IMP Software interview questions

The people were lovely, and it seemed there is a nice culture there. However, there seemed to be a few strange quirks/red flags. I was off-put by a need to do a Thrive Tech cognitive test to see how well I could recognize patterns in random images and decipher nonsensical paragraphs. However, I figured "why not" - and followed through on completing this task. Maybe mostly because of my fascination of how bizarre this process/questions were. As a designer, another red flag is how the company seems heavily developer driven. Even when speaking to product teams, they insinuated that they had to work really hard to get the designer role approved and that there would be a lot work to managing/educating development teams. So it seems they want someone to take control of design.. but also not stop developers from doing what they want to do. That sounds like an upper-management problem that should be honest with themselves. It is a business strategy to be product rather than a feature driven business (as the interviewers implied that they were.) Even a super mega lead designer cannot change culture without that support from the top. My rejection was based on the fact that I didn't speak enough about engaging with development teams, even though the role was advertised as someone who can help unify different products that were being developed. Of course in my career as a designer, I've had to work across different teams and engineering wasn't one that I just decidedly ignored - especially with my background in SaaS. Ultimately, I feel fortunate that I was rejected - as I think it would have just ended up spending more time dealing with egos and establishing/fighting process on product/design/engineering ownership rather than getting on with the work.

I was quickly invited to a screening interview with a recruiter. The interview was quite generic, she asked me about each role from my CV. I've got positive vibes and was super excited to be invited to another round (there were 2 more rounds - 1 with the Head of Product and Product Owner and then 2 - A Call with the Co-founder) as I felt like the role was a perfect fit for my experience. However, I haven't heard back for almost 2 weeks! I had to follow up a couple of times before I finally heard back. Their feedback was related to my experience (which I found bizarre because they already saw my experience in my CV?) and it sounded very much like they changed their requirements mid-way - now expecting someone to have fintech experience,which was never mentioned before. What’s more frustrating is that I never even got the chance to present my work - which was supposed to be part of the second round. Respectfully, I don’t believe a recruiter should be making assessments on someone's design experience without the necessary expertise. Additionally, expecting one designer to support 30+ JUNIOR developers raises concerns about the role’s workload and feasibility. Overall, a disappointing experience, but I'm glad I dodged the bullet. I wouldn’t recommend applying to IMP Software!