What is a UX/UI Designer at Aveva?

As a UX/UI Designer at Aveva, you are stepping into a role that bridges the gap between complex industrial engineering data and intuitive, user-centric experiences. Aveva is a global leader in industrial software, driving digital transformation for sectors like energy, manufacturing, and infrastructure. In this environment, design is not just about aesthetics; it is about safety, efficiency, and clarity in high-stakes operational environments.

Your impact in this position extends directly to the products that engineers, operators, and executives use to monitor digital twins, manage supply chains, and optimize massive industrial processes. You will take highly technical, data-dense workflows and distill them into accessible, scalable interfaces. This requires a deep appreciation for enterprise-grade complexity and a passion for solving intricate usability challenges.

Expect a role that demands strong cross-functional collaboration. You will not be designing in a silo. Instead, you will work closely with frontend developers, product managers, and subject matter experts to ensure your designs are both visionary and technically feasible. If you thrive on turning convoluted systems into streamlined user journeys, this role offers an incredible opportunity to influence software used on a global, industrial scale.

Getting Ready for Your Interviews

Preparing for the UX/UI Designer interview at Aveva requires more than just a polished portfolio. You need to demonstrate how you think, how you collaborate, and how you handle technical constraints.

To succeed, you should focus your preparation on these core evaluation criteria:

Design Rationale and Problem Solving – Interviewers want to see how you untangle complex, data-heavy problems. You must be able to clearly articulate the "why" behind your design decisions, showing how you balance user needs with business goals and technical limitations.

Cross-Functional Collaboration – Aveva places a heavy emphasis on teamwork across disciplines. You will be evaluated on your ability to communicate design concepts to non-designers, particularly engineering leads and product managers, and how well you incorporate their feedback.

Technical Feasibility and Adaptability – Because you will be designing for complex software architectures, an understanding of frontend constraints is critical. You must show that you can design practical solutions that developers can actually build without compromising the user experience.

Execution and Craft – Through portfolio reviews and take-home assignments, your actual design output will be scrutinized. Interviewers look for clean, scalable, and accessible UI patterns that fit within an enterprise software ecosystem.

Interview Process Overview

The interview process for a UX/UI Designer at Aveva is highly collaborative and often involves a mix of behavioral, technical, and practical evaluations. The process typically kicks off with an initial HR screen to align on your background, salary expectations, and general interest in the role. From there, the structure can vary slightly depending on the specific team and region, but it leans heavily into cross-functional interactions.

You should expect to speak with individuals outside of the core design team early in the process. It is common to have a technical interview with a lead frontend developer to assess your understanding of technical constraints and implementation. You may also have informal, informational chats with peers to gauge culture fit. As you progress, you will likely be asked to complete a take-home UX test, which you are usually given about a week to prepare.

The final stages involve a deeper dive with your prospective manager and a panel of cross-functional personnel. This stage is designed to see how you present your work, defend your decisions, and interact with the people you will be working alongside daily. The overall difficulty is generally considered manageable, provided you are well-prepared for the technical and cross-functional nuances.

This visual timeline outlines the typical progression from the initial recruiter screen through the final cross-functional panel and take-home assessment review. Use this to pace your preparation, ensuring your portfolio is ready for early technical screens and your presentation skills are sharpened for the final rounds. Note that the exact order of the take-home test and technical screens may shift based on the hiring manager's preference.

Deep Dive into Evaluation Areas

To excel in the Aveva interview, you must understand exactly what the interviewers are looking for in each phase of the evaluation. Here is a detailed breakdown of the core areas you will be tested on.

Cross-Functional Communication and Technical Alignment

Because Aveva builds complex industrial software, your designs must be technically viable. You will frequently interact with frontend developers and stakeholders outside the design team during the interview process. They are evaluating whether you understand how your designs translate into code and how well you accept technical pushback.

Be ready to go over:

• Developer Handoff – How you prepare files, document states, and communicate interactions to engineering teams.
• Handling Technical Constraints – How you pivot your design when an engineer tells you a specific feature is too complex or costly to build.
• Explaining Design to Non-Designers – Your ability to strip away design jargon and explain the business or user value of a UI change to product managers or domain experts.
• Advanced concepts (less common) – Familiarity with specific frontend frameworks (like React or Angular) and how component libraries impact your design choices.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Tell me about a time you designed a feature that a developer said was impossible to build. How did you resolve it?"
• "How do you ensure your designs are implemented accurately by the engineering team?"
• "Explain your rationale for this portfolio piece as if I were a product manager with no design background."

