We believe that Americans with limited income deserve modern, respectful, and effective experiences around their government benefits and money. Unfortunately, the status quo often fails to treat them as first-class citizens in their daily interactions around the social safety net and financial services. The tech industry hasn’t pulled its weight in solving the problems faced by low-income Americans.

Propel’s mission is to change that. We’ve built Providers, the single most popular app in the country built specifically for low-income Americans. Over 5 million families each month use Providers to seamlessly manage their government benefits (programs like SNAP, commonly known as food stamps), conduct their banking, and save and earn money. Providers has been recognized by the White House, featured on the front page of the NYTimes, and carries over 500,000 five star reviews. 

We’re hiring a Head of Design to lead our 15-person design team across product design, brand design, and design research! As the top design leader within Propel, you’ll be responsible for delivering a world-class user experience and brand that fulfills our mission. You’ll work closely with product and engineering counterparts to define and execute the full experience that our users have with our products and company. You’ll evangelize the power of design thinking, product polish, and user centricity across the company.

Propel is a for-profit, venture-backed company that holds its social mission at its core. We’re proud to be supported by a blend of nonprofits, impact investors, and world-class investors, including the Robin Hood Foundation, Andreessen Horowitz, Nyca Partners, Financial Health Network, JPMorganChase, Kevin Durant, Serena Williams, and Nas.

We are strongly committed to hiring a diverse and multicultural team. We encourage applications from those with traditionally underrepresented backgrounds, and we particularly value the experiences of people with direct experience with the social safety net. 

We offer:

  • An immediate opportunity to improve the daily experience of poverty in the United States for millions of families
  • A get-stuff-done, fun, and caring culture
  • A culture that deeply values design in all its forms - the founding story of Propel is rooted in dissatisfaction with the design of safety net services used by low-income Americans
  • A remote-first work environment with a dog-friendly office in Downtown Brooklyn and satellite offices in San Francisco and Salt Lake City
  • Propel believes that everyone should be compensated fairly and equitably. We set our salary ranges using compensation data from hundreds of similar startups in Tier 1 markets; salary is not scaled by location. The salary range for this position is $240,000 - $275,000, with a strong equity package and excellent benefits.

What you’ll do:

  • As the top design leader at Propel, you will represent design and design thinking at the highest levels of the company, shaping Propel’s company and business strategy
  • Work with other leaders across product, engineering, and business to ship world-class features to millions of people every day
  • Manage a team of 15 people across product design, brand/visual/content design, and design research
  • Dramatically improve the quality and velocity of design at Propel, investing in design systems as well as pushing for a higher bar through your daily work
  • Build an iconic brand that represents hope, respect, and forward momentum for low-income Americans
  • Deeply internalize the voices of the people we serve, evangelizing their needs both inside and outside of Propel
  • Hire, grow, and retain great design talent

What you have:

  • 10+ years of hands-on digital design experience, ideally focused on consumer mobile
  • Experience as a design manager directly overseeing multiple design disciplines simultaneously, including but not limited to: product design, design research, visual design, and content design
  • Experience leading design for at least one consumer software product used by millions of people
  • A work portfolio that shows relevant design work. To be considered for this role, a portfolio is required with application submission. If your portfolio is password protected, please include the password.
  • Expertise in key design tools and systems for both product design and brand creative 
  • Experience leading a team of designers, engineers, and operations folks to prioritize, scope, and ship software
  • Concise written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to tell a compelling story about design and product strategy
  • A background serving our customer segment and/or deep interest in learning about their problems and needs

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Demographic Questions
At Propel, we believe that an environment that is diverse, inclusive, and equitable drives us towards the best product and business decisions that allow us to effectively and consciously serve our mission and our users. As a social enterprise, we also recognize that caring about DEI is quite simply the right thing to do. 

The people that use our products are diverse in many ways - gender, age, race, sexual orientation, religion, disability status, and more. We explicitly aim to reflect that with our team composition, though we aren’t there yet. That’s why we are actively working to make sure our job descriptions are inclusive, our sourcing nets are widely cast, and our interview process is equitable and fair to all.

We particularly value those with lived experiences around financial hardship and safety net programs. While people from all backgrounds can contribute to Propel’s mission, we know that those who come from the communities we serve have an incredibly powerful and unique perspective.

Your responses will be used (in aggregate only) to help us identify areas of improvement in our process. Your responses will not be associated with your specific application and will not in any way be used in the hiring decision.
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