What does it take to land a UX/UI role at a MAANG company?
Hey everyone, I’m looking for some advice. What do I need to learn, do, or have in order to land a UX/UI Designer role at a MAANG type company?
Quick background about me: I studied computer engineering and then worked for around 10 months as a freelance frontend developer + UI designer. After that, I moved into a full-time UX/UI Designer role. I haven’t done a single user interview yet, but I’m very confident in my design skills in areas that don’t involve interviews.
I do have a few projects in my portfolio, tho I don’t think they’re strong enough for a MAANG role just yet. The good part is I’m a quick learner and I genuinely enjoy picking up new skills, no matter how long it takes.
Would love to hear from people who’ve gone through this journey or have insights on what really makes a candidate stand out for companies at that level.
Depends on the exact role and openings but here’s something that might help:
- The most important factor is simply that the role they want to fill in for aligns with your experience. Say for example google’s looking for someone for their payments app and you have had previous fintech experience, it’d be a big plus.
- A good case study and how you convey the story behind how you solved it. It need not be you revolutionising and innovating on the biggest ux problems in the world, very few people get to do that usually. What really matters is what the problem was in your context and how you overcame it as a team and your specific contributions in the endeavour.
- While the above two points are important, you will need a way to get your foot in the door. Referrals and networking will be your friend here. FAANGs get thousands of applicants for every job posting and it’s literally impossible for recruiters to vet every profile.
Pt 3 seems to be the most important and hardest part.
