Staff UX/UI Designer

Description

The company builds multi-product defense technology. Its products run on its own Coherent Distributed Networks platform and serve warfighters, commercial air operators, and border protection teams.

Founded in 2022, the company has raised $1 billion from investors including 8VC, Accel, and Valor Equity Partners. It has more than 500 employees and offices in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, San Diego, and London.

This is a new staff-level role to build UX at the company from the start. You will set the direction for how UX is practiced, bringing in research, interaction design, information architecture, and usability for the internal tools and products teams use daily. You will work alongside engineering and also create the processes, standards, and research practices the function will rely on as it grows. Over time you will add user research as a core part of that foundation.

The role suits a senior individual contributor who wants to build a function rather than work inside an existing one. You will work independently, make sound calls with little oversight, and set the UX standard at the company from day one.

Responsibilities

• Lead UX for key products and internal tools, from early concept to shipped experience, as the most senior UX voice in the room
• Work with engineering to design and refine interfaces, workflows, and interactions, weighing user needs against technical limits
• Introduce user research at the company, including usability testing and interviews, so design decisions rest on real user needs
• Define UX best practices, standards, and processes for the whole company, with authority to set direction
• Build processes, standards, and practices for a UX function that can grow over time
• Turn complex, technical, or new workflows into clear, well-designed experiences
• Work with engineering, product, and leadership to agree on priorities and make the user's case in high-level decisions
• Create and maintain design systems and UX standards that scale as products and the company grow
• Explain design reasoning and research findings clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences, including leadership

Requirements

• 10+ years of UX design experience, with a record of working at staff or principal level on complex products
• Experience running or overseeing user research, such as usability testing or interviews, and using the results in design decisions
• A strong portfolio of senior-level end-to-end UX work covering research, interaction design, and polished execution
• Experience working closely with engineering teams and turning technical constraints into good design solutions
• Proficiency in Figma and standard UX and prototyping tools
• Strong communication, stakeholder management, and influence skills, with a proven ability to set direction and win buy-in where the function is new
• Proven ability to work independently with a high level of ownership in ambiguous situations, especially while building a function from scratch
• Preferred: experience designing for technical, engineering-heavy, or hardware-adjacent products
• Preferred: experience designing map-based, geospatial, or location-based interfaces
• Preferred: experience in defense or government, especially with command and control (C2) systems
• Preferred: experience setting up design systems from scratch
• Preferred: a bachelor's degree in design, HCI, psychology, or a related field, or equivalent experience
• Preferred: U.S. citizen

Conditions

Hybrid work: three days a week in the office, based in either El Segundo or San Francisco

The posted salary range covers base pay only and excludes bonus, equity, and benefits. It is an estimate, and the actual offer may vary with experience, education or training, critical skills, and business needs. You are still welcome to apply if your pay expectations fall outside the range.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision coverage, with 100% of premiums paid by the company
• 401(k) with a 50% company match up to 6% of pay, plus FSA, HSA, life insurance, and more
• Free lunch every workday when onsite, a fully stocked kitchen, and a casual dress code
• Unlimited PTO
• Competitive base salaries, generous pre-IPO stock option grants, and relocation assistance
• Annual bonuses, coming soon