Nad Chishtie - How to get hired as a designer at Lovable

Lovable is one of the fastest growing companies in the world right now.

[music] So, what are they looking for as they try to scale their design team?

>> I'm looking for a gut reaction in the first few seconds. The same way that I would do with a product or with a brand.

That's what this is. It's product work and brand work. You're trying to scale yourself to someone else who's never met you before.

>> How do you stand out in a sea of design candidates?

>> We're really looking for high slope individuals. And so, this means people

individuals. And so, this means people who will just get things done end to end. People who show that they have a

end. People who show that they have a very high learning aptitude. People who

don't let their title or let their role limit them. Welcome to Dive Club. My

limit them. Welcome to Dive Club. My

name is Rid and this is where designers never stop learning. [music] This week's episode is with Lovable's head of design, Nadishi. And for context, over

design, Nadishi. And for context, over the last couple of months they've been hiring designers from the [music] Dive Talent Network. So, we got to talking

Talent Network. So, we got to talking and we came up with an idea. What if we filmed an episode [music] that was all about how to get hired as a designer at Lovable? And this is that conversation.

Lovable? And this is that conversation.

It's about as practical as it gets. We

even break down the portfolio of one of the recent design [music] hires to dissect what exactly is working. So,

let's start by hearing from Ned how he views [music] the current landscape and all of the different ways that that's influencing the type of designers that they're trying to hire at Lovable. I

think the most prevalent trend that we're seeing is this trend towards generalists and you know it was only like what like maybe a year two years ago where generalist was like you know genuine dirty word as if it was like the

specialist versus generalist but we're seeing that like the most successful people you know internally today are people that are incredibly multi-dimensional >> and like my thesis is really simple it's

really smart people can actually just do multiple things and that's it but I I think we actually went down a couple of wrong tracks like as an industry pretty much and like I've been racking my brains and I've been, you know, talking

to as many people as I can to try and try and assess this and I have this kind of forming thesis that I'd love to get your um your take on as well. And so

>> yeah, like so two two kind of spicy takes. Um spicy take number one, when

takes. Um spicy take number one, when Spotify glorified crossunctional squads, we set up this system where you needed like eight to 10 people to make a single decision. You'd be like, okay,

decision. You'd be like, okay, engineering manager, relevant engineers per platform, design lead, maybe a researcher, maybe an analyst, etc., etc. And suddenly you've got eight people who

need to collaborate on absolutely everything to do one thing. And we know, and I can tell from the smile on your face, we know that this is not the optimal way to work whatsoever. And so,

um, you know, we went down this whole crossf functional trajectory, should we say, as an industry for quite a while.

The other thing that I think we did which was way more innocent but actually also in some ways damaging is with really really good intentions we really wanted to grow people. So we created like IC tracks and we'd be like okay if

you come in as like an IC 3 we're going to grow you towards a four and five in these dimensions in this way etc etc and at the same time you want to hire from other companies and so you end up with

company A that designs a track this way company B that designs a track that way you want to hire from each other and you end up kind of normalizing them but you know as anyone knows you you normalize

lots of things from lots of sources with different goals and it's designed by consensus and you know in some ways it's kind of a a race to what is the common

denominator. And so again, very

denominator. And so again, very well-intentioned, but in reality, you end up drawing boxes around people and you say like, okay, you're going to come in as a specialist and here is your pigeon hole that you will just fit into

and then that's that. And so what we're seeing is that we don't need to lean on too much into this kind of specialist um way of thinking. The most successful people internally are incredibly

cross-domain. either they've, you know,

cross-domain. either they've, you know, held lots of roles in lots of teams or they've just worn lots of hats at, you know, smaller growing teams, but they've got incredible intuition across multiple

domains. Really, really good judgment.

domains. Really, really good judgment.

They can run things end to end. And when

they have blind spots, they do one of two things. Either AI can fill in gaps

two things. Either AI can fill in gaps because AI is kind of okay at most things. Not great, but like enough that

things. Not great, but like enough that you can zero to one something in almost any domain or any specialism. But

critically, they can run things end to end. use AI as a core part of their

end. use AI as a core part of their workflow and hopefully also know their blind spots so that they know when to work with specialists. So like take something from 80 to 100. And so we're seeing that generalists actually can

just do really really well. Um which is like super different to how we thought about the best quote unquote person for a given job even like 2 years ago. Real

quick message and then we can jump back into it. If you're still designing in

into it. If you're still designing in Figma and rebuilding in Framer, [music] then you're doing twice the work. With

Framer's design pages, you no longer have to jump between tools. In the

[music] last page that I made for the dive website, I explored and built entirely in Framer. [music]

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place. [music] Framer isn't just a site builder. It's a design tool for your

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And if you use the code rid, you can unlock a free month of Framer Pro. Big

news, animations [music] just launched in Mobin. So you can see how world-class

in Mobin. So you can see how world-class apps use motion to guide, delight, and create seamless experiences. It's just

another reason why Mobin is an absolute cheat code for your entire design team.

[music] We use it all the time, and I can't wait to start sending animation ideas to the rest of the team. So

[music] head to dive.com/mobin

to check it out today. [music] That's m ob i n. Okay, now on to the episode. If

you're hiring a lot of generalists, do you kind of just toss out the idea of looking for specific combinations of people? Like how does it influence the

people? Like how does it influence the way that you're thinking about hiring in aggregate versus more of an individual basis evaluation process?

>> We still look for things like like what do people want to be truly world class at and like where do they care about being a world class specialist? But on

the general generalist front, like we actually used to have something in our handbook, which we've taken out now because it was too abrasive. But we used to say some something in the spirit of you know you're doing your job correctly when someone else tells you that you're

stepping on their toes.

>> And it was so good because it was this counterbalance to, you know, joining a company, you're kind of nervous, you don't want to look dumb. You come in, you spike something, you socialize it,

and then you know it's weeks of collective energy before like doing something compared to just doing something and then getting opinions on it pretty much.

>> Can we add a little bit more clarity around what it looks like to do something end to end? So if you think about the traditional box of responsibilities that we're all kind of familiar with as designers listening to you talk, what are some of the

activities or responsibilities or outputs that a designer might do or pursue that exist outside of that box that you're seeing at lovable or maybe would hope to see more of as you scale

the team? I think a a lot of companies

the team? I think a a lot of companies say this but but we really really mean it in terms of as a designer you are talking to the users you've got access to all the data you are fully empowered

to decide when we build something or pushing or to push back on building something in the first place you're also fully empowered to delete stuff as well so if you do something and it doesn't work out it's also on you to follow up

on that feature after it's rolled out etc etc and figure that out so I think designers here do a lot of what product managers would do in in other teams. And so right now we have um like we've only

got one product manager in the entire company and they they basically work on you know setting up the infrastructure needed for the company to be able to operate and you know figuring out the

overall structure but within the teams um it's just designers and engineers like pairing on things and so the shorthand thing is I guess doing anything that a product manager might do in a lot of other teams is just just

expected of designers here. It's that

process of running things end to end. So

figuring out what to build, figuring out when stuff is working, figuring out when to remove stuff as well, and just really pairing with with engineering.

