Founding Creative Director / Design Lead

Location: San Francisco, CA or Phoenix, AZ | Work Style: Full-time In-Person

Our client is building the financial infrastructure for the next generation of education finance, specifically targeting the $1.5T of Education Funds currently available in the US. They are enabling families to access the $900B US public education budget, which is being opened up so parents can control an average of $7,500 per child per year through state-funded Education Savings Accounts (ESAs). The product is a high-trust system consisting of a charge card, reimbursement engine, and education vendor marketplace.

As the Founding Creative Director, you will be the first design hire at a company that has raised $16M from top-tier VCs and angels. You won't be executing a roadmap handed to you; you will be building the design function from zero, establishing the visual identity, and shaping the core product experience alongside the co-founders.

The Design Challenge:

• The Benchmark: Think Stripe (trust through clarity) meets Duolingo (warmth and engagement), rather than traditional fintech UI.
• Low Digital Literacy: You must design for families who are not digital natives, distilling compliance-grade complexity into an experience that feels as intuitive as a consumer app.
• Systems Thinking: You will own every external-facing touchpoint—from the mobile app UX and design tokens to film, social content, and investor decks.
• High Intensity: This is an in-person company where the team works together in the office six days a week

This is a role for a product designer with founder instincts - not a brand or campaign creative.

• Experience: 4–8 years in product design, with a strong preference for founding or early-stage startup experience.
• Technical Excellence: You are a Figma power user with a track record of building design systems and component libraries from scratch.
• Mobile-First: You have successfully shipped production mobile apps on iOS, Android, or React Native.
• Systems Over Aesthetics: You think in user journeys and system architecture before aesthetics, seeing product, brand, and voice as one cohesive system.
• Customer Obsession: You are willing to go to users’ homes and onboard them 1:1 to gain deep, researched empathy for their needs.
• High Output: You have the conviction to defend design decisions but can iterate rapidly with new information.
• Sector Expertise: Experience in regulated or high-trust consumer products (fintech, healthtech, or edtech) is highly valued.
• Pedigree Signal: A background from top design programs (e.g., RCA, RISD, Parsons, Stanford d.school) or experience on elite teams at Stripe, Apple, Airbnb, or Figma is strongly preferred.

This is a role for those who view their career as their life's work. Our client is looking for a partner, not an employee.

• Founding Commitment: This is an in-person company where the team works together in the office full-time. This is a massive commitment that requires someone who is energized by high-stakes, high-intensity environments.

• Meaningful Founding Equity: You will be compensated with significant equity to reflect your role as a core member of the founding team.
• Mission Integrity: The founders have already rejected acquisition offers because they are deeply committed to doing this right and democratizing education access.
• Direct Influence: You will have a seat at the founding table, directly influencing product strategy, positioning, and the long-term roadmap from day one.
• World-Class Team: Work alongside former leads from Stripe, Mercury, Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, and SpaceX.
• Global Support: The company provides comprehensive visa sponsorship and relocation assistance to San Francisco, CA, or Phoenix, AZ.

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