The interview was a mess. It was the CEO (who is undoubtedly a genius) with their existing designer. I felt the CEO was very led by their existing designer who I felt was pretty inexperienced and had built a fiefdom for himself. This designer has a very engineering-first approach to design and was himself an engineer. I come from a very “designers shouldn’t be coders unless they’re specifically UI designers” point of view and tried to explain the rationale behind that. The existing designer wants a culture where everyone codes and didn’t engage at all in the conversation. For the record: I do code but I choose not to code as a designer in work because of the effect it can have on blue sky thinking. I wouldn’t build a culture where every subsequent designer is assessed on code. Both the CEO and the designer seemed confused by this and seemed as if they hadn’t even heard of the debate around this question. I felt as if the designer in question had been given a lot of autonomy at a young age and was probably a bit resentful of having to hire another designer and giving up some power. So he wanted to hire a mini-me who wouldn’t question any of his decisions. The CEO himself is a young guy but brilliant. I felt as if he has a lot of talent and ability to run the company but probably didn’t have much experience with hiring and therefore put a lot trust in his designer to lead it for him. Fair enough but in this case a disaster.