>> And I think that's kind of an important lens to give people for the rest of this conversation, too, is we're very much so talking about a startup that is scaling

that doesn't really have a ton of legacy infrastructure. And there's probably

infrastructure. And there's probably people listening that work at I'm not going to name specific companies, but you know, they've been around a long ways. there's trenches and ways of

ways. there's trenches and ways of working that are simply not going to change. You know, the the the

change. You know, the the the engineering product triad is cemented at every single level. I think that's fantastic. I personally am much more

fantastic. I personally am much more interested in kind of what you're describing. And there's a whole category

describing. And there's a whole category of designer that would listen to you that hear that as well, they just want me to do more work. And I'm like, yeah, no. Like, you get to make real impact.

no. Like, you get to make real impact.

You get to make strategic decisions. You

get to make the call. I think designers are probably the best equipped to do that.

>> Yeah, 100%. And I I think the other thing is that that I'll maybe add here is like I'm I'm super confident in what I'm saying like directionally. We're

blessed because as a team we're like a year and a half old and so you know we get to start without as you said like no legacy but I'm seeing more teams with the shape. you know, I speak to as many

the shape. you know, I speak to as many people as I can, especially like in person in really great events and, you know, try to get people's opinion like off the record like in terms of like what kind of trends they're seeing

internally. And this is true in big

internally. And this is true in big companies as well, like the the most again, I won't name names, but it feels like um there's there's a way of carving out this this way of working within large orgs to to really really get

things done. And the other thing is I

things done. And the other thing is I we've done this before. I'm just about old enough to remember like professionally like when I first started you needed to have like dedicated database admins in a cross functional

team like you couldn't build a feature without having a DBA who would think about the schema and like running the infrastructure and all the rest and then you know things like DevOps platforms become more prevalent and then that you

can kind of unify those around a single backend engineer and then a single fullstack engineer and so on and so forth and now the shape of teams are just completely different and so this is this is no different we've done this before and we'll do it again. And so I

just think it's not inevitable, but I I'm like super confident in in this as like a trend line.

>> Same. And it's pretty much the only type of company that I've been focusing on, even thinking about the dive talent network and what I want to facilitate there. So, I kind of want to use this as

there. So, I kind of want to use this as an opportunity to just go into pretty much every step of your hiring process and pipeline and try to make this as practical as possible for people

listening because the reality is you're going to be hiring a lot of designers in the next quarter half. So, let's set people up for success to really understand what it takes to get a job at

lovable. And we did do some sourcing of

lovable. And we did do some sourcing of questions before this on Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit. try to get a diverse

LinkedIn, Reddit. try to get a diverse set of inputs and there were a lot of questions simply about just how you're sourcing designers and how many of them come from referrals versus cold

applications, how you even get through all of those applications. So, can you talk to us a little bit just to set the stage about what your top of the funnel looks like when you're hiring designers?

>> It's pretty mixed. Obviously, we push stuff online and then we get we get people that apply. That's at our scale like very very high reach. Um, but

finding the signal and finding the real like standout candidates is um is a bit of a challenge. And so we put a lot of hours into like sifting, but at the moment it's not the number one source,

I'd say actually, which is um which is interesting. The other places that have

interesting. The other places that have been really good for us have been things like the dive talent network where, you know, we basically get vetted referrals from, you know, yourself with an excellent eye for like what good design

looks like and and all the rest.

>> Hey, real quick. If you want to get hired at companies like Lovable, 11 Labs, and some of my favorite startups, the talent network is free to join. Just

head to dive.club/talent.

All right, back to it. So, that that's been really successful. And the other thing that's been really good has been cold outreach. And so, a lot of people

cold outreach. And so, a lot of people on the team um actually just spend time online. I mean, we all do because we're

online. I mean, we all do because we're obsessed. And we just drop a note to

obsessed. And we just drop a note to anyone where we love their work. And

that's very very work driven. It's like

it's very much that micro interaction that you shared was incredible or I really love this write up that you did on like your take on on this thing or whatever and then we just literally say

hello to people and then try and talk to them and see if there's a spark pretty much.

>> Is this coming from anywhere other than Twitter?

>> Uh Twitter sometimes LinkedIn but that's that's that's rare. also started on Instagram as well. Like we've we've tried to um get outside of our comfort zone a little bit and just sort of see like see who we're missing and like what

are our own blind spots as well.

>> Let's talk about portfolios for a second. Let's assume that someone is

second. Let's assume that someone is going in cold and given the metaphorical stack of portfolios that you have to get through. You're having to make some

through. You're having to make some really quick decisions. So what are some of the shortcomings that you might see that we get somebody tossed into this discard pile pretty quickly? One thing

is I think that as designers we're we're gifted with this superpower which is that literally we're professionals at communicating information at scale right and so we have to figure out what is this germ of

an idea what is this wellformed idea how do we scale it to millions of people through this interface or like whatever and so I I think we can borrow from that entire like library of knowledge into this conversation we're having and so

every single thing that we know about like I don't know optimizing landing pages where we measure We measure bounce rates in like milliseconds rather than seconds and so on and so forth. And like

if we I don't know if we were to do like watch a YouTube video with like designers doing tear downs of like SAS landing pages where we're like the hero section and the headline makes no sense.

Like what is blah blah blah all this kind of stuff, all of it applies. And so

I'm looking for like a gut reaction in the first few seconds the same way that I would do with a product or with a brand. That gut reaction, if I had to

brand. That gut reaction, if I had to try and deconstruct it, is really coming from, you know, initially the design

basics of visual rhythm, composition, typography, spacing, use of color, etc. And if you're putting together a website or a resume, like all of that should be on point. I'd say just take care of the

on point. I'd say just take care of the basics is like thing number one. Like

just use your superpowers to make something that impresses people within milliseconds of them seeing it. And by

the way, you'd be surprised how many people use weird like material UI generated résumés with like bad PDF formatting and stuff. Like don't do any

of that. Like take the care like if

of that. Like take the care like if you're going to put together an artifact which is like a single PDF, like make it a good one because that's what we're going to look at. And yes, I'd say just really take care of the design basics

and like push yourself the same way you would in any, you know, product work or brand work. Like that's what this is.

brand work. Like that's what this is.

