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Newsletter · 8 September 2026
5 things to look for when hiring a senior product designer in 2026
This is me talking through the five things I’d check before hiring anyone senior, why the evidence you used to judge by stopped working, and what to look at instead.
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Hi there,
This week’s video is about hiring product designers in 2026. The polish is easy to fake now, so the signals people used to judge by stopped meaning anything. Technology changes every week. Human beings don’t.
Thursday’s video walks the five things I’d look for instead, none of them about AI, all of them spottable without any design training. The last one decides it: do they think like a founder?
The full detail is in the PDF, one per page, with what it looks like when it’s there and what it looks like when it isn’t.
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The full detail in a PDF
The five things to look for, one per page, with what it looks like when it’s there and what it looks like when it isn’t, plus the evidence behind each one.
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Inspiration
Worth your attention
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Case study
Two thirds of good ideas don’t work
Microsoft tested its own ideas by controlled experiment. A third improved things, a third did nothing, a third made them worse. The value is in choosing what to build, which is exactly what a good designer is for.
Take a look
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Site of the week
Portfolios that are actual websites
Awwwards’ portfolio collection, for one reason: every one of these is a site somebody built, not a Dribbble page. Worth a scroll if you’re hiring, to calibrate what a designer with a point of view looks like.
Take a look
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AI this week
Taste turned out harder to automate
Designlab’s state of AI in product design: a generated interface can look polished while missing the emotional nuance and strategic clarity. Judgement is still the designer’s job, which is the whole argument of this week.
Take a look
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Design this week
What actually gets senior designers hired
The Fountain Institute on senior hiring: evidence of decisions, outcomes and collaboration beats visual polish every time. A useful second opinion on the five things, from people who coach designers for a living.
Take a look
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If you're a Head of Product, a founder, recruiter or a team lead and you need a lead product designer on the team, drop me a line.
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Russ Hepton
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