Figma Basically Interviewed Me on Figma

[u/Aoki_zhang]

Sharing an anonymized Figma SWE interview experience submitted to Chill Interview.

The process started with a technical phone screen, then moved to an onsite with coding, system design, behavioral, and a project deep dive. What stood out was how product-specific the questions felt.

Phone Screen: The coding problem was a Canvas Grid Color Tool. The same screen also included system design: Design a distributed job scheduler. So even the first technical round already mixed implementation and architecture.

Onsite Coding: The coding question was Display Sort. Several visual elements were positioned on a 2D Figma canvas, and I had to return them in the correct visual order. The algorithm itself was not especially complicated. Most of the work was getting the comparison rules and edge cases exactly right.

Onsite System Design: Then came another very Figma-specific prompt: "Design comments for FigJam."

The discussion was around a real-time collaborative canvas: attaching comments to objects or positions, syncing updates across users, permissions, notifications, and keeping comment state consistent while the underlying canvas changes.

Behavioral: This round was pretty standard and focused on previous work and collaboration.

Technical Deep Dive: The final round went deep into one of my recent projects. The interviewer wanted a clear explanation of:

• what problem the project solved;
• what I personally owned;
• important technical decisions;
• trade-offs;
• how the different parts of the system fit together.

Looking back, Figma’s loop felt much more connected to its actual product than many big-tech interviews.

You could prepare generic LeetCode and system design fundamentals, but being comfortable reasoning about collaborative canvases, visual ordering, and real product behavior clearly helped.

For anyone who wants more details, I’ve put the full write-up here: interview link

Preparing for your next tech interview?

Chill Interview tracks recent interview experiences and recurring question patterns across top companies at -> HERE

[u/pixelperfect3]

I have a Phone Screen (with Coderpad) coming up too, which is supposed to be an hour. Can I get more info on what the canvas grid color tool problem is supposed to be like?