✏️ Founding Designer London, UK

Granola inc; London; On-site; GBP 60,000 - 80,000; Full time

Job summary

Granola Inc. is seeking a Founding Designer to shape the future of AI-powered work tools. This role involves designing innovative features, collaborating closely with engineers, and developing a strong design language. The ideal candidate will thrive in a startup environment and be passionate about creating user-centric products.

Benefits

Private Health Insurance

Generous Stock Options

Employer Pension Matching

25 Days Paid Leave

Relocation Assistance

Qualifications

• Several years of shipping beautifully designed products.
• Experience with open-ended tools and flexible systems.

Responsibilities

• Design the future of Granola alongside the founders.
• Enhance the fit & finish of the product.
• Prototype, test, and iterate on new features.

Skills

Prototyping

Systems Thinking

Collaboration

User Experience

AI Tools

Job description

Design & prototype the future of AI-powered work tools

We're looking for a Founding Designer to invent the future of AI-powered work tools. You’ll share in our obsession with making the most useful product possible, especially as we evolve Granola into a multiplayer, multi-platform tool that helps with much more than just notes.

Why this role is special:

• Invent the future of software: AI is evolving rapidly, and we believe many of the best practices of tomorrow haven't been invented yet. If you're passionate about experimentation and pioneering new interaction patterns, you'll thrive here.
• Be the first full-time, in-person design hire: You'll shape Granola's design DNA. You won't just follow established processes; you'll create them, influencing both daily workflows and our long-term design culture.
• Join a design-forward founding team: Sam (co-founder) is a designer, and Chris (co-founder) is a second-time founder with a product background. We understand the importance of doing design right, and you'll have full support to push for great user experiences.
• Work with kind, ambitious, and talented people: We've built an incredible team of engineers who value product sense and empathy for users. Building something genuinely useful is embedded in our culture.

In this role, you will:

• Design the future of Granola alongside the founders, Chris & Sam. You'll work on early feature definition and collaborate closely with engineers to ship features and promote them to the world.
• Enhance the fit & finish of our product. Since users spend hours daily inside Granola, we owe it to them to create a beautifully crafted experience.
• Spend time weekly with users to investigate use cases, test new features, and gather insights for future development.
• Prototype, test, iterate: alternate between exploring wild ideas (using Figma or code with AI tools like Cursor/V0) and refining promising features, interactions, typography, and motion.
• Develop our brand and design language, ensuring consistent application across the product.

Your background looks something like:

• Several years of shipping beautifully designed products to real users, suitable for a senior or staff-level role.
• A systems thinker experienced with open-ended tools, understanding that designing flexible systems is as challenging as executing individual features.
• Able to balance speed and detail: rapid iteration when exploring new features, and attention to interaction, typography, and motion as concepts mature.
• A natural prototyper: comfortable trying ideas quickly to evaluate their feel.
• Familiar with AI tools and coding to solve problems and incorporate the latest advances into your work.
• Focused on shipped products as the measure of success, not just polished Figma files.
• Experienced working across platforms, ensuring Granola feels native on Mac, iOS, and web, with awareness of platform-specific patterns.

As a person, you…

• Are a builder at heart.
• Are excited to work in-person at our London office most of the time.
• Enjoy working in startup environments or are drawn to the zero-to-one phase.
• Value working with kind, ambitious, and pragmatic colleagues.

About the opportunity

We are in an exciting era for tool builders, reminiscent of Engelbart's 1968 demo, and we aim to assemble the best team here in London. Our compensation philosophy is to pay slightly above market salary and equity.

We prefer in-person collaboration, with the team working together five days a week at our bright, spacious office in Old Street. We offer relocation assistance for candidates moving to London.

We believe diverse backgrounds and experiences enrich our team. If you're interested and feel aligned, please reach out regardless of whether you meet all criteria.

We will review applications and respond within a week.

Our culture is flexible and parent-friendly: primarily in-person but WFH options are available when needed.

Our office in Shoreditch is filled with plants and good vibes.

Enjoy Casa Granola, our team house in Majorca, for offsites or retreats.

We offer private health insurance (free for you, subsidized for family), above-market salary, generous stock options, employer pension matching, and 25 days of paid leave plus holidays.