It's product work and brand work. you're

trying to scale yourself to someone else who's never met you before.

>> I love that. And it ties back to something that I've been tweeting a lot over the years, which is like just thinking more about yourself as a product and the website as a product

marketing example rather than this portfolio. We put portfolio in a box and

portfolio. We put portfolio in a box and just assume that people are going to give us the time of day. And what you just made me think of for the first time that takes me back to my experience

hiring for Maven years ago and I tried hiring before we had finished this branding process with Fuzco and our website was trash. It was like purple

inter text. It was made by engineers and

inter text. It was made by engineers and none of it was good. And you very quickly realize there is no chance that I'm going to get a talented designer to

want to work with me if this is the website. they will bounce in three

website. they will bounce in three seconds and say, "These people do not care about design. I'm out." And if we're going to have that perception of

product companies, then we have to expect them to have that exact same reaction to the first 3 seconds on our website too.

>> I completely agree. There's obviously

all the wisdom around like don't judge a book by its cover, but I think, you know, as an entire industry, we practice using visual design as a tool. I think

it's just paramount, especially when it's so competitive. I don't know if I'm sifting through literally hundreds of applications and I'll whittle down to like a a dozen short list and then I'm asking myself out of this dozen, who do

I truly want to go move forward with?

These details matter. And on an aside, I don't want to get stuck in a rabbit hole and in the weeds and I feel like I'm putting a target on my back by even even offering to say this. But I but I also think this is why like UX designers as

in pure UX is also where they're almost trending against it as well where like um you know like people who identify only as UX designers can't display this um you know these visual skills and so

it's really difficult to to be intuitive about what you're you know really great at and how you might function in a more generalist environment if if you can't put these things on display >> and it's easy to straw men what you're

saying as well those are just pixel level details but I do think there is this element of as a designer, you're a creative storyteller. You're creating

creative storyteller. You're creating some type of a digital experience that helps people understand or that positions whatever you're selling as

like, you know, unique and standing out and worthy of time. Like that is the lens that you should use for your own website. And if you can't do that, you

website. And if you can't do that, you can't just point and say, well, those are pixel level details. No, like that's >> that's what being a designer is.

>> 100%. It's like the web and interfaces are a material and they're the material that we work with like day in [snorts] day out, hour in hour out um to you know to build products and to communicate

them. I'm going to use the same

them. I'm going to use the same materials to review replication. So use

the materials as well [laughter] as you can and then that that's it like >> it's that simple. I want to get back to that point in a second here, but maybe to flip the table a little bit. I want

to talk about a very specific portfolio of someone that you hired recently from the Dive Talent Network, Matt, who I got to know as well. He helped me with a lot

of the shadow tokens actually for theming in Inflight and was just amazing. Yeah, he was amazing. That was

amazing. Yeah, he was amazing. That was

how I I met him. And I want to just screen share his portfolio and we could talk about it and cuz he's obviously did something correct. You're sifting

something correct. You're sifting through applications. You open up this

through applications. You open up this portfolio. Talk to me about some of

portfolio. Talk to me about some of those initial reactions. What stands

out? What's working? What makes you curious?

>> The aesthetic is super clean. And so

this is a design that serves the content and the content is on point as well. And

so like I remember even reading through and it was the 20 years of experience spent at 12800% zoom. I just have this like I can

zoom. I just have this like I can picture the Adobe suite and Photoshop and just literally the UI like printing 12800% um in my head as soon as I saw that. So

the fact that the content is great and it's completely not fluffy. It's to the point super high signal. Um, and then uh seeing you here get over to the micro interactions immediately the person that

made this cared. And it it's it's that simple. Like the same way that you you

simple. Like the same way that you you know if you touch a product you're like okay the team behind this cared. Um and

that's the sense that I got that I got from Matt straight away as soon as I landed on his website. And so even if you click through to the case studies as well so on on any of these um like the

work itself is super thorough but I'm I'm not reading every word. So all I'm doing is I'm I'm like scanning up and down and I'm looking at the work and I'm asking myself two things. Do I like the

work? Like is there something

work? Like is there something subjectively where, you know, it sparks joy for me? And is there any evidence of it fulfilling something uh objectively as well? And so you know was this built

as well? And so you know was this built within a team that had some goals and like how did it track against those goals and stuff like that. Those are the two things I'm looking for signal on. I

don't really care so much about process.

Like if I >> I was about to say I'm going to I'm going to call it out here because there is not a single piece of text below this paragraph. It's one paragraph and then

paragraph. It's one paragraph and then images. Talk to me about how that

images. Talk to me about how that resonates.

>> There's two things that I care about.

One is the work. It's, you know, what is the reality of the work that you're doing? What is the bar that you put on

doing? What is the bar that you put on yourself? And is that evident? And so

yourself? And is that evident? And so

I'm I'm looking for that. And you know, in this case, it's like uh you know, the the visual and interaction execution is on point. I look at the icography and

on point. I look at the icography and I'm like, okay, like you don't you don't create these icons by accident, right?

You have to sit down and they have to be a labor of love.

>> So, the work is like the first thing.

And the second is does this person care?

It's obvious they do care from the website alone. Um, but I don't need the

website alone. Um, but I don't need the okay, we started out with postits on a on a whiteboard and and like all the rest. like I'm going to trust that you

rest. like I'm going to trust that you used some process and so um we'll find found out more about that later when we talk and I'd much rather not sift through 100 applicants with 100

different ways to explain their process as well because then I have to spend like a 100 times more um energy trying to interpret 100 different ways to explain it.

>> My takeaway there is you just kind of have to understand what part of the process that you're in. You're not doing the hard cell. You're just trying to get someone to say, "Sure, I'll bump them to

the next round and actually figure out how they work and how they think next."

>> Exactly. And I'd say also like overexlaining your process and being explicit about it is also quite risky, I think, sometimes because as a hiring manager, you're also looking for like

soft skill strengths and weaknesses. If

for example, your portfolio piece only talks about qualitative research because maybe that's just whatever you had the most photographs of or screenshots of or whatever and maybe you just didn't have access to your high fidelity stuff or

whatever happen stance meant that your case study is biased or shaped one way.

I'm going to assume that that's your like individual bias, but maybe that's not the bias that you know we're looking for in in this next kind of upcoming hire. It's just best to champion the

hire. It's just best to champion the work. Like in product marketing, you

work. Like in product marketing, you have uh this phrase of like product is hero. you want your like product

hero. you want your like product photography to like really make the product the hero rather than you know the components inside it or whatever it might be and you want the use cases to be the hero and I think for a portfolio

you want the work to be the hero rather than the process behind the work and and yeah you can I think you can give signal on the wrong things um if you if you show too much process yeah it's an interesting take I'm going to just

highlight one thing that stood out to me too because I'm often evaluating the shell as much as the work itself too something that I absolutely loved is

this top alignment here. Everything is

so intentional. And I think that maybe that's a key word. I'm looking for intentionality at every level of detail.

