Hiring a designer is so much different than hiring a software engineer. And the process of designing should be the least of your worries.
Design is an artistically creative process. Takes talent, I wouldn't hire a designer if I don't perceive the work they've made as beautiful.
But hiring an engineer, there are certain things you can overlook in favour of their capacity to actually build something. I can overlook their code quality, but only because we have a boarding process in which one of the things we make sure a new engineer understands is our quality standard in writing code, the systems we use to enforce that standard from code reviews to pre-commit hooks and lint checking.
An engineer has the capacity to adapt to these changes of both quality and process.
IMHO, you can't teach a designer who isn't talented how to make beautiful things. Albeit beauty is subjective, but there's still a common ground upon which the majority will perceive this piece of art work as beautiful.
I agree that they are different, however it sounds like I'm not communicating my idea correctly.
I'm very much NOT interested in code quality from an engineer. I very much AM interested in how an engineer thinks and approaches solving a problem.
One way to start that conversation is to have a code portfolio that they can talk to. Why did you do this? What were thinking about when you did that? Did you start writing some code then refactor? Did you think about the problem for 3 days before you started writing? Do you diagram on paper? Did you model the data structures before you modeled the application itself?
These are the sorts of questions I'm interested in when I hire someone; They're also the sorts of questions I want someone who is hiring me to be interested in.
Using your words:
To me, writing code is an artistically creative process as well, which takes talent. I wouldn't hire an engineer if I don't perceive their thinking as beautiful
The process for creativity doesn't change just because the expression changes. Compare the process of writing code with that of painting and you'll find a lot more similarities than differences.
I'm inclined to agree with you, I'm not saying writing code isn't an artistically creative process.
If I'm are hiring an engineer, the last thing I'll consider is how well is their code because that can be enhanced (albeit to a certain level, as per pionar's comment which I also agree with)
If you are hiring a designer, then that's likely the main aspect you'll be looking at, how beautiful/creative their work/solutions are.
Design is an artistically creative process. Takes talent, I wouldn't hire a designer if I don't perceive the work they've made as beautiful.
But hiring an engineer, there are certain things you can overlook in favour of their capacity to actually build something. I can overlook their code quality, but only because we have a boarding process in which one of the things we make sure a new engineer understands is our quality standard in writing code, the systems we use to enforce that standard from code reviews to pre-commit hooks and lint checking.
An engineer has the capacity to adapt to these changes of both quality and process.
IMHO, you can't teach a designer who isn't talented how to make beautiful things. Albeit beauty is subjective, but there's still a common ground upon which the majority will perceive this piece of art work as beautiful.