How to Ace a Design Leader Job Interview

The most important part of my job is to hire great people, help them grow, and give them reasons to stay on our team as long as possible — so I’m a huge believer in internal mobility and growth.

I’ve benefited from it personally: I joined Sevencuts as a Project Manager and Creative Director without much of an “interview”. It felt less like a daunting task and more like a little chat-up over tea.

Sometimes we need to hire folks from the outside with new skills, unique perspectives, and specific experience. I always enjoy these opportunities to interview candidates, because the top ones know how to show up, present their work, and highlight their skills, not just as designers but as leaders.

How they do it can be helpful to design leaders interviewing at all levels, at any company.

How to Showcase Your Leadership in a Design Interview

Leadership in design is more than just overseeing projects — it’s about inspiring teams, making strategic decisions, and driving impactful work. When interviewing for a leadership position, your ability to communicate these qualities effectively can make all the difference.

Beyond showcasing your technical expertise, you need to demonstrate how you guide teams, resolve challenges, and contribute to the overall success of an organization.

Design leadership interviews are an opportunity to present your past accomplishments and illustrate how you think, mentor, and collaborate. Hiring managers search for candidates who can elevate their teams and align design work with business objectives.

The following tips will help you position yourself as a strong design leader in your next interview.

1. Only show portfolio work that demonstrates your design leadership

Many design leaders haven’t presented a portfolio since transitioning from individual contributors to managers. While showing glimpses of work you did as an individual contributor can highlight your style, craft, or unique expertise, it’s significantly less important than the work your team has produced.

With your portfolio, focus on the projects you’ve led and their results.

Choose just one or two projects to dive into (unless the hiring manager explicitly asks you to cover more) and go deep. Attempting to discuss too many can make your portfolio review feel rushed and do a disservice to the work.

2. Remember that a portfolio review is a performance

Presenting a portfolio is as important as the design work itself. The time and energy someone puts into a presentation is representative of how much they care and how much they want the job. Practice your pitch, the interview panel is not the place to run it end-to-end for the first time.

Time your presentation, leaving enough time for comments and questions, and don’t read from a script. I’m surprised by how many leaders read from notes in interview settings. It’s your work and no one can speak to it better than you. Thinking about the interview process like a formal public presentation will help you put your best foot forward.

3. Tell The messy story

I hear about so many well-defined, well-designed, linear-seeming projects in interviews. But we all know projects never actually play out this way: Steps in the process are skipped, internal challenges arise, technical limitations rear their heads, time or budget constraints force compromises, and deltas appear between what was designed and what shipped.

No one is equally great at all things: Communicating your strengths and weaknesses is a crucial part of the interview process.

Don’t be afraid to say what didn’t go well. Your interviewers want to hear about all the hurdles you had to overcome to get something into your customers’ hands because good leaders deliver despite challenges.

Most importantly, tell us a few key takeaways you had as a leader: A great candidate will acknowledge the messy truth of our work and what they learned from it.

4. Share the spotlight to show how you lead

Giving credit to others is essential to leadership. I see so many portfolio presentations with no recognition of the team behind a project. Your interviewers know you don’t pull projects off solo, so use your review to demonstrate how you built and supported your team.

Explain how many people worked on the project, what role types or skills you required, and whose work you were directly responsible for.

Remember that your biggest contribution to any project is not your design skill, but your design leadership. Giving others the credit they deserve shows that you’re a mature leader.

5. Explain the role of design in your organization

How much of a voice the design team has in your organization tells your interviewers a lot about your maturity as a design leader. Before your interview, consider these questions:

• Does design have a role in generating new projects, or is it just executing a product leader’s vision?
• Who’s responsible for discovering and up-leveling customer problems (e.g. design, research, customer support)?
• Are ideas from across the company heard, or is work primarily originating with product managers?
• What’s one project that wouldn’t have happened without your leadership?

A great candidate will acknowledge the messy truth of the work we do and what they learned from it.

6. Show that you understand your business (and ask about ours)

Great design leaders know that the most important work happens at the confluence of user needs and business objectives. Show your interviewers that you’re aware of and curious about, the business impact of your team’s work.

Your work is more than a beautiful portfolio project, so talk about how you measured success. I often talk to job candidates for whom the presentation ends when the project ships; they don’t clearly articulate the goals of the project, whether they were achieved, or the lessons they learned.

Similarly, show that you’re interested in your interviewers’ business: Ask questions about our model, competitors, and how we think about our industry.

7. Know what type of leader you are

Being a design leader is only partially about knowing what good design is and how to ship it.

Getting a sense of where you naturally focus (and how that fits with the needs of your current organization) is incredibly important, so I always ask candidates:

• What gives you energy, and what drains you?
• Are you a creative director who thrives on details, or do you prefer mentoring and team development?
• Do you set the vision and step back or work closely with your team at every stage?
• Do you enjoy presenting to executives or prefer focusing on team dynamics?

No one is equally great at everything: Communicating your strengths and weaknesses is crucial for the interview process.

8. Tell us how you do your best work

Whether they’re psychological (wide open space for exploration, assignments for discrete projects), physical (remote teams, co-located teams), or scope-related (individual apps or features, designing services, complex ecosystems), I love hearing leaders talk about the circumstances that have led to great work.

Remember that your biggest contribution to any project is not your design skill, but your design leadership. Giving others the credit they deserve shows us that you’re a mature leader.

Think about where and how you do your best work, articulate those needs to your interviewers, and be prepared to discuss times you were required to work outside of your ideal environments. Learning how you operate in less-than-ideal situations says a lot about how you run a team.

9. Ask us questions, too!

You’re not the only one being evaluated. An essential part of the interview process is evaluating your (potential) future employer. We love getting these questions from design leader candidates:

• How are big decisions made here?
• What influence does this team have on the business?
• What makes people successful in this company?
• What growth opportunities exist?
• Why is this role important to the company?
• What keeps leadership up at night?
• What are the biggest challenges in this role?
• What is the company’s role in the design community?

Every design organization is looking for different qualities in its leaders. However, the interview guidelines I’ve outlined should help designers interviewing at all levels, at any company, share the information that matters to a hiring manager.

To My Fellow Job Seekers

Remember, an interview is not just a test — it’s a conversation. Your ability to communicate your leadership, business acumen, and team-first mindset will set you apart.

Whether you’re an aspiring design leader or a seasoned executive, approaching interviews with authenticity, preparation, and strategic thinking will help you find the right fit for your next role.

Ready to take the next step in your design leadership career? Use these insights to prepare for your interviews and make a lasting impression!