I interviewed for an Associate Product Designer role at Toast, and honestly, the process was kind of exhausting. The final round was 4.5 hours of 1:1 interviews with different team members and for an associate level role, that felt like overkill. What made it worse was that after all that time and energy, I got a rejection with zero feedback. No explanation, just a “we chose someone else.” It felt pretty disappointing, especially since the interviews themselves actually went well and my experience aligned with the role. If you're early in your design career, I'd say think twice before going through a process like this, and join a company like this. There's a line between being thorough and just being overly demanding of candidates’ time.

The interview process includes an initial HR and Head of Product call 30 minutes each, followed by a 60 minutes portfolio presentation. The final stage involves five individual 30 minutes calls with each team member.