Let’s get started
By clicking ‘Next’, I agree to the Terms of Service
and Privacy Policy, and consent to receive emails from Rise
Jobs / Job page
Founding Design Lead image - Rise Careers
Job details

Founding Design Lead

About Us

With AI bots running amok, IRL is emerging as the most important play in the B2B marketer's toolkit. There are thousands of new field marketing and community roles popping up around the country. We're building the world's best way for marketers to book IRL gatherings—the most unique experiences, transparent package pricing, and three-click booking.

We already serve 5% of the Fortune 500, have processed $100M+ in events this past year, and recently signed several new distribution partners including Booking.com for Business. Our core enterprise business is now profitable and we're launching a revolutionary new product offering and we need your help.

As our Founding Design Lead, you'll own the design that makes all of it feel inevitable. You'll establish the visual identity, interaction patterns, and design system across everything we ship.

What You'll Own

End-to-End Product Design
Own UX flows, interaction design, and the full UI layer across consumer, enterprise, venue, and admin surfaces. Turn ambiguous concepts into intuitive journeys and elegant interfaces. Partner closely with engineering to ensure every pixel ships beautifully.

Evolve the Design System
We have a bare-bones design system that needs to be taken to the next level. Build on what exists—don't burn it down and start over. Establish color, typography, visual hierarchy, components, and reusable patterns that enable fast iteration while maintaining cohesion across multiple products and surfaces.

Validate and Collaborate
Talk directly to customers—hosts, planners, enterprise teams, venues. Run lightweight tests. Work with Sales, Marketplace, and Product leadership to understand the business case behind features. Craft designs that drive adoption, clarity, and delight. Influence product strategy through a design-first lens.

What We're Looking For

We evaluate fit based on three things: values, abilities, and skills.

Values:

  • Passion for driving deeper human connection

  • Want to join at the ground level with real traction and build a category-defining company

Abilities:

  • Strong design instincts and ability to elevate brand and product

  • Highly collaborative—you work well with founders, engineers, and cross-functional teams

  • Fast executor who maintains craft under pressure

  • Strategic thinker who influences product direction through design

  • Generalist at zero-to-one—you thrive in ambiguity

Skills:

  • 3–5 years of product design experience in fast-moving tech companies

  • Portfolio showing end-to-end ownership—from concept to shipped products

  • Strong interaction design skills and ability to simplify complex workflows

  • Proficiency in Figma with ability to move fast while maintaining craft

  • Ability to create clean, modern, premium-feeling interfaces

  • Experience evolving and scaling design systems

Bonus points

  • Marketplace or multi-sided platform experience

  • Design system experience

  • Fluid UI / Motion / Micro-interactions

Why This Matters

  • Ownership: You define product experience and visual identity—not just executing tickets

  • Leverage: You're designing innovative products that have real impact

  • Impact: Your design directly shapes whether customers choose us over competitors

  • Upside: Meaningful early equity in a company with a clear path to major outcome

Location

In-person in Palo Alto, CA

Average salary estimate

$185000 / YEARLY (est.)
min
max
$150000K
$220000K

If an employer mentions a salary or salary range on their job, we display it as an "Employer Estimate". If a job has no salary data, Rise displays an estimate if available.

Similar Jobs
Posted 8 hours ago

Provide hands-on kitchen and bath design services at our Royal Oak showroom, collaborating with contractors, builders and homeowners to create layouts, specify materials and present renderings.

Photo of the Rise User
AECOM Hybrid Columbus, Ohio, United States
Posted 14 hours ago

AECOM seeks a Project Architect III in Columbus to support design development, produce construction documents in Revit, and collaborate across disciplines in a studio-based architecture practice.

Lead architectural design management for complex overseas diplomatic facilities, coordinating technical teams and ensuring compliance with OBO and federal standards.

Photo of the Rise User
Posted 20 hours ago

Senior-level UX designer sought to lead design strategy and craft top-tier human-centered experiences for a remote-first creative studio working with global brands.

Posted 13 hours ago

Design high-impact marketing creative and rapid-iteration ad, web, email, and social assets for Wispr Flow’s growth-focused marketing team at an early-stage, fast-moving AI startup.

Photo of the Rise User
Posted 3 hours ago
Mission Driven
Rapid Growth
Growth & Learning
Collaboration over Competition

Lead art direction and scale marketing design at Teachable as a hands-on Senior Lead, Design who mentors the team and ensures brand-quality creative across channels.

Photo of the Rise User

Terraformation is hiring a part-time Web and Graphic Designer to refresh Webflow sites, create brand-forward visuals and short-form video, and support digital campaigns that advance forest restoration and sustainability.

Posted 22 hours ago

Lead Yahoo Finance’s content design team to transform market data and financial stories into compelling visuals and motion that engage audiences across web, app, social and video.

Photo of the Rise User

Lead the design of GoFan’s mobile-first, conversion-focused ticketing experiences across apps, web, and box office products while evolving the product vision and design system at PlayOn.

CRB Hybrid Dallas, TX, USA
Posted 14 hours ago

CRB is hiring a licensed Architect III in Dallas to lead small-to-medium projects through design and construction administration while supporting larger, multidisciplinary teams.

Sweep360 Hybrid No location specified
Posted 3 hours ago

Early-career Product Designer needed to define design systems and craft information-dense mobile and web interfaces at a pre-Series A startup protecting humans in the AI era.

Photo of the Rise User
Posted 5 hours ago

Iru is hiring an experienced Head of Product Design to lead the product design org, advance the design system, and deliver best-in-class UX across our AI-powered security platform.

MATCH
Calculating your matching score...
FUNDING
SENIORITY LEVEL REQUIREMENT
TEAM SIZE
No info
HQ LOCATION
No info
EMPLOYMENT TYPE
Full-time, onsite
DATE POSTED
January 7, 2026
Risa star 🔮 Hi, I'm Risa! Your AI
Career Copilot
Want to see a list of jobs tailored to
you, just ask me below!