Matt Huang on YouTube · Open on YouTube
Interview prep · Lesson 51 of 99 · 32 min video, then about 3 hours of practice
Behavioural and cross-functional rounds
After this you can answer 'tell me about a time…' with a structured, specific story, and hold your own with a PM and an engineer.
Why it matters
Designers routinely under-prepare this and lose offers on it. Prepare five or six real stories in STAR form (a disagreement with a PM, feedback you resisted and later accepted, something you shipped that failed, a constraint that forced a rethink) and practise them aloud until they are 90 seconds, not five minutes. Cross-functional rounds test whether people want to work with you: can you explain a design decision to an engineer in their terms, can you disagree without escalating. Trap: stories with no conflict and no specifics. 'We collaborated well' tells the interviewer nothing.
How to use this resource
Cuts through the STAR cargo-culting to what interviewers are actually listening for. Thirty minutes that will save you several rounds.