A former longtime Apple designer who joined Huawei two years ago with much fanfare to help improve the oft-criticized user interface of the Chinese company’s smartphones, has recently quit. Abigail Brody’s departure highlights the risks and challenges facing Chinese technology giants as they step up their recruitment in Silicon Valley.

Ms. Brody, who served as Huawei’s chief designer of user experience based in San Francisco and doesn’t speak Chinese, didn’t fit the company’s culture and had a hard time coordinating with its headquarters in Shenzhen, employees familiar with the situation said. Some colleagues viewed Ms. Brody’s proposals for a drastic makeover of Huawei’s user interface with suspicion, the employees said.