Recruitment process

Applying to Significa has three steps. We read your application, then meet you for a technical interview and a culture alignment interview, with a challenge in between for design and development roles, only if we need one.

Your main point of contact is the manager of the department you're applying to, who runs the process from start to finish. We're an office-first team, so all interviews happen in person at our studio in Porto, unless we've agreed otherwise.

Who you meet depends on the role, but you'll meet members of our leadership team at some point in the process.

Application received

We aim to get back to everyone within ten working days, whatever the answer. There's no call at this stage: we look at what you send us, carefully, and decide from that.

What we look at:

• Your work. For design roles, your portfolio is the main thing: we want 2–3 product projects that show your process and reasoning: the problem, the options you weighed, the decisions you made and what happened next. We open every link, including the ones in your CV.

• Your CV and your message. A message written for us tells us far more than a general one.

• Eligibility. You need to be able to work in Portugal (we don't sponsor visas), and we're an office-first team in Porto, so we'll want to know you can be here.

• Any challenge you've already done. If you've taken on one of our challenges and sent us the link, we'll review it and reply with feedback on it specifically.

If we don't move forward, we tell you why and give you at least one concrete thing to take into your next application.

Phase 1, the technical interview

This one is about how you think and work in your field. We care less about polished answers than about hearing your approach, your reasoning and how you get from a messy problem to a decision.

What to expect:

• Your approach. How you frame a problem, what you look for first, and how you decide between options.

• A walk through your work. We may ask you to take us through a project from your portfolio or past work. Pick one you know inside out, including the parts that didn't go to plan.

• Your questions. It's as much for you to work out whether we're right for you as the other way round.

It usually takes between 45 minutes and an hour. We'll also talk about your expectations, including salary. It's better to find out early if we're on different planets.

Challenges

Challenges are for design and development roles, and not everyone gets one. We use one when the technical interview leaves us with an open question about your skills, and we'd rather see the work than guess.

• What it is: a small piece of work, such as our U.I. challenge or one of our engineering challenges, that shouldn't take more than a few hours.

• What we look at: how you approach it as much as the result. Notes on your reasoning are always welcome.

• What you get back: personal, specific feedback on your challenge, whatever happens next. A challenge is a real investment of your time, and we treat it that way.

The same goes for anyone who takes on one of our challenges without being asked. We'll review it and reply to it properly, never with a generic email.

As our Mission and values say, no one should work for free, so challenges stay small. Personal feedback is our side of the trade for the time you put in.

Phase 2, the culture alignment interview

The final interview is about how you'll work with us day to day. Your skills got you here; this is where we find out how we'd work together.

Up to three people reach this final interview. Like the first, it usually takes between 45 minutes and an hour.

We'll talk about:

• The wider team. How you work with people across disciplines, from designers and developers to project managers, and how you give and take feedback.

• Clients. Your experience presenting work, defending decisions and handling pushback.

• Deadlines. How you plan, what you do when something slips, and how you keep quality up under pressure.

• You. What motivates you, what you want to grow into, and what you'd want from us.

There's room at the end for your questions, and for your feedback on the process itself.

Celebrations and commiserations

We decide as a team after the culture alignment interview, and we tell you either way. If it's a yes, we send the contract and paperwork before onboarding.

Our commitments at every stage:

• You always hear back. No silence, no ghosting.

• You get the reason. A real one, from the people who reviewed you, plus at least one practical thing to take away.

• Challenges get personal feedback. If you've done one, the reply addresses it specifically.

• Nothing generic. Every email uses your name and refers to your actual work.

How we use AI in recruitment

Our recruitment process is led by people, and we use AI to help. A person on our team reviews every application, makes every decision and approves every email before it's sent.

When we open a design role, we usually receive around 200 applications. We can check out every one of them properly. What we can't do on our own is write detailed, individual feedback for every person, from those who don't pass screening through to the person we hire. AI makes that possible.

What AI does:

• Turns our notes into feedback. Our reviewers write notes on each application, and AI helps us turn them into clear, thorough feedback written for you.

What AI doesn't do:

• Decide who moves forward. People make every decision.

• Judge the craft in your work. Feedback on the craft in your work, like the visual and UI decisions in a design portfolio, is written by people on our team.

• Send anything on its own. Every email is read and approved by a person on our team.

The result: everyone who applies gets a real reason and something useful to take away, not a template.

Tips for a strong application

The portfolio does most of the talking, so give it the most care.

1. Build your own site. A portfolio you've designed and built yourself tells us a lot before we open a single project. Figma files, PDFs and Behance pages tend to hide your work rather than show it.

2. Show 2–3 product projects, in depth. Fewer projects with real reasoning beat a long gallery of final screens.

3. Tell us how you got there. The problem, what you tried, what you dropped, and why. That's what we'll ask about in the technical interview anyway.

4. Make sure every link works. We open them all. A private page or a missing password means we can't see your work.

5. Write the message for us. Tell us what you'd bring to Significa specifically, in a few honest lines.