Figma’s design boss said product design candidates need to do more to keep him interested during interviews.
Noah Levin told Business Insider on Thursday that AI tools now allow product designers to create polished, interactive prototypes, and that it’s raised the bar for what he expects from potential hires. Levin has been the vice president of product design at the San Francisco-based tech company for more than eight years.
He said that a decade ago, it was hard to find designers who could “produce an idea that really felt like the real product,” largely because of their lack of technical know-how. Before AI, it would have taken designers too much effort to produce 10 interactive, working design prototypes, and the effort would not have been worth their time.
“What’s changed a lot is that AI has made it possible to prototype your ideas in record time without technical knowledge and detail,” Levin said.
So he now expects every job candidate to be able to express their designs in the “highest fidelity possible.” Fidelity in user interface and experience refers to the level of detail and accuracy in design prototypes.
Levin said he wants to see design candidates be up to date with the latest AI tools, saying, “We like to see that people have experimented with new tools and that they’re not lagging behind in how they work.”
That does not mean that they can simply “AI slop a bunch of prototypes” and showcase them in the interview process, he said. The role of a designer — to solve user problems and have good craft — has not changed, so he said he needs to see candidates bring themselves into their work and “not just rely on the default outputs.”
In fact, he likes it when his potential hires show him product prototypes that failed and were discarded.
“The first idea you put out, you might get lucky, maybe that was the right one,” he said. “But the reality is behind every configuration launch this year that we showed, there were hundreds of discarded ideas, prototypes, and mock-ups. And so I think people don’t show that enough.”
Before joining the team at Figma, Levin led the UX team at ClassPass and worked as a designer at Google.
Levin’s comments come as the emergence of several AI platforms has made it easy for amateurs to design websites and products. Vibe coding platforms like Lovable, Base44, and Emergent are easy to use and deliver polished-looking products in minutes with simple prompts.
Other, more traditional design platforms, like Canva and Wix, have also introduced AI-powered tools to make design more accessible to the masses.
Figma’s leadership has said on multiple occasions that AI-generated design will not diminish the value of designers. Figma CEO and cofounder Dylan Field said in June that AI designs can largely be considered “average,” and now is a great time for designers to test boundaries and be creative.
He said in October last year that his company’s tools won’t replace the work of a world-class designer, but will help remove the “drudgery” of the design process.
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