DON'T bother applying unless you are russian/speak russian. The process consisted of one call with a recruiter, then a technical interview. The first question they asked was, if I speak russian during the technical interview, which was conducted with 2 team members. They then said, that they talk in russian to each other. I had to ask, if the working language is english, to which they said yes, and we continued in english, without them really introducing themselves. It was an unpleasant experience, they seemed quite upset that I don't speak any russian. The interview was very extensive and they wanted to know everything about my experience, going in depths of different design areas, that were not mentioned in the job post. They were not aware themselves of some design areas, that they were asking about, such as accessibility, which is quite standard in UX. When I received the feedback, they had changed the position title, to a UX/UI Designer, which seems a bit suspicious.

Overview - The process seemed ok initially but things turned south even after clearing the whiteboarding round. Gave me a feeling of in team ego clash and a lack of trust amongst the hiring team as well. Seems like a toxic work place. You can feel the ego in the "#interactions" with the interviewers. Process - The rounds consisted of : 1. An introductory round - Where you share your Portfolio / Case study presentation in depth. 2. A whiteboarding round - Where you have to select a problem statement and demonstrate your thought process in creating a solution live. 3. Personal interview - Which didn't really feel like one. It was again a full process case study review. Additionally I was asked to add more material and provide more case studies within two days as it needs to be shared with clients. Key moments - A problem statement never starts with "How do we". (A senior designer) "I have not seen your session recordings yet will see and decide". "In EPAM we can add our projects to personal portfolios" Concerns: 1. Please don't push the agenda of immediate joining if the recruitment teams themselves are working in silos. 2. As Sr designers we often work on client laptops loaded with DLPs there is no scope for us to extract in detail documentation even if that's not the norm In EPAM. 3. If you have doubts with someone's candidature even after going through an hour of successful whiteboarding session all you need to know him/her better is ask the relevant questions in given technical rounds. 4. If there is a lack of trust amongst your recruitment teams, kindly let them take a combined session. Saves time. 5. Asking for additional case studies at the end of an interview process is extremely unprofessional. 6. No updates from the team even after submitting additional work. Conclusion Every interview engagement is an effort for both the parties which involves time. A dysfunctional hiring process is the last thing I want to experience from a Ux team that seems to emphasize on "Empathy and IA ". Big red flag.