Hiring guide · Design
How to hire a
web designer.
Web designers blur with product designers and brand designers. The right hire depends on whether you need a strong front-end or someone who can lead brand alongside web.
Comp range$120k-$220k base depending on experience and engineering crossover.
Timeline6-12 weeks from search.
When to hire
Hire in-house
You're shipping multiple sites/year and have brand work to maintain.
When to outsource
Outsource to a studio
You ship one site every 18-24 months. Hiring two senior people for that is overkill.
Evaluation · 02
Signs of strong candidates.
Strong signals
- Strong portfolio with shipped, live, performant sites
- Can talk about CWV, accessibility, type systems
- Engineering crossover (HTML/CSS at minimum)
- Has worked across brand and web
- Has shipped responsive, motion-led, content-heavy work
Red flags
- ✗Portfolio is all unbuilt or screenshot-only work
- ✗No engineering crossover at all
- ✗Can't articulate trade-offs (perf vs delight)
- ✗All work looks the same — no range
- ✗Junior with senior pricing
Interview · 03
Questions to ask.
- Q1
Walk me through your most-difficult site project. What were the constraints?
- Q2
How do you balance motion with performance?
- Q3
When would you push back on a brief?
- Q4
Can you write CSS for this layout in real time?
- Q5
What's your relationship with engineering?
Considering a studio?
We bridge
to your hire.
We screen portfolios as part of recruiting engagements. If you're not ready to hire a web designer yet, brief us — we can fill the gap and help you hire later.
Brief us