Founding Designer

Founding Designer

Location: San Francisco, CA or Phoenix, AZ (In-Office)

Partnership: EQL Tech has been exclusively retained by a high-growth technology startup to appoint a mission-critical Founding Designer to join their team.

About the Company & The Mission

EQL Tech is proud to represent a highly ambitious, well-funded startup that has raised $16M from top-tier VCs and angels. The company is building the financial rails to help families access new State education funds (known as ESAs or School Choice Funds).

The $900B US Public Education budget is being opened up for parents to take control of their portion, which averages $7.5k per kid per year. Ambitious homeschool parents are already using these funds to piece together their dream education experience. Helping them access these funds is Step 1 in building the next-gen education system. The company treats this as their life's work and has already rejected an acquisition offer because they care about this being done right.

The Team

You will be joining an in-person company, working together in the office.

• The Founders: The founders are engineers who have run their own alternative school together. One previously worked as a Quant at Goldman Sachs, and the other built the computer vision system for the largest smart warehousing company globally, serving 1M customers/day at age 19.

• The Core Team: You will work alongside top talent, including a founding engineer who did AI research at MILA and at Elon Musk’s SpaceX school, a Head of Risk from Mercury, Stripe, and Circle, and a Payments Engineer from Microsoft and Goldman Sachs. The team also includes the former Deputy Director at Arizona's ESA department and leading school choice advocates.

The Role: Founding Designer

As the Founding Designer, you will build the visual and product design foundation from scratch. This is a high-ownership, high-impact founding role — you will shape not just how our product looks, but how our entire brand moves and feels across every touchpoint.

As Founding Designer, you will:

• Design across core user journeys with deep empathy: U nderstand not just what parents do, but how they think and feel. Build for the moment a parent is confused, not just the happy path.
• Define the Visual Identity: Establish and evolve the brand across product, website, film, and media. Create a cohesive design system that scales from launch to mainstream.
• Own All External Touchpoints: Deliver the website, decks, emails, and launch materials. Ensure everything — product, brand, and communication — feels intentional and unified.
• Operate Like an Engineer: Set up tight design feedback loops, instrument user testing, and run rapid experiments. Collaborate closely with co-founders, engineers, and parents.
• Build Internal Design Infrastructure: Create our internal design system to help others on the team ship with your taste. Our company is AI-native in its tooling and you'll help define how design scales.

Requirements

Your Profile

• You’re deeply customer-obsessed and care about the details: You know that the best design comes from intimacy with the problem, and with that, you’re willing to go to users’ homes and onboard them 1:1 to see their reactions to your work.
• Systems Thinker: You see product, brand, and voice as one unified thing. Small inconsistencies bother you because they erode trust with users making high-stakes decisions about their child's education.
• High-Output & Resourceful: You have conviction in your taste but can iterate with new information across product, brand, and voice. You’re comfortable giving strong opinions and getting pushback on your work. You’re not scared to try things and be bold.
• Simplicity-Obsessed: You're obsessed with making complicated things feel simple. Our users are constantly overwhelmed — you distil information to its core and communicate it in their language.

Benefits

Commitment, Compensation & Benefits

This will be a big commitment, and we’re aiming high. It needs to be something you are energised about taking on, or this isn’t the team for you.

• Generous Founding Equity: We compensate you well with equity.

• Top-Tier Backing: We’ve raised $16M from top-tier VCs and angels.
• Relocation Support: You are willing to relocate to San Francisco, CA, or Phoenix, AZ, and travel to visit customers. We’re an in-person company and are in the office together.
• Comprehensive Visa Sponsorship: If you do not have a visa, we can support you.
• Unmatched Impact: The rare opportunity to directly shape how the $900B US Public Education budget is being opened up for parents to take control of their portion (avg. $7.5k/kid/year)