About Shortwave

We're a venture-backed startup building a professional-grade email client designed for stress-free productivity. We want to help users cut through the noise of email so they can focus on the conversations and people that are most important to them. Our design takes inspiration from modern messaging apps -- we want to learn from them and bring their best ideas and features into email.

We launched our MVP in February. The Verge called it "The Google Inbox successor I've been waiting for". We got a ton of interest and are scrambling now to deliver the features and polish our users need.

We have an experienced team of 13. Our CEO Andrew formerly cofounded Firebase (later acquired by Google), and our early team met Andrew while working there building the infrastructure behind millions of today's mobile and web apps.

We're well-funded by top-tier investors including Union Square Ventures & Lightspeed Venture Partners.

About the role

We're looking for an experienced lead designer who can help us take our visual and product design to the next level, and who can help us define a modern, world-class brand.

You will:

• Lead design for our company, including defining our design priorities & roadmap, and providing design leadership and mentorship to the broader team.

• Own complex design initiatives end-to-end to ensure users love our product.

• Design visual UI. Create wireframes, prototypes, and beautiful pixel-perfect mocks.

• Help us take our visual design and branding to the next level. We want modern, tech-forward, professionally-focused apps and websites

• Collaborate with our CPO, CEO, and the rest of our small product & design team to explore new product & feature ideas.

• Pair with engineers to get your ideas built

• Expand our design system with new components

• Add a bit of your own flair to our product and branding 🧞‍♀️

About you

We're looking for a passionate and ambitious designer with strong visual design skills and experience designing consumer-grade mobile & web applications.

• Strong visual design skills, including both for application features as well as for websites and marketing content. Above all, our apps need to look great.

• A firm grasp of the design processes and methodologies needed to take app ideas from the concept stage to production

• Experience designing mobile and web applications at a product-led, tech-forward company

• A high level of finesse & polish in your work

• Experience with modern application design tools, especially Figma

• Excellent communications and a passion for talking with users

• A demonstrated ability to build & ship design improvements incrementally into live applications

• A willingness to work hard and learn new things quickly

Bonus points:

• Experience defining a modern, tech-forward software brand.

• Founder or early-stage startup experience

• Leadership experience

What we offer

We're looking to hire the best and brightest, and we strive to provide the best work environment — tailored to you.

• Highly competitive compensation, including generous equity grants. We want the best and will pay for it.

• Medical and dental benefits

• Flexible work hours and vacation

• 401(k)

• Flexible work environment — We have an office in SF, but you can work from home and travel while working too if you like.

• Regular (every ~2.5 months) offsites where we get the whole team together, often in fun locations like Hawaii 🏝

• A mission-focused team with fun coworkers (ok, we're biased... but we really are nice people!)

We're looking for team members who have passion, grit, and integrity. Even if your experience doesn't precisely match the criteria above, please consider applying.

How to Apply

Please email me directly at andrew@shortwave.com and tell me a bit about yourself.