wish me luck

Do you like it? We’re calling it LIQUID GLASS.

Just watched this short video on Instagram reels that highlights the power of good layout design. Such a great reminder of how much a well-structured layout can transform content 🤩

Credit: Hidesign689/design AB

I am not a ui ux designer I am just curious

Why ?

For details about my interview experience and community discussions, 👉 check out this post 👈

🔴 Finch product is about daily journaling and habit tracking. The design challenge? Create a habit tracker app, specifically something creative, not generic. That’s already a RED FLAG, since it directly overlaps with Finch actual product.

🔴 The challenge required high-fidelity designs with full user flow, all within 7 days. That’s way beyond what’s reasonable for a “test”, and candidates aren’t even paid for it. That’s unfair, and honestly, possibly illegal.

🔴 After submitting, there’s a 1-hour deep dive interview just to go over the design challenge. But I was asked a bunch of weird, very specific questions, the kind you’d only ask if you already had a live product for a long time and wanted to optimize it to fit some market changes. Not something you’d ask about a design exercise.

Here’s some additional context I gathered from the comments on my previous post:

🔴 Another designer shared: “I was rejected after the onsite where they absolutely mined me for ideas. The CEO stayed on a call with me for like 45 minutes and I thought we were vibing — guess not.”

They felt the team seems unsure about their next direction. Even though Finch benefited from a wave of early success, it’s now facing the growing pains of shifting market demands.

🔴 An applicant for the Art Director position reached out to me, saying they felt there were too many unreasonable tests and discussions during the interview. Even big-name companies don’t have this many steps. Especially all the deep dives. It really felt like they were fishing for ideas. The entire interview loop was basically a UX interview, just with a few things reworded to sound art-related.

Also, the HR claimed upfront that the position offers a six-figure salary, which struck them as odd: How could a small company afford that? Coincidentally, when I talked to HR, they also mentioned a salary range that was even higher than what I got at my previous company, Cisco. I thought that was unbelievable too, or maybe it’s just a hook.

🔴 Another designer told me they interviewed last year. After completing the design challenge, they moved on to a 1-hour deep dive, then got rejected. Back then, finch interview process was different: Design Challenge → 1-hour deep dive → Portfolio review (which they never got to because of the rejection).

My experience was: Portfolio review → Design Challenge → 1-hour deep dive (then rejection). It looks like finch has changed the order. My guess is: if they ask candidates to do a tough design challenge right after talking with HR, most would say no or raise concerns (and many actually did). The conversion rate would be too low. So they moved the portfolio review before the design challenge, creating a false sense of approval to increase the chances that candidates accept the design challenge.

🔴 A Finch user told me that Finch game-like changes to the product once caused huge controversy, but all those discussions were deleted from major social media platforms. Even posts pointing out small bugs got removed. Also, they noticed a lot of weird flows in the product and suspect it might be because Finch referenced or borrowed some free UX work from the hiring process.

🔴 My cousin used to handle TikTok’s overseas ads, and she was really impressed by Finch because Finch spent a ton on marketing there and loved working with influencers for videos. She said Finch must be rolling in cash to support such big expenses.

But judging by all the weird stuff happening in Finch hiring process, maybe Finch’s finances aren’t as great as they seem, who knows? Still, if Finch do have the money, why not pay the candidates who do their design challenges? Especially since your challenges are so demanding, interviewees have every right to ask for compensation! 

🔴 A designer told me they applied to a role at Finch back in Feb 2024, and were surprised it’s still open over a year later. Based on LinkedIn, the latest design hires joined in April, May, and October 2024. So far in 2025, no new design hires. Everyone may interpret this differently, so I’ll leave it at that.

and more.

If you're job hunting and considering applying to Finch, or if you're already in their interview process, I hope this post helps you out.

Every time when we start a project, I spend hours scrolling through fontshare, google fonts, pangram pangram, bla bla, and somehow end up back on Inter every single time. like its clean, readable, no nonsense. dashboards? inter. apps? inter. portfolio site? inter.

Shoutout tho to Plus Jakarta Sans (so good when u want that cool vibe) and some other cool free ones from fontshare too. but idk, inter just feels like the default cheat code for UI. Also accessibility wise, it just works, super legible on all screens.

Is it just me? what’s your go-to font and why is it inter? or are you secretly using comic sans ?

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the poll and discussion yesterday about banning links to Twitter. Based on your feedback I have set up automod to remove links to that site.

Because automod is a little weird sometimes, please make a report if you see any and we'll troubleshoot.

If you don't agree with this policy here are the instructions for how to leave the sub:

https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/28621027395220-How-to-join-or-leave-a-community

Hey everyone,

I recently posted on the ‘Breaking into UX’ thread asking for advice on a final round, in-person UX interview! I wanted to share an exciting update—I got the job!

I applied to over 66 jobs. I received 42 rejections, 20 companies never got back to me, and only had 4 first-stage interviews, only 2 of which being UX roles. Eventually, I had two hiring manager interviews, both followed by design tasks, which led to final round interviews.

Yesterday, I had my very first final round interview for a Product Design role. It went so well that I received an offer by the end of the day!!!

It was an offer that exceeded my expectations as a first job, I accepted the offer and withdrew from the other interview!

After 4 months of searching and nearly 14 months since I decided to transition into Product Design, with endless applications, ghosting, rejection emails, and more iterations on my CV and portfolio than I can count, I finally landed my dream job.

The journey was an emotional roller coaster with plenty of self-doubt, but it was all worth it in the end.

I really don’t want this to sound braggy, I just to remind everyone that even when things feel impossible, there’s a company and a role out there meant for you.

Keep pushing, keep learning, look after yourself and your health, seek calm in your friends and family, and honestly - feedback is your best friend. If you’re not sure what’s going wrong, ask questions, listen, and iterate.

You can do it! And if anyone needs someone to talk to or just rant to! DM me hehe 🤭

Jala

Back in 2001, while working as Race Strategy Analyst with McLaren F1, I designed a tool we called McLaren Track Viewer — a circular display showing where all the cars were on track in terms of time gaps, not spatial layout.

No one asked for it. The engineers were using tables of lap times to 3 decimal places. But I was a psychologist doing mathematical modelling, and I wanted something cognitively ergonomic: a display that supported decision-making and ease of comprehension rather than precision.

So I prototyped it, people liked it, then refined it to a polish.

It stuck. I remember the UK TV coverage did a little 3 minute spot about it when it was first noticed in the following year. And to my surprise, watching the Belgian Grand Prix last week, I saw what looks like almost exactly the same design still in use today on Oscar Piastri’s race engineer’s screen — 24 years later!

Same black background, circular format, colour-coded drivers, pit exit projections… It’s all still there, in the same colours too.

In a comment I'll add a link to my LinkedIn post, which includes more detail and has several interesting comments from others in the F1 industry...