What is a UX/UI Designer at Duke Energy?

As a UX/UI Designer at Duke Energy, you are at the forefront of the company’s digital transformation. Duke Energy is one of the largest electric power holding companies in the United States, and its transition toward cleaner energy and modernized grid operations relies heavily on intuitive, efficient digital experiences. In this role, you are not just designing screens; you are shaping how millions of customers interact with their energy usage, pay their bills, and report outages, while also streamlining the complex internal tools used by grid operators and field technicians.

The impact of this position is massive. You will often work within specialized innovation groups, such as the Lighthouse team, which operates as an internal digital product agency driving modernization across the enterprise. This means you will tackle high-scale, complex usability problems that directly affect both customer satisfaction and operational efficiency. The work demands a delicate balance between modern design principles and the stringent accessibility and regulatory requirements of the utility sector.

Expect a role that challenges you to be both a creator and an educator. Because Duke Energy is a legacy enterprise evolving its digital maturity, you will frequently collaborate with stakeholders who may be new to the user-centered design process. Your ability to advocate for the user, clearly articulate your design decisions, and navigate enterprise ambiguity will be just as critical as your craft in interaction design and visual communication.

Common Interview Questions

While the exact questions will vary based on your interviewers and the specific product team you are interviewing for, understanding the patterns will help you prepare effectively. The questions below reflect the core themes evaluated during the Duke Energy process.

Portfolio and Past Experience

These questions test your ability to articulate your past impact and explain your design rationale clearly.

• Walk me through a project in your portfolio that you are most proud of. What was your specific role?
• Tell me about a time a project did not go as planned. What did you learn from the experience?
• How do you balance business goals with user needs when they are in conflict?
• Explain a time when you had to design for a highly technical or complex user base.

Design Process and Whiteboarding

These prompts evaluate your real-time problem-solving skills and how you structure your thoughts under pressure.

• Design an ATM interface specifically for kids. (A known historical prompt for this role).
• How would you approach redesigning a legacy internal tool that employees complain is too hard to use?
• Walk me through your process for conducting user research when you have a very limited budget and timeline.
• What metrics do you look at to determine if a design change was successful?

Behavioral and Stakeholder Management

These questions assess your cultural fit, adaptability, and ability to navigate a large enterprise environment.

• Tell me about a time you had to explain a complex UX concept to a stakeholder who had no design background.
• Describe a situation where you received harsh or unconstructive feedback on your designs. How did you handle it?
• How do you manage your time and prioritize tasks when assigned to multiple projects simultaneously?
• Tell me about a time you had to compromise on a design due to technical constraints.

Getting Ready for Your Interviews

Preparing for a UX/UI design interview at Duke Energy requires more than just polishing your portfolio. You must demonstrate a holistic understanding of the product development lifecycle and an ability to thrive in a heavily cross-functional environment.

Design Process and Problem-Solving – Interviewers want to see how you untangle complex, ambiguous problems. You will be evaluated on your ability to break down a prompt, ask clarifying questions, identify user needs, and iterate toward a logical solution, often in a live or collaborative setting.

User-Centric Advocacy – As a designer in a utility company, you must champion the user. You will be assessed on how well you incorporate user research, accessibility standards, and empathy into your design decisions, especially when balancing those needs against technical or business constraints.

Communication and Stakeholder Management – You will frequently work with engineering partners, product managers, and business leaders. Strong candidates demonstrate the ability to articulate their design rationale clearly and guide non-designers through the UX process without relying on industry jargon.

Adaptability and Collaboration – Enterprise environments can be unpredictable. Evaluators look for candidates who remain flexible when requirements shift and who can collaborate effectively with diverse teams, whether during a structured design sprint or an impromptu whiteboarding session.

Interview Process Overview

The interview process for a UX/UI Designer at Duke Energy is generally straightforward but can vary depending on the specific team, such as the Lighthouse digital innovation group. Your journey typically begins with a brief recruiter screening. This initial call is highly logistical, focusing on your background, compensation expectations, and crucial administrative details like your visa status and work authorization.

If you move forward, you will typically enter a series of one-on-one interviews. Expect around three individual sessions with design peers, product managers, and engineering leads. These conversations will blend behavioral questions with deep dives into your portfolio. Be prepared for a relaxed but probing environment; some hiring managers may be relatively new to their roles or to the specific UX discipline, so your ability to clearly explain your impact is vital.