Top level story all the way down to like the tiniest little interactions and layout decisions. And here you have

layout decisions. And here you have beautiful alignment here where this is equidistant padding. This is equidistant

equidistant padding. This is equidistant padding. And then this hover state is

padding. And then this hover state is like, oh, cool. He actually cared about that. Like he really put some effort

that. Like he really put some effort into that. And I might not even love

into that. And I might not even love that specific style. I do think it's very cool, but I can tell that he went above and beyond because it was an expression of who he is as a digital

creative and that I had a visceral reaction to this hover state in alignment, which might seem like a small detail, but this is the stuff that makes it memorable.

>> 100%. And and to back that up, I think if you brought that level of intentionality to 5% of the surface, like if your website was literally just your name beautifully said in typography

with one hover state, but I get a sense of that intentionality, that's a huge green flag. Like I'm going to look at

green flag. Like I'm going to look at that and I'm going to be like, okay, it's worth us talking. Um, and so I think I think you hit the nail on the head with um with trying to evaluate intention of where

>> which I think is what he did. That's a

good way of saying, you know, I'm still kind of stuck on what you said about how you almost don't want to create surface area for people to poke holes in. It's

not more is not always better. I think

that's like a really interesting takeaway from this conversation. And so

looking at his website, >> he just tells his story. He sweat the details on this very specific combination of words that he wanted to do to present himself. He made that the

star. And then this is just work. And

star. And then this is just work. And

every little detail is so nice. the

inner shadow and the outer shadow. The

slight hover of this, he didn't have to make that move. You know, it's wonderful. You're simultaneously putting

wonderful. You're simultaneously putting the work forward while also not giving anybody anything that they could point at to disqualify you. Side note, if you're hiring designers and you want to

find the best people like Matt who maybe aren't even on the market, I'm giving a few more companies access to the talent network and you can apply today to join.

Just head to dive.club/talent.

And and the other thing that I'm I'm thinking about as well is anytime I'm hiring, I'm asking myself what skills and traits are just evidently on display

where, you know, this person has this in huge amount of depth versus like what is coachable? And somebody doesn't have to

coachable? And somebody doesn't have to be, you know, 10 out of 10 on every single dimension on everything, but I have to be confident that, you know, they're displaying some stuff and they're coachable in the other stuff.

And I think by just being extremely craft forward in the material you put out there, you show that you can do the craft. It it sounds so simple, but I'm

craft. It it sounds so simple, but I'm like it like it sounds like an almost redundant sentence, but you'd be surprised how many designers don't sweat the details and then suddenly you're talking to them and you're like, well actually I don't I don't know what level

you can get to because you haven't you haven't shown me. I think don't make people work to have to guess what what level you put on yourself or um what good looks like to you.

>> Yeah, I think that is a great point.

It speaks to the power of one really good hover state. Honestly, like just having been someone who scrolls through a lot of portfolios, if I can get one hover state quickly where I'm like, "Whoa, that was pretty good. That felt

good." Like they really thought about how that should move and what should happen and it wasn't over the top and it was clear that they wanted to showcase something there. Like you can almost win

something there. Like you can almost win me over with one really, really good hover state.

>> Yeah, I completely agree. And I think we think we're showing our own biases in that I think we both get excited by incredible hover states. But if you're not that kind of designer, if you're like a systems thinking designer,

technical slur, if you are a you know you purely UX or research or whatever, then just don't put out bad materials.

Just just do more with less. Like um

spend time on your resume on the type setting there or or whatever it might be. And like grab a friend who's better

be. And like grab a friend who's better at it than you if you need to. But just

make sure that the few things that you give are are really good. And I I think that um you know it's just way easier for everyone involved.

>> The reality is that maybe we are the extreme end, but I don't think it's too far of a detour from hiring managers at what I would consider the most desirable

companies today who are empowering designers to the degree that you are and continue to plan to. If you want to appeal to those types of companies, it's not about quantity. Like it's not about

the sum of what you can put onto a page.

It's very much so about the average in many ways. Like if you don't have really

many ways. Like if you don't have really good work, that's okay. In ultra simple websites have a certain flex about them even. And if that's the case, great. Go

even. And if that's the case, great. Go

really, really deep on the writing. Like

the first thing that you mentioned was this 12,800% zoom. That's brilliant

microcopy. It's really unique. You know

what? That did something for you. Great.

Sweat the details on the writing then.

Make that the point of of your story.

>> Yeah, I I completely agree. Is there

anything else that a designer who maybe doesn't have the really strong craft background could do to communicate the

mindset that sets them apart rather than just the visuals? Like what are potential signals that you could see where you're like, "Okay, maybe I'm not quite sold on the craft yet, but I would

bump this person to the next round and at least put more time and effort into figuring out if they're a good fit." I

think if you can own your blind spots and if you can communicate where you think you are on any of these dimensions and either there's there's blind spots you're aware of and you know that you

want to level up in them or display that there's blind spots that you're aware of and you don't care like it might be that you you don't you're just never going to care about any of the details that we're talking about. I think figuring out how

talking about. I think figuring out how to just really own that so that um it's a part of your narrative is actually really good. And I've I've I have had

really good. And I've I've I have had situations where, you know, I have bumped people because they've said things like, "Hey, actually like um it sounds really silly, but my like visual and interaction discipline has is like

actually my weakest because I've been working on these like really technically ambitious problems or whatever and I feel like those skills have atrophied a bit and I need to spend a bit of time polishing them up." Just figure out how to state that sort of between maybe a

website if you have one or your resume or your portfolio or your application.

highlight what you believe your strengths are as well and like um where you think your limits are and what your growth areas are and we pay a lot of attention to that as well because um again we're looking for high slope

people. We're not looking for people who

people. We're not looking for people who are 10 out of 10 in every single dimension everywhere today. We're

looking for people who with the right environment can grow and and can move up and move forward.

>> I'm going to push you a little bit deeper there. The idea of owning your

deeper there. The idea of owning your blind spots is interesting to me.

Hypothetically, if you were in that situation where you're like, I know what I bring to the table. I'm not going to win someone over in 6 seconds with a micro interaction, what would you be

thinking about or exploring? How would

you even approach the problem of I need to sell myself to someone quickly and I can't lean on craft?