The UX Design Assessment

Aveva frequently utilizes a take-home UX test to evaluate your practical skills. You are typically given about a week to complete this assignment. The goal is not just to see a pretty final interface, but to understand your entire process from discovery to high-fidelity execution.

Be ready to go over:

• Research and Assumptions – How you define the problem space and the assumptions you make when user data is not readily available.
• Information Architecture – How you organize complex workflows and data structures logically.
• Prototyping and Interaction – Demonstrating how the user navigates through your proposed solution, focusing on micro-interactions and feedback loops.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Walk us through the steps you took to arrive at this final design for the assessment."
• "What alternative solutions did you consider during this UX test, and why did you discard them?"
• "If you had two more weeks to work on this assignment, what would you add or change?"

Portfolio and Domain Adaptability

Your portfolio is the foundation of your interview. However, Aveva interviewers are looking for specific types of experience. They want to see how you handle dense information, complex user journeys, and enterprise-level tools.

Be ready to go over:

• Enterprise vs. Consumer Design – Highlighting projects where you designed for specialized users (e.g., engineers, analysts) rather than general consumers.
• Data Visualization – Showcasing how you present large datasets, charts, or operational dashboards clearly.
• Impact and Metrics – Demonstrating how your design decisions positively impacted user efficiency, error rates, or business outcomes.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Show me a project where you had to simplify a highly complex workflow for a specialized user."
• "How did you measure the success of the design in this portfolio piece?"
• "Walk me through a time when user testing completely changed your initial design direction."

Key Responsibilities

As a UX/UI Designer at Aveva, your day-to-day work will revolve around simplifying complexity. You will be responsible for leading the design of features for sophisticated software platforms used in industrial environments. This involves conducting user research, mapping out complex user journeys, and translating those into intuitive wireframes and high-fidelity prototypes.

Collaboration is a massive part of the role. You will spend a significant portion of your week in syncs with product managers to define requirements and with frontend developers to ensure smooth implementation. You will act as the voice of the user in these meetings, advocating for best practices in accessibility and usability while balancing the realities of technical debt and release schedules.

Additionally, you will contribute to and help maintain Aveva's design system. This means ensuring consistency across various modules of a product, creating reusable components, and documenting design guidelines. You will frequently present your work to cross-functional teams, defending your design choices with data, research, and logical rationale.

Role Requirements & Qualifications

To be a competitive candidate for the UX/UI Designer position at Aveva, you need a blend of strong visual craft, systems thinking, and technical empathy. The company looks for designers who can hit the ground running in a complex enterprise environment.

• Must-have skills – Expert proficiency in industry-standard design tools (Figma is paramount). Strong background in designing complex, data-heavy web or desktop applications. Deep understanding of user-centered design principles, wireframing, and rapid prototyping.
• Experience level – Typically requires 3+ years of experience in UX/UI design, preferably within B2B, enterprise software, SaaS, or industrial technology sectors. A strong portfolio demonstrating end-to-end design processes is mandatory.
• Soft skills – Exceptional communication and presentation skills. The ability to articulate design logic clearly to non-designers and technical stakeholders. High adaptability and a collaborative, ego-free approach to feedback.
• Nice-to-have skills – Working knowledge of HTML, CSS, and basic JavaScript to better collaborate with frontend teams. Experience with data visualization tools or designing for 3D/digital twin environments. Familiarity with Agile development methodologies.

Common Interview Questions

The questions you face at Aveva will test both your hard design skills and your ability to navigate team dynamics. While the exact questions will vary based on your interviewers, the themes remain consistent. Focus on understanding the intent behind these questions rather than memorizing answers.

Portfolio & Process

These questions evaluate your design methodology, how you approach ambiguity, and your ability to deliver tangible results.

• Walk me through a project in your portfolio that dealt with a highly complex user workflow.
• How do you know when a design is "done" and ready for handoff?
• Describe your process for gathering user feedback when access to actual users is limited.
• Tell me about a time a project failed or did not meet expectations. What did you learn?
• How do you balance business requirements with user needs when they conflict?

