J.P. Morgan Product Designer (Engineering) Case Interview — Enterprise Payments/Wealth Workflow Redesign

This case simulates designing a mission‑critical workflow for J.P. Morgan’s institutional/wealth clients within a regulated, enterprise environment. You will be given a brief (e.g., streamline payment approvals for Wholesale Payments or redesign a portfolio monitoring dashboard for Wealth Management) and asked to take it from problem framing to low‑fidelity solutioning while demonstrating J.P. Morgan’s client‑first mindset, risk awareness, and collaboration with engineering. Format (what to expect): - 5 min: Case brief and business context (client segment, existing pain points, success criteria). - 10 min: Discovery and clarification (personas: banker/relationship manager, client, operations analyst, risk/compliance; current state; constraints like legacy systems and SLAs). - 20 min: System/IA and flow ideation (information architecture, critical paths, states; service blueprint showing touchpoints across channels and back‑office systems). - 15 min: Low‑fi wireframes for 2 key flows (e.g., create → approve → release payment with maker/checker controls; or monitor → investigate → act on portfolio alerts) with annotations. - 10 min: Risk, accessibility, and edge cases (KYC/AML considerations, audit trails, PII minimization, WCAG 2.2 AA patterns, latency/market closure/duplicate transactions/multi‑factor auth/session timeouts). - 10 min: Metrics, testing, and handoff (define north‑star and guardrail metrics; propose research in a regulated setting; outline handoff to engineers using an internal design system and acceptance criteria). What interviewers focus on at J.P. Morgan: - Problem framing tied to client outcomes (reduce operational load, improve straight‑through processing, lower risk/exceptions) and measurable impact. - Enterprise and systems thinking (cross‑channel, multi‑persona, global scale, time zones/currencies, resiliency and auditability). - Data visualization and explainability (portfolio risk, payment status, lineage and drill‑downs; clear empty/error/loading states). - Risk and compliance fluency (maker/checker, entitlements/role‑based access, data retention, change logs, privacy by design). - Accessibility and inclusivity (keyboard flows, high contrast for dense dashboards, screen‑reader semantics, error recovery). - Collaboration with engineering and non‑design partners (PM/Ops/Legal/Compliance), trade‑offs under constraints, and crisp storytelling. Expected artifacts in‑session: - Problem statement and success metrics (e.g., increase STP rate, reduce time‑to‑approval, cut exception rework). - IA diagram + service blueprint across client, banker, operations, and risk systems. - Two annotated wireflows, with key states and guardrails. - Metrics and validation plan (usability testing with anonymized data, telemetry dashboard plan, experiment ideas). Representative prompts used in past J.P. Morgan design cases: - Redesign the wholesale payment approval workflow to reduce failures and improve audit readiness. - Create a wealth portfolio alerting experience that prioritizes actions and explains risk changes. - Improve KYC document collection for institutional onboarding, balancing speed with regulatory rigor. Communication style: Structured, concise, and evidence‑oriented; justify decisions with client impact, operational feasibility, and risk reduction. Expect follow‑ups probing trade‑offs, legacy integration, and how you would partner with engineers to ship safely at scale.