Director, Product Design

Everyone is welcome at Handshake. We know diverse teams build better products and we are committed to creating an inclusive culture built on a foundation of respect for all individuals. We strongly encourage candidates from non-traditional backgrounds, historically marginalized or underrepresented groups to apply.

Your impact

Remember the uncertainty of searching for your first job? First internship, second job? Does anyone slide seamlessly into the start of their careers? Most of us don’t; for millions of students every year, it feels like a mission fraught with invisible traps, no map, and the looming prospect of bills to pay. Access to help is not evenly distributed: not to connections nor to information on what's even possible out there.

That's where Handshake comes in. Our mission is to democratize access to opportunity: to help every student find the right job, no matter where they're from or who they know. We’re the career network for Gen Z, with over 15M+ job seekers, almost 1M employers, and 1500+ career centers coming together on our platform. Students need jobs and career guidance and nascent professional community, employers want to find and make great student hires, and career centers help us help everyone, ensuring it's not just students in-the-know who get in our doors. We’re seeking you and your design leadership chops to help make it the best experience for all those involved!

Come help build and strengthen a world-class product design team to tackle this very tangible, incentives-aligned, real-world problem. As a Director, you’ll have the opportunity to help lead the charge alongside your Design Leader teammates, making what we do rigorous, impactful, and joyful because, well, life is short. Let's do work that matters, together, and enjoy it as we go.

Your role

• Collaborate closely with your cross-functional partners: research, product, engineering, analytics, marketing – to ship and iterate on strategic, well-thought-out, surprisingly great-to-use products that make real impact for both our customers and business.
• Set your team up to succeed: hire and grow the team; raise the bar on culture, operations, and execution of design work, including product reasoning, systems thinking, pixel level precision, mobile prototyping, ability to facilitate conversations with and present to stakeholders, stellar teamwork and mentoring.
• Strengthen the overall product organization's ability to experiment, iterate, and learn alongside your product organization lead teammates; develop well-informed strategic visions of where we're headed, break up those visions into pragmatic phases to scaffold our way forward.
• Influence and evolve creative direction and information architecture alongside your design leader teammates and the VP of Design to weave a seamless, symbiotic experience across the disparate areas of our three-sided marketplace.
• Foster and operationalize a productive, inclusive design team culture alongside your design leads teammates, ensuring everyone is supported and set up to do their best work and their best teamwork.

Your experience

• You've designed and shipped products, especially for mobile platforms, that customers love, and can systematically, clearly articulate what it took to make that happen, from high-level strategy down to pixel-level decision-making.
• You have plenty of experience navigating complex systems, ambiguity, experimentation; you're pragmatic, flexible, and creative in seeking out solutions and paths forward.
• You relish using your design skills to bring clarity and simplicity to both process and product, and can demonstrate that you've done so effectively in the past.
• You've got a track record of building up and developing happy, high-performing teams; you take pride and joy in setting up designers from a wide variety of backgrounds for top-notch performance, impeccable vibes and constant learning.
• You're humble and kind despite your track record, excited to keep learning, curious about the workings of a three-sided marketplace and ever-evolving team / product surface area.
• Extra bonus if you're experienced with leading one or more of: multi-sided marketplaces, growth, design systems, b2b.

Compensation range

• $255,000-$270,000

For cash compensation, we set standard ranges for all U.S.-based roles based on function, level, and geographic location, benchmarked against similar stage growth companies. In order to be compliant with local legislation, as well as to provide greater transparency to candidates, we share salary ranges on all job postings regardless of desired hiring location. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors, including geographic location as well as candidate experience and expertise, and may vary from the amounts listed above.

About us

Handshake is the career platform for Gen Z. With a community of over 17 million students, alumni, employers, and career educators, Handshake’s network is where career advice and discovery turn into first, second, and third jobs. Nearly 1 million companies use Handshake to build their future workforce—from Fortune 500 to federal agencies, school districts to startups, healthcare systems to small businesses. Handshake is built for where you’re going, not where you’ve been.

When it comes to our workforce strategy, we’ve thought deeply about how work-life should look at Handshake. With our hybrid-work model, employees benefit from collaboration and shared team experiences three days per week in our vibrant offices, and enjoy the flexibility of remote work two days per week. Handshake is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in New York, London, and Berlin.

What we offer

At Handshake, we'll give you the tools to feel healthy, happy and secure.

Benefits below apply to employees in full-time positions.

• Equity and ownership in a fast-growing company.
• 16 Weeks of paid parental leave for birth giving parents & 10 weeks of paid parental leave for non-birth giving parents.
• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision policies including LGBTQ+ Coverage. We also provide resources for Mental Health Assistance, Employee Assistance Programs and counseling support.
• Handshake offers $500/£360 home office stipend for you to spend during your first 3 months to create a productive and comfortable workspace at home.
• Generous learning & development opportunities and an annual $2,000/£1,500/€1,850 stipend for you to grow your skills and career.
• Financial coaching through Origin to help you through your financial journey.
• Monthly internet stipend and a brand new MacBook to allow you to do your best work.
• Monthly commuter stipend for you to expense your travel to the office (for office-based employees).
• Free lunch provided twice a week across all offices.
• Referral bonus to reward you when you bring great talent to Handshake.

(US-specific benefits, in addition to the first section)

• 401k Match: Handshake offers a dollar-for-dollar match on 1% of deferred salary, up to a maximum of $1,200 per year.
• All full-time US-based Handshakers are eligible for our flexible time off policy to get out and see the world. In addition, we offer 8 standardized holidays, and 2 additional days of flexible holiday time off. Lastly, we have a Winter #ShakeBreak, a one-week period of Collective Time Off.
• Family support: We partner with Milk Stork to provide comprehensive 100% employer-sponsored lactation support to traveling parents and guardians. Parental leave coaching and support provided by Parentaly.

(UK-specific benefits, in addition to the first section)

• Pension Scheme: Handshake will provide you with a workplace pension, where you will make contributions based on 5% of your salary. Handshake will pay the equivalent of 3% towards your pension plan, subject to qualifying earnings limits.
• Up to 25 days of vacation to encourage people to reset, recharge, and refresh, in addition to 8 bank holidays throughout the year.
• Regular offsites each year to bring the team together + opportunity to travel to our HQ in San Francisco.
• ️ Discounts across various high street retailers, cinemas and other social activities exclusively for Handshake UK employees.

(Germany-specific benefits, in addition to the first section)

• 25 days of annual leave + 5 days of a winter #ShakeBreak, a one-week period of Collective Time Off across the company.
• Regular offsites each year to bring the team together + opportunity to travel to our HQ in San Francisco once a year.
• Urban sports club membership offering access to a diverse network of fitness and wellness facilities.
• ️ Discounts across various high street retailers, cinemas and other social activities exclusively for Handshake Germany employees.

Looking for more? Explore our mission, values and comprehensive US benefits at joinhandshake.com/careers.

Handshake is committed to providing reasonable accommodations in our recruitment processes for candidates with disabilities, sincerely held religious beliefs or other reasons protected by applicable laws. If you need assistance or reasonable accommodation, please reach out to us at people-hr@joinhandshake.com.

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