Hiring Product Designers

Product Designers, Product Design Managers, leadership, and cross-functional partners participate in our hiring process by interviewing Product Designer candidates. This page provides guidelines to support a consistent, high-quality end-to-end hiring process.

General resources:

• Hiring & Talent Acquisition process
• Product Designer job family

Interview panel composition

The interview panel varies based on the role level, assignment model, and reporting structure.

Stage-aligned roles (reporting to Product Design Manager or Senior Product Design Manager)

For Product Designers aligned to specific stage groups who will work with dedicated PM and Engineering stable counterparts, the panel typically includes:

• Product Designer (peer interview)
• Hiring Product Design Manager
• Director or Senior Director of Product Design
• Product Manager (from the stage group)
• Engineering Manager (from the stage group)

Project-based or platform roles (reporting to Senior Director of Product Design)

For Staff, Principal, and Distinguished designers working on cross-cutting platform initiatives (Design System, navigation, strategic projects), the panel typically includes:

• Staff+ Product Designer (peer interview)
• Hiring Manager (Senior Director of Product Design)
• Product Management and Engineering Leadership
• Chief Design Officer

For these roles, the panel is customized to include stakeholders most relevant to the strategic work. Stage-specific PM/EM may not be included since these roles operate across multiple groups or independently.

Interview questions and consistency

We ask the same questions to every candidate at each stage to ensure fairness—both during the interview and when evaluating candidates. All questions are available in the Greenhouse scorecard for the candidate.

Interview rubrics

We’ve defined interview rubrics that provide positive answer traits and characteristics to look for when evaluating candidates.

How to use the rubrics

1. Open the appropriate rubric for your interview level (Senior or Intermediate candidate) before or immediately after your interview
2. Compare your notes with the rubric on each question
3. Assess how the candidate’s answer compares to the desired traits/characteristics
4. Use this assessment to complete your Greenhouse scorecard

Available rubrics:

1. Product Designer (peer) interview - Senior Candidate Rubric
2. Product Designer (peer) interview - Intermediate Candidate Rubric
3. Manager interview - Senior Candidate Rubric
4. Manager interview - Intermediate Candidate Rubric

Interview training

Any Product Designer can participate in the hiring process after completing both company-wide and Product Design-specific interview training. These trainings teach you how to perform successful interviews at GitLab.

Required training:

1. Company interview training: Complete GitLab’s interview training
2. Product Design interview training: Product Design-specific training on our process, rubrics, and best practices

Training process

The Product Design interview training includes:

Shadow phase:

• Shadow an experienced Product Designer interviewer in two separate interviews
• Observe how successful interviews are conducted
• Learn how to use rubrics and complete scorecards effectively

Coached phase:

• Conduct two interviews while being shadowed by your coach
• Receive feedback on your interviewing skills
• Practice using rubrics and scorecard completion in real interviews

Additional practice:

• Request additional shadow opportunities if you’d like more practice and support
• Your coach can provide guidance on areas for improvement

Scorecard completion

Everyone who interviews a candidate must complete a scorecard with pros, cons, and an overall recommendation. Scorecards are critical to our hiring decisions and must be completed within 24 hours of the interview.

Tips for completing interview scorecards

Follow these steps to complete high-quality scorecards:

1. Enter your notes: Add notes into each text area in the candidate’s Greenhouse scorecard
2. Clean up your notes: Fix any typos, misspellings, or incomplete statements to aid the hiring manager’s review process
3. Use the rubric: Review the candidate’s answers against the appropriate rubric document and consider how their answers compared
4. Add your assessment: Complete the Pros/Cons sections with your specific evaluation
5. Assess attributes: Only provide assessment for attributes that were discussed or available on their resume/CV or portfolio. Leave others unanswered if not covered in the interview.

Scorecard best practices

• Be specific: Vague feedback like “good communicator” doesn’t help—provide examples
• Reference the interview: Cite specific answers or moments that informed your assessment
• Consider both skills and values: Assess technical competence and GitLab values alignment
• Complete promptly: Submit within 24 hours while details are fresh
• Be honest: Your candid assessment helps us make good hiring decisions

Manager resources

Justification scorecards

The justification scorecard summarizes all submitted scorecards while incorporating additional commentary on how the hiring manager plans to help the candidate succeed.

Key questions to address in your justification:

In what specific ways does this candidate make the team better?

• How the candidate meets Must-Haves and Nice-to-Haves from the recruiting kickoff issue
• Other strengths and unique skills the candidate brings to the role and team
• Specific examples from interviews that demonstrate their value

What flags were raised during the interview process?

• Any Must-Haves or Nice-to-Haves the candidate doesn’t meet, with reasoning for moving forward and how you’ll address them
• Any concerns raised during interviews, explained with your plan to address them
• Be honest about gaps while explaining your mitigation strategy

How do we intend to set this candidate up for success?

• How you’ll help them progress based on their soft skills and values
• Your plan to help them overcome any identified weaknesses or gaps
• Specific support, mentorship, or resources you’ll provide
• How their assignment (stage-aligned vs project-based) will support their success

Is the offer in-plan, and why?

• Confirm whether it’s a critical budgeted hire, backfill, or transfer
• Work with your manager if unsure of the answer

Does the candidate meet a simple majority of nice-to-have requirements (5 of 9)?

• Review Nice-to-have attributes across all scorecards
• Provide yes/no answer based on the aggregate feedback

Attributes summary

Answer based on the sum of all scorecards submitted. For example, if the candidate received 4 stars and one thumbs-up on the Collaboration value, select the star to summarize that feedback. You do not need to leave notes in this section.

Moving a candidate forward

To advance a candidate to an offer, the UX team requires at least two strong yes recommendations from UX team members who participated in the interview process. This threshold applies regardless of role — a strong yes from an IC, manager, director, or Chief Design Officer each carries equal weight toward this requirement. A single strong yes, even from a senior member of the team, is not sufficient to move forward.

Hiring for different assignment models

When hiring for different assignment models, consider what to emphasize in interviews and evaluation:

Stage-aligned roles

Emphasis in interviews:

• Deep domain expertise and ability to become an expert in a specific product area
• Collaboration within a stable trio model (PM, Designer, EM)
• Ability to work with dedicated counterparts long-term
• Understanding of stage-specific user workflows and technical constraints

Panel composition:

Include PM and EM from the stage group to assess trio fit and domain alignment.

Project-based or platform roles

Emphasis in interviews:

• Platform thinking and ability to work across multiple teams
• Strategic thinking and vision for cross-cutting experiences
• Ability to drive work independently without dedicated PM partnership
• Cross-team collaboration and influence skills
• Comfort with ambiguity and complex organizational dynamics

Panel composition:

Customize based on the initiative—include relevant stakeholders and partners the role will work with most closely.

Both role types require the same core Product Design competencies (design craft, user-centered thinking, collaboration, iteration), but the emphasis and context differ based on assignment model.