Top 10 Skidmore Owings & Merrill Interview Questions and Answers for 2026: Architectural Professionals, Structural Engineers, Interior Designers, and Project Coordinators

Interviewing at Skidmore Owings & Merrill is a different animal from most job interviews. The firm behind Willis Tower, Burj Khalifa, and One World Trade Center runs its hiring through a portfolio-first lens, so your work does a huge amount of the talking before you ever open your mouth.

SOM operates as a collection of creative studios inside a large global firm of roughly 1,030 employees across offices in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, London, Dubai, and beyond. That means the vibe and rigor of your interview can shift depending on the office and the discipline, whether you’re going in as an architect, a structural engineer, an interior designer, or a project coordinator.

According to Glassdoor interview data, candidates rate the difficulty around 2.87 out of 5 and just under 55 percent describe the experience as positive. So it’s not brutal, but it is specific. Below are the ten questions that show up again and again, what each one is really testing, and how to answer like someone who belongs in the room. If you’re eyeing a support role instead, our guides to executive assistant interview questions pair well with what follows.

What the Skidmore Owings & Merrill Interview Process Actually Looks Like

Most candidates land an SOM interview one of three ways: applying online through the Skidmore Owings & Merrill Careers Page, coming in through a recruiter, or getting an employee referral. Given the collaborative studio culture, a referral can genuinely speed things up and give you honest intel on the team before you ever walk in. Every complete application needs a resume or CV plus work samples, so treat your portfolio submission as non-negotiable from the first touchpoint.

From there, expect a phone or video screen followed by one or more rounds with senior team members or studio leads. These rounds lean heavily on portfolio review and skill-based questions. The whole thing averages around 32 days, so pace your expectations accordingly. If you’re applying for a coordination or support role, sharpening your materials with our project engineer resume template or our administrative assistant interview questions guide can give you an edge before the first call.

The Top 10 Skidmore Owings & Merrill Interview Questions

1. Walk me through your portfolio. What is your most significant project and why?

This is the heart of an SOM interview, and it’s less about the visuals than the story behind them. Interviewers want to hear how you think: why you made specific choices, what constraints you faced, and how the project evolved from concept to resolution.

The common mistake is describing what a project looks like instead of why it exists the way it does. Pick one project you can speak about with genuine depth, and let your reasoning carry it. Treat the visuals as support, not the whole act.

Sample Answer:

“My most significant project is a mixed-use civic building I led during my final studio year. The site sat on a difficult sloped corner with heavy pedestrian traffic on two sides, and the brief asked for both public gathering space and quiet program above. I chose to lift the mass and create a shaded plaza underneath, which solved the circulation problem and gave the neighborhood something it actually lacked. I spent a lot of time testing the facade for daylight and glare, and I ended up refining the shading system three times before it worked. What I’m proudest of is that the final design served the people using it, not just the drawing. It taught me to hold a clear concept while staying flexible on the details.”

Interview Guys Tip: When you narrate a project, always name a moment where you changed your mind based on new information. SOM prizes a meritocracy-of-ideas mindset, and showing you can adapt your own thinking signals you’ll thrive in their collaborative studios. If graphics are part of your pitch, our Adobe certificate review can help you tighten how you present the work itself.

2. What are your design ideas and goals, and how have they evolved throughout your career?

This question probes whether you have a point of view and whether you’re the kind of designer who grows. SOM wants people with independent design thinking, not just technical hands.

Don’t recite a vague philosophy. Ground your answer in real shifts you’ve made and what triggered them, so your evolution feels earned rather than rehearsed.

Sample Answer:

“Early on, I was drawn to form for its own sake, and honestly a lot of my student work was about making a bold gesture. Over time I got more interested in how buildings perform and how people actually move through them. Working on a renovation project changed me, because I had to design around an existing structure and a tight budget, and I realized the constraints made the work sharper, not weaker. Now my goal is to design things that are beautiful and quietly efficient, where the sustainability and the experience are baked in rather than bolted on. I want to keep working at scales that push me, which is a big part of why SOM appeals to me.”

3. Tell us about a favorite SOM project and what draws you to it.

This is a genuine screening question at SOM, and it separates candidates who did their homework from those who mass-applied. It’s testing sincerity and cultural fit as much as knowledge.

Pick a project you actually find compelling and be specific about what impresses you. A generic “Burj Khalifa is tall” answer falls flat. Tie your admiration to the engineering, the sustainability, or the design intent.