>> Try and remove any surface that I'm not confident in. And so, I'd probably

confident in. And so, I'd probably reduce my website down to the bare minimum of name with a contact us button or or whatever it might be. Let's say

you're your archetype is you're amazing at systems thinking and product thinking. I would get some good writing

thinking. I would get some good writing up there as well that shows that rather than, you know, relying on showing really really strong like craft work instead. And so I'd be thinking about

instead. And so I'd be thinking about things like that. What other materials would showcase your strengths and and play into them essentially. And so it might be writing, it could be something else. Um but but writing I'd say is a

else. Um but but writing I'd say is a huge one. Like I I often find myself

huge one. Like I I often find myself like on someone's website and if they have blog posts, I'm going to skim read them. And so I'm going to look through

them. And so I'm going to look through and be like, okay, like what did this person think about this or think about that? And it's also okay when the

that? And it's also okay when the writing's older as well. Like if I see if I see there's a blog post from 2020 or 2021 or whatever it might be, that's completely fine. Um, but just, you know,

completely fine. Um, but just, you know, even seeing that somebody's taking the time and energy out of their life to to go and do that in the first place, that's already a green flag. Um, but

secondly, then being able to explore more of their thinking if they can't rely on craft um is really helpful. I

really like that you brought up the writing piece because that's totally a green flag for me, too. If I see even, you know, three or four simple

row items on a website that go to their thoughts, I might not read them all the time, but I definitely have that go in a positive category for me, right? Like it

shows that's a way of showing that you care without having to sweat visual details.

>> For sure. And you would be surprised at how many people just actually don't have an opinion on things. There's a lot of people where like design is a vacation.

It's like, okay, like maybe maybe you did like a boot camp because you heard that you can get paid better than whatever your previous profession was.

Or maybe you've been somewhere and you've actually had a really well storied career in companies that we all know the names of, but you got a little bit lazy because it wasn't the sort of highest most demanding environment. and

so on and so forth. There's like more people that fit the shape than than you might think actually like in in the world in general. And that's completely not what we're looking for. Like we're

looking for people who do have an opinion and who do want to learn their blind spots and who do want to learn and who do want to go on this kind of crazy high paced adventure. And so, you know, showing that by displaying that you have

a point of view is really helpful.

>> Are you specifically looking for people that go beyond design as a vocation?

>> Yeah, I think so. I mean, I again, I'm going to show my biases here. I'm I'm

selftaught and so the best people I've worked with have had an incredibly high learning slope. They've been like,

learning slope. They've been like, "Okay, I don't understand this, but I'm just going to figure it out." Or, "I think I'm okay at this, but I want to be world class at it." And so on and so forth. And I think having the intrinsic

forth. And I think having the intrinsic motivation to do that is just completely different to if there's an extrinsic f factor that that drives you. You've used

this phrase world class a few times now.

What are some examples there? A designer

who's like, I'm going to be world class at X. like fill in that gap for people

at X. like fill in that gap for people to even help them understand the types of pursuits that are attractive to a hiring manager like yourself.

>> What I'm trying to do when I when I meet designers and when when I'm trying to figure out if they're a good fit for the team is I'm trying to figure out what does success look like over multiple years. It's not like okay can you come

years. It's not like okay can you come in and be productive in the next 30 days. It's what are your like deepest

days. It's what are your like deepest dreams and desires and like the the things that are maybe even like a bit embarrassing that you want to say out loud but that you know the things you want to work towards like in the medium term. One example just from my last

term. One example just from my last company there was a designer who I was managing who she like really wanted to experiment with like VR and like augmented reality interactions and so

that was her dream that was like okay I really want to get into this space and I really want to explore it like over the next kind of you know the coming years.

is I don't really have a timeline, but it's like an area that's super interesting to me. And so, you can bet that as soon as we had some work in augmented reality, that was the person

who got the work. And so, when I think about world class, I think about like where are you going to push yourself to do industry defining work? Like where

are you going to push yourself to do work where you feel like you've maximized like what you want to do in that work. So, I'm looking for that that

that work. So, I'm looking for that that intrinsic drive. Essentially,

intrinsic drive. Essentially, >> I think one of the ways that I find intrinsic drive is through the side projects and things that people are exploring more green field on their own.

Can you talk a little bit about the weight that you attach to side projects?

When you're looking at someone, you're evaluating them. How much do you care?

evaluating them. How much do you care?

How high is the ceiling? Like, can

someone actually win you over with side projects alone if all they have to show is a handful of years at some like really boring enterprise company? Like,

can side projects cut it? How does that fit into your evaluation process >> with like very very costly? I'm looking

at both like hard skills and soft skills. And I think with side projects,

skills. And I think with side projects, you can absolutely display. There's no

ceiling to the hard skills that you can put on display in terms of, you know, creating something that, you know, looks, feels, works great and a little bit harder to assess the soft skills.

And so if I'm asking myself, does this person work well in a team? Do they even think about their personal growth, etc. Things like that need to dig a little bit. But um I'd say that the entire

bit. But um I'd say that the entire conversation we had of like you know looking at a portfolio website and looking at past work and basically trying to get a sense of did the person care when they made it I put the exact

same amount of weight on someone's side projects and so I'm looking at those in exactly the same way and saying yeah I mean for sure I mean and a lot of times people will go even further right they be they become fanatical about it and

that's that's even better because then I get to see like if this person does have this intrinsic drive then like what does what does that look like and that that comes out like more more often than inside projects. I do think there's one

inside projects. I do think there's one big risk with side projects though, which is when it's ambiguous what your goals are with them. And so I think if there's somebody who has like 10

different side projects, but they also look like they've tried to make it as real startups and then they've all failed, then I'm asking myself, well, is this person like a good designer or are they like a bad founder or like what

like what's what's going on here? And so

I think it's really important to frame side projects. And so if you have a

side projects. And so if you have a bunch of stuff where you're like, okay, this is just a component playground. I'm

just playing with interactions, then great, just frame it around that. Or if

you have been doing a sort of indie hacking thing or whatever, like again, just own it. But if you leave it open to interpretation and you have like a collection of weird things where it's

maybe not easy to figure out a story or a narrative, then that's where I think side projects can be a little bit dangerous, but not overly dangerous. But

but I'd be cautious if you're not framing them really really well.

>> If I were listening to that, I'd be so encouraged. You almost don't have an

encouraged. You almost don't have an excuse at that point. Like based off of what you just said, it doesn't matter where you work, what your seniority is.

You have the internet tools. You can

make anything you want and you will evaluate those in the same way as somebody who works at this prestigious company. That's like a really big deal.

company. That's like a really big deal.

