craft and systems, since few are equally strong in both.
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Then
Your shortlist
Assessed candidates, with notes and scores.
The engine
Evalia
Assessments run on Evalia, the assessment platform we built ourselves. Across the ProDevs network, more than 100,000 assessments have been completed.
The levels we assign are public. Read the design framework, or see how a hire runs from brief to offer.
05 Seniority
Three levels. What each one can own.
The title on a CV tells you little. What matters is how much a product designer can be handed without someone checking each step.
Junior
Owns a screen or a component
- Designs screens inside an existing design system and flow
- Keeps Figma files tidy, with components and auto layout used properly
- Takes critique and iterates without defending the first version
- Needs direction on research, scoping and trade-offs with engineering
Mid-level
Owns a feature from research to handoff
- Runs their own interviews and usability tests and acts on the findings
- Designs the full flow, including empty, loading and error states
- Negotiates scope with engineers and knows what is expensive to build
- Extends the design system instead of working around it
Senior
Owns the product’s design direction
- Sets the design language and the system other designers build on
- Shapes the roadmap with product and engineering leads, using evidence
- Judges how much research a decision needs, and when to ship and learn
- Mentors designers and raises the quality of critique across the team
06 Interview questions
Seven questions, worth asking a product designer.
For your own interviews, after ours. Each question comes with what a strong answer tends to show.
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Walk me through one project. What did you personally decide, and what did you rule out?
A good answer shows: A clear line between their work and the team’s, at least one rejected option with a reason, and an outcome. Weak answers narrate a process diagram, double diamond and all, without a single decision in it.
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Tell me about a design that tested badly. What did you change?
A good answer shows: A specific failure, what the users actually did, and a revision. Designers who have never had a design fail in testing have usually not tested. Blaming the participants is a bad sign.
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How do you decide how much research a feature needs?
A good answer shows: Proportion: the cost of being wrong against the cost of finding out. A few quick usability sessions for a risky flow, none for a settings toggle. Both “always research everything” and “I trust my instinct” are weak answers.
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An engineer says your design will take three sprints. What do you do?
A good answer shows: They ask what makes it expensive, then look for a version that keeps the user outcome and drops the costly detail. Treating the estimate as an obstacle, or giving way at once without understanding it, both show inexperience.
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How do you make sure a design is accessible before handoff?
A good answer shows: Colour contrast, focus order, target sizes, text that survives zoom, labels for controls and not relying on colour alone, with WCAG named as the reference. Strong candidates raise it at the wireframe stage, not as a final check.
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When does a component belong in the design system, and when is it a one-off?
A good answer shows: A rule of thumb based on reuse and stability, plus awareness that every component is a maintenance cost in Figma and in code. Adding everything, or avoiding the system because it slows them down, are the two failure modes.
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What do you put in a handoff so developers do not have to ask?
A good answer shows: All states, responsive behaviour, spacing through tokens, final copy, edge cases such as long text, and notes on interaction. The best answers add that they stay involved through the build and review it in the browser.
07 Ways to engage
Four ways to bring a product designer in.
A permanent hire is the usual route, not the only one. Choose by how long the work lasts and who should employ the person.
- Placement fee, of first-year salary. One-time.
- 10–15%
- Replacement guarantee on direct hires.
- 2 weeks
- To a first shortlist, for most roles.
- 48h
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Direct hire
A permanent employee on your contract and your payroll. One-time placement fee of 10–15% of first-year salary.
Tech hiring -
Dedicated team
A product designer inside a team we assemble and run for you: product, design and engineering on your roadmap, for a monthly retainer.
Dedicated teams -
Outsourcing & payroll
A full-time person in a country where you have no legal entity. ProDevs employs and pays them: 20% of salary if we find the person for you, or 5% of salary, capped at $500 a month, for payroll and compliance on someone you have already chosen.
Outsourcing -
Freelance project
A defined piece of work with a clear end. You pay the agreed price per milestone through escrow, plus a 5% client fee. Free to post.
Freelancers
08 Around the role
Who designers depend on, and who depends on them.
A product designer sits in the product team alongside a product manager and the engineers, usually one designer to a squad. They are involved before a feature is scoped and stay with it until what ships matches what was designed.
- Product manager
- Shares discovery, turns a problem statement into options and argues about scope.
- Front-end developer
- Agrees components and tokens, reviews the build and settles what the design left unsaid.
- Mobile developer
- Adapts designs to iOS and Android conventions instead of forcing one layout on both.
- QA tester
- Clarifies expected behaviour so defects are judged against the design, not against opinion.
- Customer support and sales
- Hears where users struggle and feeds it into the next round of research.
09 Client testimonials
Hear it first-hand, from companies that hired.
Founders, operators and executives describe working with ProDevs, in their own words.
Play video: Client testimonial: Olufemi Seyi, COO, Casafina development company
Play video: Client testimonial: Aproko Doctor, Building AwaDoc
Play video: Client testimonial: JT Liddell, Promenade CEO
10 Questions
Before you hire a product designer: the usual questions.
Something else? Book a call (opens in a new tab) and ask us directly.
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What is the difference between a UX designer, a UI designer and a product designer?
UX design covers research, flows and structure: how a task works. UI design covers the visual layer: layout, type, colour and components. A product designer does both and also weighs business and engineering constraints. Most software teams hire product designers; separate UX and UI roles are more common in larger organisations and agencies.
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Do your designers work in Figma?
Figma is the standard tool for product design and the one a product designer should be fluent in, including components, auto layout and variables. If your team uses something else, or needs motion, illustration or Webflow skills as well, say so in the brief and we shortlist against it.
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Should I hire a designer before or after developers?
Before, or at the same time, if the product is new. Testing a prototype with a handful of users is far cheaper than rebuilding a shipped feature. For an existing product, a designer is worth adding once engineers are making interface decisions by default and the screens have started to diverge.
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Can one designer cover research, UI and a design system?
A mid-level or senior product designer can cover all three for a small team, though not all at full depth at once. Expect them to lean one way. If you need rigorous research and a production design system in the same quarter, plan for two people or sequence the work.
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How do you assess a designer’s skills?
In four stages. We read the portfolio as case studies, set a test with practical exercises, hold an in-depth conversation with our team about one project, and then review the results together to assign a level against our public design framework. You receive that evidence with the shortlist.
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How quickly can I hire a designer through ProDevs?
For most roles you see a first shortlist within 48 hours of agreeing the brief, and most companies find their hire within two to three weeks. The designer joins on your contract, or through our outsourcing and payroll service if you have no local entity.
Talk to ProDevs
Tell us about the role.
Tell us the level and the stack. We will tell you how quickly we can put assessed designers in front of you.
Project work
Need it for a project instead?
Not every job needs a full-time hire. Describe the work, get proposals from vetted freelance designers, and pay per milestone through escrow. Free to post.