Just finished Notion's design interview process and wanted to write it up while it's fresh. Applied for a product designer role, mid-senior level.
First call was with the recruiter, pretty standard. Then a 45-min conversation with the hiring manager. That one felt more like a conversation than an interview, she was genuinely curious about my process and the kinds of products I find interesting. Red flag if you only have surface-level answers about why you like Notion.
The take-home was real work. They gave me a prompt around improving a feature in an existing product (not Notion specifically) and asked for a case study presentation. I spent maybe 10-12 hours on it. They're not trying to get free work, the prompt is designed to see how you think, but I could tell they'd given it serious thought.
Onsite was three interviews back to back over Zoom. One deep portfolio dive, one craft/execution round, one cross-functional collaboration round. The portfolio one went way over time because we got into a real discussion about tradeoffs. That felt good.
They cared a lot about taste. Not trend-following, actual taste. If your portfolio is polished but safe, I think that hurts you here.
Got the offer. Took 4.5 weeks total from application to offer letter.