Head of Design

A good education is one of humanity’s most vital pursuits. At Padlet, we’re building software for a good education, starting with a content creation and collaboration app to make school less boring.

There are some products so good, you feel delight using them. You wish you had more problems just so could use them more. Think Dyson vacuum cleaner, a faucet with the perfect laminar flow, a sharp knife, WD40.

We aspire to build such products at Padlet. We are looking for a Head of Design to lead our young, talented design team and help us fulfill this aspiration.

You’ll be a player+coach. You’ll mentor the team, but also ship designs yourself. This is an in-person role out of our San Francisco office. You’ll report directly to the CEO.

Responsibilities

• Leading the design of new products, features, and marketing assets.

• Mentoring and coaching the design team.

• Hiring more designers, if necessary.

• Putting Padlet in the hands of a billion people.

Qualifications

• You like working hard.

• You are honest.

• You’ve designed beautiful software products.

• You’ve lead exceptional design teams.

• You’ve hired exceptional designers.

• Bonus: you have a good sense of humor.

About Padlet

• Vision: Every child in the world will grow up with Mickey Mouse and Padlet.

• Product: Visual content creation and collaboration app for classrooms. Our users love the product.

• Impact: We have over 40 million users worldwide. Padlet is one of the most used apps on the planet.

• Money: We are venture backed AND profitable. We want to be around for a hundred years.

• Badassery: We are 50 people. That’s about a million active users per employee.

Joys of designing at Padlet

• We don’t design with data or A/B tests unless we really don’t know what the right answer is.

• We ship. Your work will not be stuck in purgatory for years.

• Your work will have a tremendous impact on global education.

• Every artist craves an audience. You’ll start with 40 million.

• We value quality and craft.

• We don’t take ourselves too seriously.

Sorrows of designing at Padlet

• We don’t design with data or A/B tests unless we really don’t know what the right answer is.

• CEO has very strong opinions about design and can often be incorrigible.

• Work can be chaotic. "Change of plans. Let’s do this instead." is not uncommon.

• You will get hate mail whenever you redesign something. Many users feel very strongly about the product.

Some people you‘d be working with

• Collin Palmer: exclusively listens to movie soundtracks when working, especially the Darth Vader theme. One man product machine from speccing to shipping.

• Olga Zalite: Her name’s Olga. Her dad’s a nuclear scientist. Her mom’s a classical pianist. Even in literature, there isn’t a more perfect Russian. Our resident illustrator, graphic artist, and sometimes photographer.

The office

• Our office is in the middle of Presidio, a beautiful national park. We’re 5 minutes from the beach (we timed it). The WiFi works outdoors. You can work sitting in a lawn overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge.

• The office is designed to be a space to inspire creativity. We have a meditation room, game room, library, and full makerspace with 3d printers, presses, laser cutters, sewing machines, and more.

Benefits

• Top tier medical, dental, and vision insurance for you and your family, including One Medical memberships.

• 401(k) with matching.

• Commuter benefits.

• FSA.

• Stock options.

• Catered lunches and dinners. Military grade snacking.

• 20 vacation days. Plus sickness and bereavement days for when life happens.

• Parental leave

• All the gadgetry you need, including a new phone every year.

• Badassery budget to level up, including regular group workshops to learn something new together.

Opportune time to join
We find ourselves in a very fortunate situation at Padlet right now: we have the execution of a small team, and traction of a big business. This rather rare combination is quite satisfying.