Figma Software Engineer Interview Guide

Figma is one of the fastest growing startups in the design space, and has radically changed how engineers and designers work with designs.

Below is our guide on how to ace the Figma software engineer interview. Read on to understand the types of questions asked and the different interview stages at Figma to put your best foot forward in the interview.

Interview Process

Typically, Figma's software engineer interview process involves four stages:

• Recruiter screen
• Coding assignment
• Onsite
• Reference check

Recruiter Screen

The recruiter phone screen at Figma is designed to screen out candidates for culture fit.

To prepare for the Figma recruiter screen, be sure to review your resume to speak from it, and be sure to research a bit more about Figma, like their company mission.

Since Figma uses this interview to screen candidates for culture fit, it's critical to consider Figma's three values:

1. Have fun.
2. Be bold.
3. Foster inclusivity.

Think about how these values apply to your past experiences.

The number one question to prepare here is: Why would you want to work at Figma? Be honest and express your passion for working at the company.

Technical Screen

The technical screen interview involves a practical coding question and is conducted virtually.

A recent interviewee applying for a frontend software engineer role at Figma shared with Exponent that this technical screen was quite long and more challenging than expected.

Onsite

The onsite Figma software engineer interview consists of five rounds:

• a non-technical culture round focused on behavioral questions
• a non-technical deep-dive round
• a system design round
• 2 coding rounds

While the onsite typically takes place over the course of a single day, one candidate reports that Figma is open to scheduling them across multiple days if need be.

Below, we'll discuss specifics on how to prepare for each of these rounds, but we generally recommend using Figma significantly before the interview so you're familiar with details and specific questions you may be asked that will be pertinent to the company.

After the on-site interview, you'll have the opportunity to ask the Figma team more questions to ensure there's a good fit before the offer stage.

Culture

Figma strongly emphasizes culture in their software engineer interviews, which is why it's critical to review and reflect on Figma's values before your interview. Consider how your own experiences and specific examples tie into the values that Figma upholds.

Deep-dive Interview

This deep-dive interview is one of the most heavily weighted in the evaluation process and will be conducted by your future manager. In this interview, you'll do a deep-dive on your past experience and discuss both technical and non-technical details of a previous engineering problem that you've solved.

Again, this is a great opportunity to demonstrate your alignment with Figma's values, and the technical complexity of a project that you've worked on before.

System Design

Figma's software engineer design interview questions can seem daunting, since they involve taking real-world problems and breaking them down into small components.

The best way to prepare for system design interviews is to watch our practice system design interviews like this one on Facebook's news feed, and try your hand at some practice system design questions in our interview question database.

Coding

Be sure to review concepts like hash tables and linked lists before your interview.

One way to shine in these interviews is to always mention and consider edge cases. Is there a particularly tough "worst-case" scenario for one of the data structure's implementations? How might a certain data structure outperform another if we expect the input data to already be sorted? Considering questions like these and "zooming out" to think about the broader implications of certain data structure selections will elevate your interview answer.

To prepare for these interviews, we recommend reviewing our data structures and algorithms modules in our software engineering course and practicing data structures questions in our interview question database.