The outsized role culture plays in attracting design talent | Figma Blog (opens in new tab)

Companies that attract strong design talent tend to cultivate cultures where designers feel valued, supported, and empowered. Figma’s research suggests that design culture directly influences hiring success and designer happiness, especially through strong operations, visible design leadership, and meaningful professional development. Recruiting also requires engaging designers in the communities and channels where they already connect.

Design Culture as a Hiring Advantage

• Companies such as Microsoft, Google, and Airbnb attract designers through established design principles, tools, processes, and respected teams.
• Organizations known for strong design cultures are 4.3 times more likely to report hiring success.
• Designers look for evidence that they will not have to repeatedly defend design’s value or fight for influence in business decisions.
• Public visibility matters:
  • Design leaders speaking at industry events
  • Teams publishing their perspectives and work
  • Designers being quoted or recognized externally
• When the broader design team—not only senior leadership—shares its work and experiences, it sends an even stronger signal.

The Role of Design Operations

• Design Operations helps teams work effectively by facilitating, organizing, and supporting designers.
• 83% of organizations successful at hiring had a Design Ops practice.
• Useful operational investments include:
  • Evaluating and improving design tools
  • Streamlining staffing and resourcing
  • Balancing project timelines, deliverables, and milestones
• Companies making these quality-of-life improvements are twice as likely to report successful hiring.

Meeting Designers Where They Are

• Posting a job on a general careers site is often insufficient, particularly for experienced designers and design leadership roles.
• Recruiters and hiring managers should build relationships with designers and participate in design communities before or beyond the hiring process.
• Effective recruiting requires understanding which Slack groups, specialized job boards, and professional communities are active and relevant.
• Examples include design-focused boards and communities such as Design Dept, Leaders of Awesomeness, and ADPlist.

A practical hiring strategy is to treat culture as part of the recruiting process itself: invest in designers’ daily experience, make design’s organizational influence visible, and engage authentically with the communities where design talent already participates.