10/6/2020 Figma - Interview Philosophy and Structure

Figma - Interview Philosophy and

Structure
We’re excited you’re going to be interviewing at Figma! This document is an
overview of our interview process and has some suggestions on things to do before
and during the interviews. We want you to be as comfortable and prepared as
possible so please read this thoroughly and let us know if you have any questions. 

Interview Philosophy
Our interview process will be a series of conversations you have with current Figma
engineers, with a goal of understanding how you would handle common situations
that might come up in your role at Figma. This will take the form of technical
questions/challenges that directly relate to the skills needed to be an engineer at
Figma as well as talking about your past experiences. These interviews are not only
an opportunity for us to get to know you, but also one for you to get to know us and
have a sense of what it’s like to work here so please don’t hesitate to ask us
anything. 

There are sections below for each detailed interview type, but some general tips
about interviewing:

We don’t ask “gotcha” questions or questions where there’s only one correct
answer. In general, on the technical challenges, you’ll be applying problem solving
skills to figure out a solution with many correct options.
We don’t test for very specific knowledge - it’s okay to say you don’t know
something! While the technical questions will relate to real challenges Figma
engineers typically work on, no specific knowledge of any particular technology
Figma uses is necessary to be successful.
Treat your interviewer like a colleague or collaborator; feel free to think out loud,
ask for clarification, brainstorm together, and so on.
Explain your thought process. Because our questions are more open ended and
focused on problem solving, it is important to explain why you are choosing
certain paths / solutions and not others.

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Interview Structure
The interview process will consist of several coding interviews, a technical design
discussion interview, a technical deep dive on something you’ve worked on / built,
and a partnership interview that talks about how you work with others.

How to Prepare
Technology: we use two different tools for remote interviewing, Hangouts Meet
for video chat and Coderpad for coding questions. You can take a look at their
system requirements here and here, respectively. These work on almost all
computers, but if you think you might have an issue using those tools, let your
recruiter know. You can also optionally practice with a collaborative drawing tool
like Google Drawing or Figma.
Get a good night’s sleep!
While being familiar with Figma’s technology isn’t necessary, you can take a look
at Figma’s Engineering Blog to learn more about the kind of work the engineering
team does.
Come prepared with questions! All interviews will have a few minutes at the end
for you to learn more about Figma from your interviewers.

Coding Interviews
Overview
Our coding questions are practical problems, usually inspired by our work at Figma.
You won't need any esoteric data structures or algorithms beyond fundamentals like
lists, hash tables, and trees. Your interviewer will support you in developing a
solution, and you'll be able to look up any standard library functions you need while
coding. You'll also be able to execute code in Coderpad to debug.

How to prepare
Make sure you’re ready to write and debug practical code in the programming
language you expect to use; we recommend a general purpose programming
language like Ruby, Python, Typescript, C++, Java, etc. None of our questions
require knowledge of a specific technology or framework beyond the language’s
standard library and built in functionality.
We recommend testing out the Coderpad sandbox for your programming
language so you can see what the run/debug experience is like before the

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interview starts.

What we evaluate
Problem solving and collaboration: given a new problem, how do you work with
your interviewer to understand and reach a solution?
Coding fluency: can you turn your ideas into code effectively?
Fundamentals: are you familiar with basic data structures like arrays and trees?
Can you write code to solve problems with them?
Debugging and testing: can you find and fix bugs in your code? can you identify
edge cases in the problem that might expose bugs that need to be fixed?

Software Design Discussion

Overview
Our Software Design Discussion interviews are an exercise in working on a higher
level software design problem together, rooted in real-world problem solving.
Instead of writing specific code, you’ll be collaborating with the interviewer to solve
a larger, open ended problem together - for example, figuring out how different
software components might work together to solve a problem efficiently. Usually
these problems don’t have one “right” answer nor require specific technical
knowledge; the interviewer will provide all the background information you need to
solve the problem together.

How to prepare
There’s no specific technical background to prepare!
Your interviewer may share a template with you for the question in either Google
Drawing or Figma, per your preference. This should be relatively simple and not
require deep knowledge of the tool to use, but if you want to practice with one of
those tools to get familiar beforehand, you can do so.

What we evaluate
Technical communication: can you precisely talk about technical concepts and
ask good questions to learn more about a problem?
Problem solving and collaboration: can you work with your interviewer to discuss
different options and figure out the right solution?
Product intuition: can you reason about what different technical decisions might
mean for the end user impact?

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Technical Deep Dive 

Overview
The technical deep dive is an opportunity for you to talk in detail about a project you
worked on in the past. During this interview, you’ll walk through a project in depth
with your interviewer, and we’ll pair you with an interviewer who has some
overlapping domain expertise based on your resume. The interviewer will ask
clarifying questions and prompt you to think about other solutions you might have
gone with instead.

How to prepare
Think back on a past project you’d like to dive into! Make sure you’re ready to talk
about why you were working on the project, its goals and impact, and the team
you were working with, in addition to the technical details. You’ll want to be
ready to talk about not just the solution you went with, but also other approaches
you considered, and to work through what might change with the solution if the
constraints on the problem had been different.
Optionally, you can prepare materials beforehand with something like Google
Drawing if that will help you talk through the project. However, this is not
necessary to be successful at the interview! If you do decide to do this, please do
not spend more than 15 minutes putting together materials - you will not be
evaluated on how good your visual design skills are. Simple shapes, lines, and
text are totally fine.

What we evaluate
Technical communication: can you precisely talk about technical concepts and
help someone who isn’t familiar with a project gain context quickly?
Problem solving: can you think about other solutions / compare and contrast
other options that were considered?

Partnership
Overview
Working with others and cultivating a positive, consultative, and results oriented
environment is imperative to Figma’s success. This interview will focus on how you
work with others both on your direct team as well as cross functionally. The type of

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10/6/2020 Figma - Interview Philosophy and Structure

questions we ask will be situation oriented and more of an overall conversation

about your experience and how you navigate certain scenarios.

How to prepare
Please take a look at our engineering values as well as our core values to get a sense
of what we look for in employees and come prepared with examples from your
experience that showcase your partnership with others. 

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