How to get hired
Case studies, not screens
A UX portfolio that's a gallery of pretty app screens gets rejected quickly. What interviewers want is three case studies that show how you think:
- The problem: who the user was and what was going wrong, ideally with evidence (support tickets, interviews, app reviews, analytics).
- What you tried: sketches, wireframes, the options you dropped and why.
- What you shipped and what happened: the final flow in Figma, and a result, even a small one (fewer drop-offs at a step, a usability test where five of six users now finish the task).
If you have no client work, redesign a flow from a real Indian app you use: booking a train ticket, paying an electricity bill on UPI, filling a KYC form. Interview five people who use it, find where they get stuck, and fix that. Design for Indian conditions (low-end Android phones, slow networks, Hindi and regional-language users) and say so: it shows judgement.
The design exercise
Most companies run a design exercise after the portfolio review: a 48 to 72-hour take-home ("design the onboarding for a first-time investor") or a 60-minute live whiteboard challenge. They watch how you ask questions before drawing, define the user, sketch two or three directions, and explain trade-offs. Then comes a portfolio presentation where you walk a panel through one case study for 30 to 45 minutes and take hard questions. Practise that out loud.
Tools: Figma is near-universal now; Sketch and Adobe XD appear in older teams. Know auto-layout, components and variants, and how a design system works. Basic HTML and CSS, and knowing how your screens will be built, make developers trust you. Accessibility is increasingly checked in interviews: know the main WCAG rules (contrast, tap target size, labels for screen readers).
Routes in
- Design school: the M.Des at IITs and IISc through CEED (held once a year in January, with registration in October; check the site for the current cycle), the B.Des through UCEED, and NID programmes in interaction and information design. Campus placement from these is the strongest fresher route.
- From graphic design: the most common switch. Move into UI work at your current job (the website, an internal tool), learn Figma deeply, and build two UX case studies with research.
- From front-end development: developers who care about usability make strong UI and design-system designers; see the frontend guide for the side you'd be leaving.
- From psychology, HCI or research: UX researcher roles at larger product firms value interview and survey skills.
Short UX certificate courses help you learn the vocabulary; they don't replace case studies. Treat any course promising "guaranteed placement" with suspicion.
Agency, product or IT services
Design agencies give variety and speed, with many clients. Product companies (fintech, e-commerce, SaaS) give depth on one product and the best pay at senior levels. IT services firms and engineering companies hire UX designers for enterprise software and client projects, often with clear processes and slower decisions.
The ladder and where pay jumps
UI/UX Designer or Junior Product Designer, Product Designer, Senior Product Designer, then a split: Lead or Principal Designer (still designing) or Design Manager and Head of Design (running a team). The biggest jump comes at senior product designer, once you can own a product area end to end and work directly with product managers and engineers; the product manager guide shows the role you'll partner with.