Founding Designer

About Tempo

Tempo was started by three co-founders with complementary backgrounds across product, engineering, operations, and go-to-market. Our team includes a former founder, multiple successful exits, experience leading businesses to scale, multiple fundraises, and experience at great tech companies like Airbnb, dbt Labs, and Automattic. We’re united by a desire to build for our customers, using today’s best technology to help organizations better understand and support the people they serve.

We believe what we’re working on must be built, but we know that only a small group of committed people who care about putting great things into the world can build this company. The early team will define our foundation and form our culture. Our early teammates hold founding titles (e.g., Founding Engineer, Founding Designer), receive shares rather than options, and are compensated in line with the stage and their role in bringing this company to life. San Francisco is preferred, though we’re open to remote for the right people and can discuss relocation support.

Yeehaw let's build!

About You

• Founders. You thrive without a formal playbook and will have a meaningful impact on the company’s trajectory. You are not confined to your title’s role description. You approach new challenges with determination, see setbacks as a part of the journey, and don’t let your title define your impact.

• High-Caliber. You set uncompromising expectations for craft, pace, and judgment. You take full ownership, holding yourself and your teammates to the highest standards.

• Customer-orientation. You are comfortable joining sales/user conversations and turning messy feedback into product decisions, with strong empathy for how people actually work.

• Taste. You are opinionated about what “good” looks like, from interaction and visual design to how we show up in the world. You will have an outsized impact on brand and culture.

• Passion. You go the extra mile inside and outside of the office. You know what gives you energy, and in doing so, show up as the best version of yourself at work. You support others to do the same, while investing in an environment where building is sustainable.

The Role

We’re hiring our first designer. As the founding design hire, you’ll work alongside our co‑founders and engineering team with ownership that extends beyond a typical design role—spanning user research, UX flows, UI, and our design system. The decisions you make will shape how users interact with our product and set the standard for its usability, polish, and overall feel. We hope this role grows into a design leadership role.

Responsibilities

• Own and refine the end to end product experience for an MVP and then create a fast iteration loop to refining a new product.

• Plan and run user research, join sales and customer calls, and translate messy feedback into clear interaction patterns.

• Stand up zero to one design practices, tools, and a lightweight component system the team can actually use.

• Contribute to brand moments for public launches, the site, presentations, and sales collateral where helpful.

• Operate in greenfield with rapid prototyping and a passion for iteration.

• Form product opinions by regularly meeting with customers to understand needs, validate solutions, and close the loop on what we ship.

• Build our design and broader culture with care and intentionality.

Experience

• Some combination of 8 to 12 years in product design, recent staff or principal scope, or a significant track record leading zero to one design work.

• End to end ownership of a v0 or v1 that shipped and iterated quickly.

• Direct customer exposure through research sessions and sales conversations.

• Portfolio showing high polish interaction and experience design; brand work for launch or sales is a plus.

• Experience leading teams is a plus and while you may not initially manage, the ability to grow into that role is preferred.

Compensation & Benefits

Tempo is committed to supporting teammates in all aspects of life. We believe that doing your best work is contingent on knowing that the health and well-being of you and your family are taken care of. Together, we can build an environment where we all do the best work of our careers.

• Competitive compensation package with founder shares versus options.

• 100% coverage of health, dental, and vision insurance for you and your dependents.

• Flexible schedules & paid time off, parental leave, and a Work Life Improvement stipend to help you do great work.

• Sunday scaries free work environment and swag you’ll actually like.