Product Designer

Skills

Experience DesignFigmaInformation ArchitectureOrganizational StructureOutreach ProgramsPrint MediaProduct Design

Role

What the job involves

The main requirements, responsibilities and hiring steps.

All product design applications must link to or include a portfolio. This portfolio needn't be overly polished, although excellently presented work might stand out; our focus will above all be on whether you've demonstrated the capacity to craft design solutions in relevant or related product areas
2 years of experience designing software; we're especially keen to see experience with social networks; content networks; or content systems or products of various kinds; but any experience building software interfaces applies (note: if you do not have this experience but believe you can hit the ground running, shipping high quality software immediately, feel free to apply)
High degree of competence with Figma. High tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity. Substack is still becoming a company, and much remains up for debate; everything from cycle plans to organizational structure to top-line strategy can change —and will— so a certain degree of adventurousness or heartiness is required, as it can all get rather messy!
Interest in both independence and collaboration. Sometimes, we must be team players; at other times, we must strike out to explore and find new areas of opportunity. You should be at least comfortable with both modes of operation.

Rapidly build context about disparate product areas, community dynamics, and industry norms in any domains, from print media to podcasting to online social systems
Identify high-leverage opportunities for your team and help make their pursuit practicable through rigorous path-conception, batch-sizing, staging, and go to market planning
Design beautiful, usable, scalable interfaces and flows for a wide range of product zones (from profiles to CRM / analytics, publication aesthetics to moderation systems, email layouts to interactive content actions, and so much more)
Think holistically about the second-order effects on Substack as a product system; balance user groups, weigh trade-offs, and pragmatically find solutions which achieve the best outcomes possible given various constraints
Find ways to help creators and audiences build long-lasting, rewarding, and healthy relationships; empower audience members to become contributors and creators
Help diversify the kinds of creators Substack supports, through novel media type support, alternative reader experiences, supporting outreach programs, and more
Shape the culture and processes of Design at Substack