Description
Surprise.com is on a mission to help people make a positive impact on themselves, their teams, and their communities. Our flagship product, Surprise for Teams™, is the world’s first and only Success
OS™. Surprise for Teams makes it fun and irresistible to perform better, which creates a positive, long-lasting impact on people and their organizations.
We are looking for an outstanding Head of Design to lead our rapidly growing team and continue developing our powerful new brand.
You will manage, grow, mentor, and retain a talented team of visual, UI and product designers to ensure a delightful and unique experience for our users. Coordinating efforts between our west-coast animation studio, Stockholm design hub, and globally distributed design teams, you’ll have the opportunity to work and collaborate cross-functionally with top creatives from around the world.
As our first Head of Design, you will have strategic, managerial, and operational responsibilities. You’ll report directly to our Co-Founders and have a significant say in the major design decisions in our core app and beyond. This is the ideal opportunity for someone ready to see their fingerprints on a product loved around the world.
What will you be doing?
Ensuring consistency, excellency, and brand uniformity across Surprise’s illustrative universe (iconography, illustration, colors, characters, web, mobile, email, art, etc);
Developing a design framework that aligns with Surprise’s internal vision;
Creating yearly strategies that can be measured with objectives and key results;
Creating and ensuring relevant strategy pages are kept up to date and aligned with brand initiatives and high-level product roadmap;
Regularly listening to user interviews, as well as joining customer and partner visits, in order to evangelize our user experience and incorporate feedback into the design strategy;
Maintaining a high employee net promoter score by listening, responding, and activating on behalf of your team;
Recruiting and retaining world-class talent;
Refining existing design processes, identifying and establishing any missing best practices;
Establishing a methodological framework/toolkit that is shared and understood by the team.
What are we looking for?
5-7+ years of experience at a technology company designing end-user facing digital products (mobile and web);
A phenomenal hands-on visual designer and illustrator with a broad portfolio of experience spanning mobile and web UI/product design;
Past experience building and managing a globally distributed, remote team;
Open to international travel to Europe and domestic travel;
An unwavering commitment to the highest quality of design.
What skills will come in handy?
BFA or MFA from a top design program (e.g. SCAD, RISD, Pratt, RCA, etc) with a concentration in classical arts, or another visual/design-based subject;
You’re great at championing the discipline of design and can communicate the impact of design to the business;
A passion for understanding the user experience, and translating this into delightful high-fidelity designs for mobile-first products;
Strong visual design skills, passion for interaction design, and knowledge of best-in-class visual design principles for mobile and web (e.g. HIG / Material design);
Strong knowledge of visual design theory and fundamentals (e.g. Art and Visual Perception, Typography, Grid systems, Color theory, Iconography, Branding, Layout, User-system interaction);
Expert knowledge of Figma (Components, Prototyping, Auto-layout, Team libraries);
Great presentation skills, both internally and client-facing;
Global connections within the design industry.
About us
, we’re committed to hiring builders who are inspired by our team’s guiding principle: to derive a tremendous sense of purpose from the inner quest for excellence itself, being driven from within to make anything we touch be the best it can be. We take pride in developing deep user understanding, obsess about the details, and go the extra mile to show our users we love them.
We are first and foremost customer driven – engineering, product and design collaborate as equals to create a phenomenal end user experience.
Our design philosophy
Crafting emotional user experiences driven by delightful design is a core company value, and deeply embedded into our team’s DNA. The expansive (and ever-evolving!) illustrative universe of our product is unique, yet inspired by best-in-class design cultures from companies like Apple, AirBnb, Lyft, Spotify, Duolingo, and many others. Check out our Dribbble profile to get a feel for our brand aesthetic.
Benefits
A team of extraordinary people, working hard to better themselves and to further our mission;
Competitive comp;
Company-paid medical, dental and vision;
And, of course, we get Surprises internally.