The final stage is often a live user problem exercise or whiteboarding challenge. In some instances, this is conducted as a collaborative exercise where multiple candidates work through a prompt together—such as designing an interface for a specific demographic. This stage tests not only your design thinking but also how you collaborate, communicate, and lead under pressure.

The visual timeline above outlines the typical progression from the initial recruiter screen to the final collaborative design challenge. Use this roadmap to pace your preparation, ensuring your portfolio is ready for the one-on-one deep dives and your whiteboarding skills are sharp for the final exercise. Note that timelines can occasionally stretch, so patience and proactive follow-ups are key.

Deep Dive into Evaluation Areas

To succeed in your interviews, you need to understand exactly what the hiring team is looking for across several core competencies. Below is a breakdown of the primary evaluation areas.

Interaction Design and Prototyping

Your core craft is the foundation of your candidacy. Interviewers need to know that you can translate complex business requirements into intuitive, accessible user interfaces. Strong performance here means showcasing a portfolio where the final high-fidelity designs are directly linked to clear user flows, wireframes, and research insights.

Be ready to go over:

• Information Architecture – How you organize complex data, which is especially important for utility dashboards and billing portals.
• Micro-interactions and Feedback – How your designs communicate system status to the user (e.g., during an outage report).
• Accessibility (WCAG) – Ensuring your designs are usable by a diverse customer base, a critical requirement in the utility sector.
• Advanced concepts (less common) – Multi-platform design systems, responsive grid behaviors for data-heavy enterprise tools, and designing for legacy system constraints.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Walk me through a project in your portfolio where you had to simplify a highly complex workflow for the end user."
• "How do you ensure your designs meet accessibility standards before handing them off to engineering?"
• "Explain your process for building and maintaining components within a larger design system."

Design Thinking and Live Problem Solving

Duke Energy places a strong emphasis on how you think on your feet. The final rounds often feature a live UX/UI user problem exercise. You are evaluated not on achieving a "perfect" final screen, but on your framework for discovery: who are the users, what are their constraints, and what is the core problem?

Be ready to go over:

• Framework Application – Using a structured approach (like the Double Diamond) to tackle an abstract prompt.
• Assumption Testing – Identifying what you don't know and stating the assumptions you are making to move forward.
• Collaborative Ideation – Navigating group dynamics if the exercise involves other candidates or cross-functional team members.
• Advanced concepts (less common) – Rapid prototyping in Figma during a live call, or facilitating a mini-workshop on the spot.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Design an ATM interface specifically for kids."
• "Sketch a dashboard for a field technician who needs to locate a downed power line while wearing heavy gloves."
• "How would you prioritize features for a new mobile app if you only had two weeks to launch an MVP?"

Cross-Functional Collaboration and Leadership

Because you will be working in an enterprise environment—sometimes with stakeholders who are not well-versed in UX—your soft skills are heavily scrutinized. The team wants to see that you can lead the design conversation, push back gracefully when necessary, and build consensus.

Be ready to go over:

• Stakeholder Education – How you explain the value of user research or iterative design to a skeptical business leader.
• Handling Feedback – Your process for receiving, filtering, and implementing design critiques from non-designers.
• Engineering Handoff – How you collaborate with developers to ensure your designs are implemented accurately.
• Advanced concepts (less common) – Leading design sprints, mentoring junior designers, or establishing UX metrics (like SUS or NPS) for a product.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Tell me about a time you disagreed with a product manager about a feature. How did you resolve it?"
• "How do you approach a situation where a manager or stakeholder does not understand the UX work you are doing?"
• "Describe your ideal workflow for handing off high-fidelity designs to an engineering team."

Key Responsibilities

As a UX/UI Designer at Duke Energy, your day-to-day work revolves around solving tangible problems for both internal and external users. You will be responsible for leading the end-to-end design process on specific product pods, often within the Lighthouse digital team. This involves conducting foundational user research, sketching wireframes, building clickable prototypes, and delivering production-ready visual designs.

Collaboration is a constant in this role. You will work side-by-side with product owners to define feature requirements and with software engineers to ensure technical feasibility. A significant part of your week will be spent in alignment meetings, design critiques, and sprint planning sessions. You are expected to be the voice of the user in these rooms, ensuring that business goals do not override usability.

Typical initiatives might include redesigning the customer billing portal to reduce support calls, creating a mobile-first outage tracking map, or developing complex data visualization dashboards for grid operators. You will also contribute to and maintain Duke Energy's internal design system, ensuring consistency across a vast portfolio of digital products.

