i don't see many designer writeups for citadel so i'll share mine, even though i didn't get the offer. maybe it helps someone else calibrate.
found the role through linkedin. it was a product designer role embedded in one of their internal tooling teams, not client-facing. the job description was a bit generic but the recruiter explained in our first call that the team builds dashboards and decision-support tools for traders and risk analysts.
recruiter call: pretty conversational. they wanted to know my background with data-dense interfaces and whether i'd ever designed for expert users vs. everyday consumers. that framing came up multiple times throughout the process, so take note.
portfolio review (1 hour, with two designers): i walked through three projects. they let me pick the order. they were most interested in a trading analytics dashboard i'd worked on at my last job, which, not surprising. they asked detailed questions: why that information hierarchy, how did i handle the cases where data updated in real time, did i user test with the actual traders or just interpret requirements.
where i felt the gap: they pushed hard on how i collaborated with engineers during implementation. how did i handle cases where my design couldn't ship exactly as specced. i gave decent answers but i think they wanted someone with even more of a systems-thinking mindset, less visual craft.
design exercise (take-home, 3 days): given a hypothetical: redesign a simplified version of a position monitoring tool. they gave me a data model and a list of user needs. no figma template, start from scratch.
i spent probably 15 hours on it. went through three versions. submitted with a short doc explaining my decisions.
final round: presentation of the take-home plus two more behavioral rounds. one interviewer asked specifically about a time i'd advocated for a user need that the business initially didn't see value in. another asked how i handle feedback from stakeholders who aren't designers.
why i didn't get it: feedback was that my take-home was visually strong but the information architecture didn't prioritize the right things for the expert user scenario. in hindsight, i optimized for clarity in the general sense rather than speed-to-insight for someone who already knows the domain deeply. a real lesson.
overall: citadel takes design seriously for internal tools. if you've designed for expert users in finance, trading, or dense data environments, you're well positioned. if not, do a lot of reading about how professionals actually use these tools before the portfolio review.