Cross-Functional Collaboration & Technical Constraints

These questions, often asked by frontend leads or product managers, test your ability to work outside the design silo.

• Tell me about a time you disagreed with an engineer about a feature's implementation. How did you handle it?
• How do you document your designs to ensure a smooth handoff to the development team?
• Describe a situation where you had to compromise on your ideal design due to technical constraints.
• How do you explain the value of a specific UX improvement to a stakeholder who only cares about the project deadline?
• What is your familiarity with frontend development, and how does it influence your design decisions?

Behavioral & Motivation

These questions assess your culture fit, your interest in the industrial software space, and your professional drive.

• Why are you interested in joining Aveva, and what draws you to industrial/enterprise software?
• Tell me about a time you had to adapt quickly to a significant change in project scope.
• Describe an instance where you received harsh or unexpected criticism on your design. How did you react?
• How do you stay updated with the latest design trends and technologies?
• Tell me about a time you took the initiative to improve a process within your team.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How difficult is the interview process for a UX/UI Designer at Aveva? Candidates generally rate the overall process as average to slightly easy in terms of pressure, but the technical questions from frontend developers can be surprisingly rigorous. Expect a conversational tone, but be prepared to rigorously defend your design decisions and demonstrate technical feasibility.

Q: What should I expect from the UX take-home test? You will typically be given a prompt related to data visualization or complex workflow management and allowed about a week to complete it. Focus heavily on your process, information architecture, and the rationale behind your choices, rather than just delivering high-fidelity visuals.

Q: Will I only be interviewed by other designers? No. A defining characteristic of the Aveva process is cross-functional exposure. You will likely interview with frontend developers, product managers, and sometimes personnel entirely outside of the product organization to assess your communication skills.

Q: How important is enterprise software experience for this role? While not strictly mandatory, it is highly valued. Aveva builds complex, data-dense industrial tools. If your background is entirely in consumer mobile apps, you will need to work harder in your portfolio presentation to prove you can handle enterprise-level complexity.

Q: What is the typical timeline from the first screen to an offer? The process usually takes between three to five weeks, depending on how quickly you complete the take-home assignment and the scheduling availability of the cross-functional interview panel.

Other General Tips

• Know Your Frontend Basics: You do not need to write code, but you must understand how CSS flexbox/grid works, how states are managed, and what makes a component easily reusable. Frontend developers at Aveva will test your technical empathy.
• Nail the "Why": Never present a design in your portfolio or the take-home test without explaining why you made that choice. "Because it looks better" is not an acceptable answer; tie it back to user efficiency or cognitive load.
• Prepare for Non-Design Audiences: Practice explaining your portfolio pieces to friends or colleagues who do not work in design. You must prove to Aveva that you can communicate effectively with stakeholders who don't speak UX jargon.
• Embrace the Complexity: Show enthusiasm for the industrial space. Aveva deals with digital twins, SCADA systems, and massive engineering datasets. Demonstrate that you are excited by the challenge of making sense of massive amounts of data.

Summary & Next Steps

Securing a UX/UI Designer role at Aveva is a fantastic opportunity to work at the intersection of design, engineering, and global industrial transformation. You will be tackling design challenges that have a massive, tangible impact on how critical infrastructure and enterprise systems operate. The work is complex, rewarding, and highly collaborative.

To succeed, focus your preparation on demonstrating a structured problem-solving approach. Ensure your portfolio highlights your ability to distill dense information into clear interfaces. Practice articulating your design rationale to both technical and non-technical audiences, and be ready to showcase your skills practically through the take-home assessment. Remember that your ability to collaborate with frontend developers is just as important as your visual design skills.

This compensation data provides a baseline for what you can expect in terms of salary for the UX/UI Designer role. Use this information to anchor your expectations during the initial recruiter screen and to negotiate confidently if an offer is extended. Keep in mind that exact figures will vary based on your location and total years of experience.

Approach this process with confidence. Your unique perspective as a designer is exactly what complex engineering organizations need to build better products. For more detailed insights, peer experiences, and preparation tools, continue exploring resources on Dataford. Good luck with your preparation—you have the skills and the strategy to excel in these interviews!