Sample Answer:

“One World Trade Center really stays with me, and not just because of the profile. What draws me in is how the structural logic became the architecture, the way the tower tapers and the core carries so much of the story. There’s a discipline to it where the engineering and the symbolism aren’t fighting each other. I also admire the way SOM handled the safety requirements without letting them turn the building into a fortress. It’s the kind of problem-solving where the constraints made the design more honest, and that’s exactly the type of work I want to be part of.”

Interview Guys Tip: Have a recent SOM project ready too, not just a famous one. Naming current work shows you follow the firm today, and it’s a low-effort move most candidates skip entirely.

4. What coursework or professional experience do you have that is most relevant to this role?

Straightforward on the surface, but the goal is to see how well you connect your background to the specific studio and discipline you’re applying to. Relevance beats volume here.

Tailor this tightly. A structural engineering candidate should lead with different experience than an interiors or urban design candidate, so read the role and match your evidence to it.

Sample Answer:

“My structural analysis and building systems coursework is where I built the technical foundation, but the more relevant piece is my internship on a high-rise team. I spent that summer coordinating between the structural model and the architectural intent, which taught me how to solve problems without steamrolling the design. I also took an elective in performance-based design that pushed me to think about long-span and lateral systems in real terms. For this role, that mix matters because you’re constantly translating between what’s structurally sound and what the design is trying to achieve.”

5. How do you approach integrating technical and engineering constraints into a design concept?

SOM is famous for architecture and engineering working as one, so this question checks whether you see constraints as fuel or as a nuisance. The strongest candidates treat structure and systems as design opportunities.

Avoid framing engineering as the thing that ruins good design. Show that you bring technical thinking in early rather than fighting it at the end. Candidates targeting engineering roles can sharpen this further with our project engineer interview questions guide.

Sample Answer:

“I try to bring the constraints in at the concept stage instead of treating them as a cleanup problem later. On one project the structural grid wanted to land in a spot that killed the open lobby I’d sketched, so instead of forcing it, I worked with the engineering side to test a transfer solution. That back-and-forth actually gave me a stronger idea, because the exposed structure became a feature of the space. My approach is to ask what the technical logic wants to do and then find where that overlaps with the design intent. When you start there, the constraint usually makes the concept clearer instead of weaker.”

6. Describe a time you worked as part of an interdisciplinary team. How did you contribute and manage differing perspectives?

Interdisciplinary collaboration sits at the core of SOM’s identity, so this behavioral question is close to a must-pass. They want proof you can work fluidly across specialties without ego getting in the way.

Use the SOAR method here: set the situation, name the obstacle, walk through your action, and land on a result. Keep the focus on how you handled friction, because that’s the real test.

Sample Answer:

“On a competition entry, I was one of the architecture leads working alongside structural engineers and a landscape designer, and we had about three weeks to pull together a full submission. The tension showed up fast: the engineers wanted a heavier frame for a clear span, and that threatened the light, open ground level I was pushing for. Instead of digging in, I set up a couple of quick working sessions where we sketched options side by side rather than trading emails. I focused on finding the shared goal, which was a column-free public space, and we landed on a solution that used the structure as an architectural moment. We won a shortlist spot, and more importantly the engineers and I ended up trusting each other for the rest of the project.”

7. How do you incorporate sustainability principles into your design process?

This is a genuine differentiator at SOM, which became a carbon-neutral business in 2022 and actively promotes its Whole Life Carbon accounting approach. Weak, buzzword-heavy answers stand out for the wrong reasons.

Get concrete. Talk about specific strategies, materials, or tools you’ve used, and connect them to measurable outcomes wherever you can. Fluency here helps at every level, from junior designer to studio lead.

Sample Answer:

“I treat sustainability as a design driver rather than a checklist at the end. On my last project I ran early daylight and energy studies so the massing and glazing responded to the climate before we locked anything in, which cut the projected cooling load significantly. I also pushed for a lower-carbon concrete mix and tried to keep material choices honest, so we weren’t shipping specialty finishes across the world for no reason. I’ve started paying attention to embodied carbon, not just operational energy, because that’s where a lot of the real impact hides. I know SOM takes whole-life carbon seriously, and that’s genuinely part of why I want to work here.”

Interview Guys Tip: Naming embodied carbon and whole-life thinking, not just LEED points, shows you’re current with where the field is heading. SOM’s own carbon work makes this the single easiest place to sound either impressive or dated.

8. Tell us about your experience with BIM tools such as Revit, Rhino, or AutoCAD and how you have used them on projects.

This is a skills-based question, and SOM expects real fluency, not a list of software you once opened. They want to know how you use the tools to solve problems, especially in coordination-heavy environments.

