Head of Design

Summary

Join Prepared as Head of Design and lead a multidisciplinary team across product design, visual design, and user experience. This player-coach role requires setting a clear vision, recruiting and developing a high-impact team, fostering a culture of improvement, and evolving the visual identity. You will build processes for fast iteration, partner with cross-functional teams for seamless user experiences, and contribute hands-on to design work. Collaborate with Product and Engineering leaders on strategy, translate user needs into intuitive designs, and champion data-driven design. Help establish Prepared as a design-led organization, promoting collaboration and clear decision-making. The ideal candidate has 10+ years of experience in product design, with 5+ years in senior leadership, expertise in UX and visual design systems, and a passion for our mission.

Requirements

• You bring 10+ years of experience across product design, with 5+ years in a senior leadership role
• You’ve scaled and led teams through growth stages in collaborative, high-performance environments (startup or scaleup preferred)
• You have deep expertise in both product UX and visual design systems, and are confident in guiding and learning across disciplines
• You can zoom out to define long-term vision, and zoom in to critique a button interaction or type scale
• You’re comfortable rolling up your sleeves to contribute hands-on when necessary, helping move high-priority work forward or unblocking the team
• You move quickly, make decisions with incomplete data, and ship with quality and urgency
• You understand how to balance user needs and business impact—your work reflects both
• You’ve built design teams, systems, and rituals from the ground up
• You’re passionate about mentoring and sponsoring designers, elevating craft, and helping shape the design organization’s identity
• You know how to foster cross-functional trust, alignment, and healthy tension
• You’re drawn to our mission and want your work to have real-world, life-saving impact
• You enjoy designing for complex, high-stakes environments and are energized by the challenge of bringing clarity where it matters most
• You want to work with a team that values excellence, humility, ownership, and continuous learning

Responsibilities

• Set and communicate a clear, ambitious vision for UX and interaction design
• Recruit, develop, and support a diverse and high-impact design team
• Foster a culture of craft, curiosity, and continuous improvement
• Evolve our visual identity to align with our mission, values, and the people we serve
• Build processes that support fast iteration and high standards
• Create and evolve systems for design review, feedback, and consistent execution
• Partner closely with cross-functional peers to ensure seamless user experiences
• Be willing and able to contribute hands-on to design work when needed—whether that’s shaping key product features, evolving our design system, or jumping into collaborative problem-solving
• Collaborate with Product and Engineering leaders on roadmap and prioritization
• Translate complex, real-time user needs into accessible, intuitive designs
• Ensure product design and brand work together to tell a unified story across all surfaces
• Champion a culture of data-driven design, where the user experience evolves based on insights gleaned from continuous discovery
• Help establish Prepared as a respected and inclusive design-led organization
• Promote psychological safety, thoughtful critique, and open collaboration
• Model clear decision-making and high expectations in service of our users and mission

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience designing tools for critical or essential services (e.g., healthcare, public safety, logistics)
• Familiarity with the unique constraints of designing for high-stakes, real-time users (e.g., latency, accessibility, decision-making under stress)
• Experience building and operationalizing inclusive, scalable, and accessible design systems
• Mastery of Figma and familiarity with design tokens and component libraries for developer collaboration
• Experience partnering with brand design to produce a cohesive visual identity within our product as well as our external-facing collateral

Benefits

• Remote-First Culture
• Medical, Dental, and Vision Benefits
• 401k + Free Financial Advisors with Betterment
• Monthly Cell Phone Stipend
• Unlimited Time Off + 15 Observed Holidays
• 12 Weeks of Paid Parental Leave (birthing + non-birthing parents)
• Visit a PSAP (911 Center)
• WeWork Membership for All Employees
• Annual Company Offsite
• AI Tools like ChatGPT + NotionAI
• $500 Work from Home Budget