I'm just pausing even for a second because that's a really big deal. I was

I was asking myself before we before we talked like what is it that we really care about and I wrote down in my in my notes like Apple notes like staring out of the window like you know when

commuting going back and forth and it is literally the two things that we care about are the work itself and does this person care >> and that's it and there's lots of things that lad out of that. So, you know,

within the work, like how we might assess that and within somebody caring, you know, how much do they care about the teams they've worked in or their own personal growth and stuff like that. But

those are literally the only two things that we want to try and get really strong signal on. And I think you can get them with a mixture of experience in really great teams displaying or if you

don't have that, you know, displaying that with side projects. But I I think as as you said, there's lots of options to to get this stuff out on display.

It's even reminded me of somebody very specific that I was looking at for the talent network and you know if you look at their LinkedIn it wasn't anything that's going to stand out you know like

I I don't think they had very senior titles and they were like a senior product designer in their last role but they'd only been doing this for about maybe five or six years. I didn't

recognize any of the companies. the work

from the companies was like it was fine but you don't really know how much of this is constrained by a design system versus how much is this your ceiling and then I clicked this one button that led

me to their side project and they made this video of this kind of mishmash calendar to-do app >> and I was completely sold just after this one thing that they owned end to end and it was amazing like they thought

through everything and it was so good and I was like I don't even care about [laughter] what you've made for these other companies like that's where your ceiling is great you're in you So yeah, it's encouraging.

>> That completely resonates with me. And

you you reminded me there of um one anti pattern with the design system comment.

I find it really difficult when people overuse the word we. And so if you're showing a project and all of your descriptors are we did this, we did this, we did this, we did this. I have

no idea who we is. I've got no idea what came from you, what came from the rest of the team, what came from the design system, etc. And so I think be like super predictive around I or the team or

the designers who were responsible for blah or whatever and really uh make that as explicit as possible cuz it's one of the the hardest things to figure out especially when you speak to designers

from really great companies where they've got the entire company's like infrastructure behind them. And so if you're talking to a designer or viewing their website and they're just like we did this and it's like well of course the company did this but like what did

you do? That's one of my bug bears

you do? That's one of my bug bears actually with with portfolios.

>> I want to kind of move into the rest of the interview process, talk about the stages. I just want a really quick

stages. I just want a really quick hitting question just to kind of push it to the extreme as an example. So, you

click on a website, it's just someone's name, maybe like a line or two of subtext, not that much, and then it's just a single feed and it's a component playground full of interactions and

visual concepts and nothing else. And

there's maybe like 12 and they look good. Are they going to get bumped or do

good. Are they going to get bumped or do you need to see more?

>> Hell [snorts] yeah. Like if the components are good, then we're good.

Like it's that simple.

>> Okay. All right. All right. All right. I

just wanted to push it all the way. So

you you heard it.

>> And by the way, we have a good track record here. And I I think it's specific

record here. And I I think it's specific to us, but we love underdogs. Like we

still think of ourselves as an underdog.

We have a really funny age spread internally, at least on the engineering side, where we have a lot of people who are like a little bit more storied in their career. Maybe they have a few gray

their career. Maybe they have a few gray hairs like myself. And then we've got a lot of super bright people who are like everything from 17 to 18 to 19 to 20 and

21. And we take bets on that, you know,

21. And we take bets on that, you know, that that's kind of lower part of that age distribution. And so if you show us

age distribution. And so if you show us the work and you show us the drive, then we're super happy to talk and try and figure out um you know, how you might thrive like in our environment. And so

we probably value like tenure and titles, I'd say way less than people think. Actually,

think. Actually, >> let's zoom ahead here. Say you bump someone. Maybe it's that person in the

someone. Maybe it's that person in the component playground where you check the visual box in a real way, but basically everything else is a total black box right now. So, talk us through for

right now. So, talk us through for context what are the typical interviewing stages at Lovable. So, for

us, we try to keep things pretty lean.

And so, uh, we do like an intro round that's like a very typical kind of hiring manager. We talk goal of that is

hiring manager. We talk goal of that is let's fill in any blanks. And so across everything that we've seen so far, so resume portfolio application whatever, just want to make sure that we have the most complete picture of you.

And then the other thing that I do in those calls is I reserve almost half of the call for open questions from the candidate side as well. And so two reasons for this. Firstly, hiring is

broken. It's a very asymmetric process.

broken. It's a very asymmetric process.

Companies get to ask hundreds of questions and candidates can almost ask nothing. So that's just fundamentally

nothing. So that's just fundamentally broken. And you know, we want people to

broken. And you know, we want people to commit to join us for years. And so I think people need to be well informed in order in order to make that decision.

And so we open up a bunch of space for that. I get so much signal based on what

that. I get so much signal based on what people are asking me. And so if they're asking very cold, badly researched questions or they're asking very interesting, wellressearched questions,

that's incredible signal for me. And so

we treat this intro chat as like super two-way essentially. Before we move on,

two-way essentially. Before we move on, maybe this is too hard of a question, but are you able to give us any examples or point at what a good question looks like or the types of questions that

would give you a positive signal?

>> Having a really strong point of view about um the products that we're building essentially is is like the main thing I'd say. And so

>> that might mean you've used the product and you have specific thoughts. It might

mean you know the landscape or you know all of our competitors and you have thoughts or you want to understand our philosophy behind some decisions. But

just having a strong point of view and coming in opinionated. Not opinionated

in terms of here's my opinion, but more so I'm educated enough that we're going to have a high signal conversation as opposed to I'm uneducated to the point

where we'll have a very low signal conversation. That's on the most basic

conversation. That's on the most basic level what what I'm kind of looking for.

And that doesn't mean do loads of research either, by the way. It means

just know know the space and know the room that you're going to be in pretty much and come in come in prepared.

>> Keep us going in the process. What are

some of the other stages?

>> Yeah. Then we do um what we call a past work round. [snorts] And very

work round. [snorts] And very deliberately we do not call this a portfolio round. And so we want to see

portfolio round. And so we want to see two projects that you're the most proud of that you've made basically and that's it. And we give you a little bit of

it. And we give you a little bit of guidance on you know what it is that we're looking for in terms of we want to understand like the team that you worked in. We want to understand the outcome.

in. We want to understand the outcome.

