Lead Designer

About Kinnu

At Kinnu our mission is to give everyone the power to learn anything they want to. Read about our vision here.

We have raised over 4m USD pre-seed from some of the best angels and venture capital firms to realise our vision, including:

  • Spark Capital (Twitter, Oculus, Slack, Coinbase, Snapchat), Jigsaw and Cavalry
  • Tom Hulme (partner at Google Ventures)
  • Rene Rechtman (CEO Moonbug, exited for $3b)
  • Guy Podjarny (CEO of Snyk, valued at >$8b)
  • Tom Leathes (CEO of Motorway, valued at >$1b)
  • Adelina Grozdanova (Founder of Upgrade, valued at >$6b)

…and are about to announce another funding soon.

About the team

  • At heart, we love building products that people love but also have meaning and purpose – products that add something to the world.
  • We are serial entrepreneurs – we’ve built and exited startups before. We love this stuff. We also have experience working at larger companies, like Google, and combine the best practices of both at Kinnu.
  • Some of us have gone to Harvard. Others barely scraped by at school. What we all have in common is we’re geeky, intellectually passionate, and don’t believe there’s a proper ‘path’ in life.
  • Kinnu is our pride and joy. We’re pouring everything we have into this project to make it a success. That feels special.

Is this you?

  • You care about ownership. You will receive equity in Kinnu and we want to make you feel like you’re really part of what we’re doing.
  • You have worked at and enjoyed, or are interested in, working at a startup.
  • You want to work in an intellectually safe environment where you can be yourself.
  • You love learning. A plus – you’re interested in the brain / psychology / neuroscience and changing patterns of behaviour in today’s world.
  • You’re not afraid of a bit of chaos and changing structure / direction.
  • You believe the best way to get the most out of a team is just to trust them (cause that’s what we do. You decide what you need to be effective, not us).
  • You don’t blindly follow orders and subscribe to a philosophy of disagree and commit.
  • You value open feedback both on the giving and receiving end.
  • You’re intellectually meritocratic (best idea wins, no matter who/where it’s from).
  • Spending 6 hours on a ‘work day’ accidentally going down a rabbithole with us thinking about the meaning of life, quantum computing, or immortality in a post-scarcity world sounds like fun.

This job is probably not for you if:

  • You measure your success by your pay cheque or title.
  • Another company’s / startup’s mission is more appealing (this is totally coolsl with us, just be honest with yourself).
  • You only feel comfortable if you’re told what to do.

Key Responsibilities:

  • Define, lead and own the artistic direction for Kinnu.
  • Establish the visual language that defines our mission and what we believe.
  • Collaborate with founders, product managers, engineers, and UX designers, all the way to production.
  • Work with the marketing team to help create visual assets for campaign and promotional material.
  • Explore and learn. Design is constantly evolving, and you should too.

Qualifications:

  • You think and care about design deeply.
  • Experience building digital consumer products is valuable but not necessary.
  • Experience with AI tools like Dall-E is cool but not necessary.
  • A good understanding of accessibility principles and best practices in order to design for a wide range of users.
  • A passion for education and lifelong learning, with an understanding of how design can make complex concepts accessible and engaging to users.

Work set up:

  • Remote / in-person / hybrid is fine. Half the team is in London, the other half are in Newcastle and Cambridge. The whole team meets in person every 6 weeks, the London team meet in person 1x – 2x per week.
  • We manage by output, not by input. You decide how / when you want to work and what set up inspires you to be your best self.
  • Salary: market for the role with generous options grants.