Role Requirements & Qualifications

To be a competitive candidate for this role, you must bring a blend of technical proficiency, enterprise experience, and strong interpersonal skills.

• Must-have skills – Expert proficiency in modern design tools (Figma is standard); a strong portfolio demonstrating the full UX process from research to UI; deep understanding of responsive design; excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Experience level – Typically requires 3 to 5+ years of experience in UX/UI design, product design, or interaction design. Experience working in Agile/Scrum environments is highly expected.
• Nice-to-have skills – Previous experience in the utility, energy, or highly regulated enterprise sectors; familiarity with front-end frameworks (HTML/CSS/React) to aid in engineering conversations; experience designing complex B2B or internal enterprise tools.
• Soft skills – High emotional intelligence, patience in educating stakeholders, adaptability to changing enterprise priorities, and the ability to confidently present your work to leadership.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How difficult is the interview process for a UX/UI Designer at Duke Energy? The overall difficulty is generally rated as average to easy during the initial and one-on-one rounds. However, the final round—which may involve a live or collaborative design exercise—can be challenging if you are not accustomed to whiteboarding or defending your decisions in real-time.

Q: What is the Lighthouse team? The Lighthouse team is Duke Energy’s internal digital innovation and transformation hub. If you are interviewing for this group, expect a more structured, product-agency-style environment that heavily emphasizes Agile methodologies and modern digital product design.

Q: Will there be a whiteboard challenge? Yes, it is highly likely. Past candidates have reported participating in a UX/UI user problem exercise during the final round. Practice abstract prompts (like the "ATM for kids" challenge) and focus on demonstrating your framework for discovery and iteration.

Q: How long does the hiring process typically take? The process usually spans a few weeks from the initial recruiter screen to the final round. However, enterprise hiring can sometimes move slowly, and candidates have occasionally reported delays or communication gaps. Stay proactive and follow up with your recruiter.

Q: Do I need to know how to code? No, coding is not a requirement for this UX/UI Designer role. However, having a foundational understanding of HTML, CSS, and how front-end frameworks operate will make you a much stronger candidate when discussing technical feasibility with engineering partners.

Other General Tips

• Master the Whiteboard Framework: Do not jump straight into drawing screens during the final exercise. Spend the first 10 minutes asking questions, defining the persona, mapping the user journey, and establishing constraints.
• Prepare to Educate: You may be interviewed by managers who are new to their roles or to the UX discipline. Practice explaining your design decisions without using insider jargon. Treat the interview as an opportunity to showcase your stakeholder management skills.
• Showcase Enterprise Complexity: If you have portfolio pieces that involve complex data tables, multi-step workflows, or internal dashboards, highlight them. Duke Energy values designers who can simplify dense, complicated systems.
• Drive the Conversation: In a laid-back interview setting, it is easy for the conversation to drift. Take ownership of the dialogue by actively guiding the interviewer through your portfolio and clearly connecting your past work to Duke Energy’s current digital challenges.
• Follow Up Proactively: Because communication delays have happened in the past, maintain a polite but proactive cadence with your recruiter. Send a thank-you note after your interviews and check in if timelines extend beyond what was promised.

Summary & Next Steps

Securing a UX/UI Designer role at Duke Energy is an opportunity to drive meaningful digital transformation at a massive scale. You will be tackling complex, real-world problems that impact millions of utility customers and thousands of internal employees. The work is challenging, highly collaborative, and deeply rewarding for designers who enjoy untangling enterprise complexity.

To succeed, focus your preparation on three core pillars: articulating your design process clearly through your portfolio, sharpening your live problem-solving skills for the whiteboarding challenge, and demonstrating the emotional intelligence needed to guide non-design stakeholders. Remember that interviewers are looking for a confident advocate for the user who remains adaptable in a corporate environment.

The compensation data above provides a baseline for what you can expect in this role. When reviewing the salary, consider how your years of experience, specific domain knowledge, and location (such as the Charlotte, NC headquarters) might influence the final offer. Use this information to anchor your expectations and negotiate confidently when the time comes.

You have the skills and the context needed to excel in this process. Continue to refine your portfolio presentation, practice your whiteboard frameworks, and explore additional interview insights on Dataford to stay sharp. Approach each conversation with confidence, curiosity, and a clear narrative of the value you bring. Good luck—you are ready for this!