We want to understand what you'd do differently if you're working on this and things like that. And the best people here it sounds so simple. The

best candidates pay attention to the prep and they come to the calls prepared to talk about what we sent over in the prep and the worst candidates are like they see this and they're like oh I've

got a portfolio I'll just show the thing that I already have and so they'll turn up with the you know photograph of all the sticky notes on the whiteboard and we'll be like we didn't ask to see the process like we asked to see these two

or three things and like now we don't understand these two or three things after we've started talking to you and so again it's very simple like we want to champion the work again and that's what we want to learn about in that

stage. And then the last stage for us is

stage. And then the last stage for us is if you're a design engineer um we do some technical screening that's more like um some coding challenges to understand where your edges are. But

then the last stage for us is we do paid test work. And so we just treat it as

test work. And so we just treat it as dating before marriage pretty much. And

we're like okay come in for a day we'll pay you so that you know it's worth your time and then we'll treat it honestly the same way that we would do the first day on the job. And so we'll be very much like, hey, we're working on this

thing. It's super real world. We would

thing. It's super real world. We would

benefit from extra perspective. Like

we'd actually like somebody to come in and tell us like turn this thing upside down or get this thing over the finish line in in whatever way. And we set up a day to work together um super closely.

Way more signal than we can get from any other exercises like whatsoever. That's

been like a huge help for us and something that um we feel really good about given the the feedback we get from it so far as well.

>> All right. I'm going to look at both of those stages separately. So, really

quickly, going back to the not a portfolio review, I can't remember what you called it, but it's not the portfolio review, >> past work. When somebody finishes that

exercise and you realize they're not a good fit, what are some of the likely reasons that you find yourself pointing to? Common traps would be on the hard

to? Common traps would be on the hard skills side like we just haven't seen the quality of work that we hope to because we literally ask people show us the two pieces of work you're the most proud of and if they show something

that's like 6 years old and we're like really like there's nothing else you're proud of that you've done more recently or if they show something that was maybe just unambitious in the first place.

it's actually just quite a small scoped thing or and we just don't get a sense that this person can work on ambitious things or they can push themselves or they're not like just not executing on

the the kind of basic visual craft elements and things like this. Like

those are probably the common reasons and then the people that work that normally do really really well here, they pay attention to what we send and we just finish the call like thinking we can't wait for this person to

potentially be contributing to lovable.

That's generally what we're talking about in the debriefs.

>> Something that you haven't mentioned even once in now over 50 minutes is metrics quantifiable impact anything in that category. Is that an intentional

that category. Is that an intentional absence? How do you think about that?

absence? How do you think about that?

>> I think a lot of teams do goal setting really badly. It's actually really

really badly. It's actually really difficult to set goals at scale. Like

every single book on OKRs completely sucks. You also get better at it by

sucks. You also get better at it by getting the reps in. you only really get the reps in on like a quarterly time scale. Done well, you have like top down

scale. Done well, you have like top down factors, bottoms up factors, and they these things need to meet in the middle and you kind of only really understand whether things are working with like 3 months of something. So, it's a bit like throwing a stone into a pond and then

you're observing the ripples and then you're waiting for like the 20th ripple to know if that was a good throw or not almost. And so, like I think metrics are

almost. And so, like I think metrics are very difficult because you can make any metric look good if you like somehow kind of poke around it the right way.

And so we don't put too much emphasis on like okay this design lifted this activation thing by like 22% or whatever it might be. We do look at the for one of a better word the maybe the pedigree

of the teams that people have been on.

We put weight behind products people who worked on products that we like or that have worked on teams that we admire in some way. And so it might be that

some way. And so it might be that they've worked at a company that where we know that there's parts of their product culture that we think is just strong. And if that's true, then we

strong. And if that's true, then we don't have to obsess over like does this piece of work state that it improved this thing by 12% or 26%. Like we don't know what good looks like in those examples as well, right? Like we don't

have the baseline and we don't know like if we don't know what's impressive and so I I think goal setting is inherently difficult and therefore like measuring metrics is in inherently difficult.

>> Okay, let's zoom forward towards the work trial then. You talked about the value of just bringing a fresh perspective to the table. Can we just get really specific there? Because it's

not a long amount of time. Like there's

not that many different ways that you can invest your time in that situation.

There's not many different angles that you can take in terms of how to make an impression. Like you kind of have to be

impression. Like you kind of have to be strategic a little bit. So what are the through lines between the people that just crush it where you're like, "Yeah, hell yeah. Of course, we're going to

hell yeah. Of course, we're going to hire them." We talked about the quality

hire them." We talked about the quality of the work. I guess I'm imagining that this is also probably a little bit more soft skill of an evaluation process. So

what are you looking for? What could

people use as kind of like a measuring stick or a bar to hit in that type of environment? So, the easiest way I can

environment? So, the easiest way I can describe this is there's this really strange phenomenon that I think is true everywhere, and I'm going to ask you to kind of keep me honest, but when you hire somebody in tech and they're

joining for a full-time role, you kind of have this soft landing process of okay, you here's your like onboarding week and like talk to these eight people and do this and do that. And there's

this kind of soft expectation that you're going to spend like a week or two just getting your feet on the ground and then and then do something. But then

comparatively, if you hire a contractor and you're like, "Hey, I need you to come in and do this thing. What's your

day rate? What's your week rate?" Minute

two, they're like boom, like we're gonna we're gonna get going and here we go.

And that's what we're looking for essentially. And so we we set it up as

essentially. And so we we set it up as if you know as if it is your like first day and we expect you to create structure and create inertia and we

don't we're not prescriptive over like what we want to see at the end of the day. We're not like hey we expect to see

day. We're not like hey we expect to see you know x number of explorations and at least one high fidelity this or like whatever. None of that. We want to get a

whatever. None of that. We want to get a sense of your productivity your ability to work on things autonomously and your communication essentially throughout the entire day. What does it look like for

entire day. What does it look like for inertia to be created? Can we get specific there? on inertia specifically,

specific there? on inertia specifically, I think we want to understand like what you would do if you were continuing like we finished the day with a debrief of like show us show us what you did today essentially and we want to understand

like okay if this was the real world like first of all how production ready is the thing you've worked on like is there anything here where you're like oh we could even test this today like feasibly like if we sat down and just

quickly quickly um built it like what like what's usable from that perspective or um if somebody's not happy with where they ended up we want to hear that like, okay, maybe they went down like 10

different wrong paths, but um they have an idea of like 20 different things they do tomorrow. Um or things like that. And

do tomorrow. Um or things like that. And

so we're looking for like momentum, I guess, through throughout that day.

Again, as if it was your first day at work, like as if it was like, "Okay, cool. Like, what are we going to do

cool. Like, what are we going to do tomorrow?"

tomorrow?" >> A few of the questions that people were asking were all about the changing tooling landscape and how that impacts the way that you're evaluating

candidates. and you've obviously played

candidates. and you've obviously played a big role in that changing landscape.

So when you're looking at either past experience or maybe sitting down after that first day to kind of debrief, how much do you care about tool proficiency and how widely it's spread across

different tools?

