Fi’s design game looks to be on point. What makes you feel that way about a design candidate?
In our ongoing series, ‘Interviewing The Interviewers’ at Fi, we bring in the new year with the longest-serving Fian onboard.
In this edition, we speak to Abhilash KV from Fi’s product design team and our in-house urban farmer about Fi culture and hiring.
From a team of six to over 180, you’ve seen it all at Fi. So, what do you think makes an ideal Fian?
Fi culture has never been about a set of rules to conform to, it’s the opposite of that. It’s something that’ll always keep evolving to be inclusive to every new person that decides to be part of the journey to build Fi.
When interviewing, other than assessing your role related knowledge, I try to get a sense of your passion for the craft and look for that energy that makes me want to interact and collaborate with you. I look for someone who’ll inspire and challenge the team and grow with us.
Fi’s design game looks to be on point. What makes you feel that way about a design candidate?
For us, the right kind of thinking, in terms of design, matters more than experience. It’s more about your mindset and understanding rather than knowledge of any software. Anybody can pick up software knowledge with some help, so that’s not something we benchmark on.
Added skills like illustration, research background, motion design and advanced prototyping are always a big plus when we look at growing the team
And what does that say about Fi’s design team?
The current design team is an eclectic mix of generalists, and we plan to keep it that way. It increases collaboration not just within, but across teams. As a matter of fact, Fi has more engineers-turned-designers than designers by training and few of the most intuitive designers I’ve worked with.
What changes have you noticed in Fi culture and hiring since it all began?
We scaled during an unprecedented time when nobody was able to meet each other and about 70% of our growth was during that time. That did bring in a lot of hurdles in maintaining the same spirit of hiring as earlier, but I think we did a pretty good job.
Our people and culture team had a lot of conversations with people who felt really at home at Fi to understand why they feel that way. That helped us refine the idea of Fi culture and keep it evolving.
Our designers collaborate across teams to find simple solutions to complex problems from creating user flows to building interfaces that nudge users to action. In other words, they make sure Fi works seamlessly and looks good while doing it.
Interested in helping us build Fi? Check out our open roles here.
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