# Snap hires designers for range and the story behind their work

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/snap-hires-designers-for-range-and-the-story-behind-their/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Evan Spiegel](https://realalpha.app/people/evan-spiegel/) · Evan Spiegel is co-founder and CEO of Snap. · Co-founded Snapchat at Stanford and has led Snap as CEO since 2011, building Stories and the Specs AR glasses.
- Host: [Lenny Rachitsky](https://realalpha.app/people/lenny-rachitsky/) · Host, Lenny's Podcast · Spent seven years at Airbnb; his product newsletter has over 1M subscribers.
- Show: Lenny's Podcast
- Episode: [How to win when software is not a moat | Evan Spiegel (Snapchat CEO)](https://realalpha.app/v/-7Yol5vX5xw/), Apr 26, 2026
- Moment: 39:35 to 44:26 of the episode (5 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/snap-hires-designers-for-range-and-the-story-behind-their/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/-7Yol5vX5xw/?t=2375

## Quote

> “we make all of our you know hiring decisions just **based off portfolio** so like that's really all we want to see.”
> — [Evan Spiegel](https://realalpha.app/people/evan-spiegel/) at [39:45](https://realalpha.app/v/-7Yol5vX5xw/?t=2385) · Lenny's Podcast

## Takeaways

1. Snap bases design hiring decisions on portfolios.
2. A wide range of work signals responsiveness to different needs.
3. Candidates explain why they made a project and what they learned.

## About this segment

Evan Spiegel says Snap evaluates designers through their portfolios, looking for range and the reasoning behind the work. The approach prioritizes adaptability and learning over a signature style or résumé.

From “How to win when software is not a moat | Evan Spiegel (Snapchat CEO)”, Apr 26, 2026. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/-7Yol5vX5xw/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[39:44](https://realalpha.app/v/-7Yol5vX5xw/?t=2384) approving everything and just kind of like the right hand to evan is there anything in particular you look for to when you're hiring these designers yeah there's a couple really important things uh first of all we make all of our you know hiring decisions just based off portfolio so like that's really all we want to see. I really don't care where you've worked or your level of experience. In fact, most people join our design team right out of school, not from a big tech company or something like that. And really what I'm focused on is understanding the portfolio. And I want to see two things from the portfolio. The first is a really wide range. And that is the difference between art and design. So there are lots of people who have a very distinct style. They have a very distinct way of building things and creating things. That really is art. They're

[40:29](https://realalpha.app/v/-7Yol5vX5xw/?t=2429) expressing themselves and their own personal point of view on the world. And it can be very beautiful, but it is not design. Design is really about, you know, empathizing with your customer, empathizing with your audience, your viewer, whoever it is, and then building something that really resonates with them. And that means you need to have an extraordinary amount of range. You've got to be able to build and create things that look totally different. So when I'm going through a portfolio, you know, the first thing I'm looking for is like, are they building stuff that all looks the same?

[40:57](https://realalpha.app/v/-7Yol5vX5xw/?t=2457) Or are they building things that look really different, right? That, you know, that have been responsive to different sets of needs. And that's how I know that they're a designer and not just an artist. And then, you know, the other thing I want to understand, and, you know, typically, you know, I interview every designer that joins our team. And what I want to understand is why and the story behind the work that they created.

[41:19](https://realalpha.app/v/-7Yol5vX5xw/?t=2479) So typically what I'll do is just say, hey, you know, pick something in your portfolio, anything you feel strongly about. You know, you could love it, hate it. I don't care. You just have to feel strongly about it. And just tell me the story of why you made it and what you learned through that process. And I think pretty quickly you can understand someone's process in terms of building something or inventing something. How do they go about it? And I'm really trying to make sure that we have people who have different ways of doing that on our team. One of the strengths of our design team has been that people come from lots of different backgrounds. They might come from 3D animation or they might come from electrical engineering. And that's a real strength to have folks who see the world differently and have

[41:56](https://realalpha.app/v/-7Yol5vX5xw/?t=2516) totally different sets of skills. So as I was preparing for this chat, I talked to a bunch of people that worked at Snap over the years, and I've integrated their ideas throughout already. But one that came up that I thought was interesting is I hear that you spent a lot of time developing young design talent, and that's a big focus of yours. Can you just talk about how you develop young design talent? Well, I think the number one way to develop, uh, young design talent is just help them make lots of stuff and get a lot of feedback from, you know, whether it's our customers or, you know, their teammates or, you know, myself, uh, directly. And so one of the things that we do that's different at Snap is, you know, your first day that you join the design team, you present work. And it's really, really important that,

[42:39](https://realalpha.app/v/-7Yol5vX5xw/?t=2559) you know, the first day that you show up on the team, you're making things. And that just sets the tone for the rest of your, you know, experience on the design team and growth on the, on the design team, because really, that's what we're all about. And so I think folks who can get comfortable very quickly in that velocity of making things, that's where, you know, the ego sort of melts away. Because, you know, when you're creating 1000 new ideas, who cares that most of them are not great ideas, that's totally fine, right? What we want to get rid of is that sense of, you know, preciousness that people have around ideas where they feel like, oh, I've got this one really perfect, great idea. And if people don't love it, that means that I'm not a great designer it's like no that's that's ridiculous we we all uh you know need to just create as many

[43:19](https://realalpha.app/v/-7Yol5vX5xw/?t=2599) ideas as possible that will lead us to you know some really great ideas hopefully over time and so i think for young designers that establishing that velocity of of ideation very early on is really really important and then the other thing we do that i i think is different i although i don't know i've never really worked anywhere else uh you know is is um we don't allow designers to get stuck on specific products or verticals for very long. We like to make sure people are rotating through different parts of the product to bring new ideas and fresh perspectives and also to avoid getting bored. If you're a great designer and you're stuck designing the chat experience for three years, how boring is that? It's really exciting. I think it snaps.

[44:00](https://realalpha.app/v/-7Yol5vX5xw/?t=2640) to be able to work across all of these, you know, highly engaged product services. We have one of the largest maps in the world. We have this huge, you know, the biggest augmented reality platform. Like these are really exciting opportunities for designers. And it's important that we are rotating them across, you know, all of these different products so they're not getting stuck. I had Jenny Nguyen on the podcast.