Be specific about which tool you reached for and why. Mentioning computational or scripting workflows, if you have them, signals you can keep up with SOM’s technical pace. If you’re an engineering candidate leaning on modeling and analysis, our AI and ML engineer interview questions guide has useful ways to talk about technical tooling.

Sample Answer:

“Revit is my daily driver, and I’ve used it on full documentation sets where coordination across disciplines was the whole game, so I got comfortable managing shared models and catching clashes early. For the conceptual and complex-geometry work I lean on Rhino, and I’ve used Grasshopper to run facade panelization studies that would have taken forever by hand. AutoCAD still comes up for legacy files and quick detailing. What I care about most is using these tools to make better decisions faster, so I try to build models that other people on the team can actually work from, not just ones that look right on my screen.”

9. What interests you specifically about working at SOM, and how does it align with your career goals?

This checks whether you’re chasing the SOM name or you actually understand what the firm values. Interviewers listen for a fit with excellence, innovation, integrity, inclusivity, and collaboration.

Skip the flattery and connect the firm’s real strengths to where you want your career to go. Mention the interdisciplinary studio model, since that’s central to how SOM works.

Sample Answer:

“What pulls me toward SOM is the way architecture and engineering actually work as one team, because that’s how I like to design and it’s rare to find it at this scale. I want to work on projects that are technically ambitious and genuinely responsible, and SOM’s carbon-neutral commitment tells me that’s not just marketing. I’m also drawn to the studio culture where ideas get judged on merit, since I do my best work when I’m surrounded by people who’ll push back on me. Long term, I want to grow into someone who can lead complex, interdisciplinary work, and this is one of the few places where I can learn that from people doing it at the highest level.”

10. Describe a challenging project situation and how you resolved it while maintaining design integrity.

This behavioral question tests resilience and judgment under pressure, especially the tension between real-world limits and holding onto the design idea. SOM wants people who can protect the concept without becoming rigid.

Shape this with the SOAR method. Set the scene, name the real obstacle, detail the actions you took, and finish with a result that shows both the problem solved and the design preserved.

Sample Answer:

“We were deep into design development on an office project when the client came back with a budget cut that put our whole facade concept at risk. The custom curtain wall we’d designed was suddenly too expensive, and the easy move would have been to swap in a generic system that would’ve flattened the whole building. I pulled the team together and we broke the facade down to figure out which parts actually carried the design idea versus which were nice-to-haves. We kept the rhythm and the key detailing but simplified the fabrication so it could be produced more cheaply. In the end we came in under the revised budget and the building still read the way we intended, and the client was happier because they understood every trade-off we made.”

Top 5 Insider Tips

• Curate hard and rehearse your narration. Bring a tight portfolio, not everything you’ve ever touched, and practice walking through three or four projects out loud with a clear story behind each decision. SOM interviews are overwhelmingly portfolio-driven, so a confident narrative matters more than volume.
• Study SOM’s real projects before you walk in. “What’s your favorite SOM project and why?” is a genuinely common question, so know the iconic work like Willis Tower and Burj Khalifa alongside something recent to prove you follow the firm today.
• Lead with carbon-aware sustainability language. SOM went carbon-neutral in 2022 and promotes whole-life carbon accounting, so speaking fluently about embodied carbon, low-carbon materials, and performance tools will genuinely set you apart at any level.
• Use the online application and your network together. Candidates reach SOM through online applications, recruiters, and employee referrals, and an internal referral can speed the process and give you honest intel on team dynamics before you interview. Polishing your materials with our resume skills guide helps if you’re targeting a coordination or support role.
• Follow up professionally and don’t panic at silence. Several Glassdoor reviews flag communication gaps after interviews, so send a polite check-in within a week and remember the process averages around 32 days. Silence usually means slow, not no.

Wrapping Up

The through-line at SOM is simple to say and hard to fake: they want designers and engineers who think clearly, collaborate without ego, and treat technical constraints and sustainability as part of the design rather than obstacles to it. If your portfolio tells that story and you can talk about the firm’s actual work with real interest, you’re already ahead of most applicants.

Prepare your project narratives out loud, know a couple of SOM buildings cold, and get your sustainability vocabulary current. Whether you’re going in as a structural engineer, an interior designer, a project coordinator, or a year-one designer, the firm’s Glassdoor reviews point to the same thing, so build your prep around the work and the collaboration, and let the rest follow.