The unspoken contradiction in design hiring

Here’s an unspoken contradiction in a lot of product design interviews that I myself was guilty of, and I started being more conscious about it:

The UX/Product design hiring manager knows… deeply knows,

• That product design is not just about the craft, user-centricity, critical thinking, and the ability to ask the right questions.. But also about making smart tradeoffs.

• That outcomes are the result of decisions made by multiple people, from different functions, and different levels.

• That timing, technical constraints, and business pressures all shape what gets shipped.

And yet… when we interview a designer, we suddenly forget all of that. We judge them as if they were the sole decision-maker.

• As if the design decisions weren’t debated, diluted, or redirected by PMs, engineers, and leadership.

• As if that one flawed user flow or that underwhelming outcome is entirely on the designer’s shoulders.

The same hiring manager who’s seen how leadership panic can derail a roadmap,

• how tech debt can kill a clean solution,

• how OKRs can shift mid-quarter...

will sit across from a designer and ask:

“Why didn’t you push harder for a better experience here?”

Really…?

While the PMs who signed off on twisted priorities, and the engineers who shipped incomplete UI.. are nowhere in the picture 🙃

• No question about how priorities were set.

• No curiosity about tradeoffs or constraints.

Just a cold read of a final outcome.. stripped of its context.
And the irony is: the designer likely -did- try.

• They probably fought for better problem framing, well-scoped experiments, clearer metrics.. and lost.

• Or compromised.. like everyone else on the team did.

• But unlike everyone else, they now have to justify those compromises in a 5-page portfolio case study 🙃

Meanwhile, the PM walks away with a tidy resume bullet point about “driving product strategy under ambiguity.” Don't get me wrong. This isn’t about blaming PMs. They’re often under pressure as well from leaders who reward speed over clarity.

Designers don’t have a monopoly on being overruled, but we do seem to have a monopoly on being held accountable in isolation, and that’s the real problem.

Until hiring practices reflect how products actually get built.. We’ll keep rewarding vanity metrics, not real collaboration. And guess who’s the scapegoat? Ofcourse, The most visible role.

What would hiring look like if we actually believed in cross-functional accountability?

A thought provoked by a post from Dr Nick and other interesting takes in the comment section of this LinkedIn post