>> We're not dogmatic about like, okay, if this person has used these kinds of tools but not those ones or whatever, or like if this person is using our preferred tools or anything like that,

we don't really care about that. But I

would say that we look for a mixture of techno optimism and maybe AI maximalism as well. And so we want people that are

as well. And so we want people that are excited to challenge themselves on how tools are evolving. And so like if somebody comes in and they're like, "Yeah, I've kind of heard about these

workflows and I like but I just can't use them at, you know, in my team because my team hasn't adopted them or whatever and they're just not playing or they're just not pushing themselves, then that's that's not a great look for

us and probably not the best fit." But

if somebody comes in and they're like, "Oh, hey, like I've I've tried all these things and here's what's stuck for me and here's what hasn't stuck for me."

They have their own opinion, then that's that's really really good. So, we're

looking for, you know, more of that willingness to push themselves and willingness to experiment and willingness to adopt. And, you know, like now, frankly, it's been 2 years since like GPT kind of exploded. Now,

I'd say that we're expecting people to be using AI like in their in their core workflows like like something's probably wrong if you're not. And like at the most basic level, you know, even just note takingaking, you could be like

challenging yourself there or like whatever.

>> Let's go a little bit deeper there. What

does it look like to use AI effectively?

because that can just mean so many different things. And I know there's at

different things. And I know there's at least some subset of people that are listening that immediately translate that to design by prompting only. AI is

this new material that has like all these like new factors that we've never had to like worry about before. We

design stuff and we use it both. Like

we're we're users of technology at the same time as building it. And so if you're not using AI in any capacity, it's a little bit like if you were around in I don't know like early days

of the web and if you were like not adopting like digital like if you were like no like I I know that the internet like looks interesting but like I I still like this pen and paper thing but I'm just I just don't use anything

digital in my workflow. And you'd be like well directionally that's just not where things are going. We think we've kind of crossed this chasm of AI is never going to be put back into this

box. Like you we're never going to have

box. Like you we're never going to have like nonAI computing. And so we're expecting that people are using AI products and that they understand how

they work and they have even just have an opinion of them as an end user even if they're not designing AI products dayto-day. even a personal anecdote that

dayto-day. even a personal anecdote that is much smaller, but I do think applies to kind of what you're saying is I remember when I got my first W2 job, I

don't maybe 10 years ago, I'm not sure because I'd only been doing like freelancing and my own startup until that point. So, I'd never been evaluated

that point. So, I'd never been evaluated by someone as a designer ever. And

afterwards, the hiring manager told me why he hired me. And it was because in my take-home, they had like a paid take-home project. I prototyped it in

take-home project. I prototyped it in principle when principal first was kind of getting some traction and he asked me like why' you like why would you put this in principle? Like would is this

how you would normally work? And I was like oh no like I probably wouldn't use principal here. I just wanted to use

principal here. I just wanted to use this as an opportunity to try some of these new prototyping tools. And I

didn't even think about the answer. And

then weeks later he told me that's why that answer was why we hired you because it showed this like curiosity in where technology is going. And at that point it was very clear highfidelity prototyping is kind of what's next.

>> That curiosity is like what's what's impossible to to screen for with like or the hardest thing to screen for rather.

And so like anything you can do to like give these little signals of of the curiosity or the you know the internal drive makes it levels you up like as a candidate I'd say for sure. Well, we've

covered a lot of ground and I really appreciate how practical you've gotten in this conversation to land the plane.

Let's say someone crushes it in the one day and they are now brought on. They're

working full-time. It's been a month or two months or something like that. We

talked about the value of owning things end to end, but I'm wanting to go a little bit deeper or maybe touch on different elements of really just get at what success looks like as a designer at

Lovable. So, are there specific traits

Lovable. So, are there specific traits or behaviors that you would want to see that would make you feel really really good about hiring that person?

>> There's maybe two different things. So,

one is this this kind of generalist streak. So, you know, this ability to be

streak. So, you know, this ability to be extremely multi-dimensional and to work on things end to end. Living that

dayto-day, week to week, especially when you're working with incredibly smart people who might have a deferring point of view to you that you need to get get alongside and you know, stuff like that.

living that I' I'd say is kind of thing number one of like really, you know, seeing evidence of that day in day out, week in week out. There should be a few accomplishments. Normally people ship

accomplishments. Normally people ship something within the first day or two of joining and so hopefully like a month in there's like lots of different things to celebrate. So that's that's one thing.

celebrate. So that's that's one thing.

And the other is I think I would just characterize it as thoughtfulness.

Especially with Gen AI, it's you can make a small change that has like quite a large ripple effect unintentionally.

And so we we have actually an incredibly small amount of surface in the product.

And so that means that if you add some more surface to it, it can have quite quite an outsized impact on the overall shape of the product. And so you have to do it kind of carefully like we expect a small amount of surface to do quite a

lot. And then likewise in the core like

lot. And then likewise in the core like what we call our like core loop of you collaborate with AI to build things very small changes to the AI's behavior can have like very farreaching effects in

terms of what people can and can't do.

And so even though we try to move extraordinarily quickly because we think that's how we maximize our learning, we want people to be like thoughtful. And

especially with designers, designers often in our internal conversations are trying to hold like the yard stick for what does good look like? Also like how do we maintain integrity and trust from

everything from the brand level to the product level to you know what is the relationship that people have with our product? And so being incredibly

product? And so being incredibly thoughtful and trying to promote almost like integrity throughout both the brand and the product. I think if you're doing that as well in your first month, uh you're also doing an incredible job.

>> I love that. Well, Nad, super appreciate you coming on and pulling back the curtain on all things hiring and everything you're describing. Sounds

amazing. So, we're going to link the careers page in the show notes and thank you for coming on and talking with us today.

>> Thanks for having me. And also, we'd really love just more input on what other people are seeing as well. And so,

you know, we have our own biases, our own blind spots. We're trying to challenge them all of the time. And so

if there's other trends or or if you've listened to this and you think something's broken like fundamentally broken out of everything that we you know I've described in our process genuinely like uh input welcome and uh

we'll continue to evolve.

Before I let you go, I want to take just one minute to run [music] you through my favorite products because I'm constantly asked what's in my stack. Framer is how

I build websites. Genway is how I do research. Granola is how I take notes

research. Granola is how I take notes during [music] crit. Jitter is how I animate my designs. Lovable is how I build my ideas in code. [music]

Mobin is how I find design inspiration.

Paper is how I design like a creative.

And Raycast is my shortcut every step [music] of the way. Now, I've hand selected these companies so that I can do these episodes full-time. [music] So,

by far the number one way to support the show is to check them out. [music]

You can find the full list at dive.comclub/partners.

dive.comclub/partners.