Product Designer

LOCATION

In-Person, NYC (Noho Office)

COMPENSATION

Salary $120-$160k + equity

WHAT’S SHADE?

Shade is scaling fast. In 18 months, we've built the combined technology of FrameIO (acquired by Adobe for $1.275B) and LucidLink ($40M ARR), layered with proprietary AI for visual search and video labeling. We process thousands of hours of video per day, powering end-to-end workflows for major customers across post-production, creative agencies, sports, and internal media teams—including Clay, Related, Grüns, HelloFresh, and Webflow. We're growing 150% QoQ with 120% NRR.

Backed by Khosla Ventures, General Catalyst, Contrary, and Bling.

What's next

We're building the platform creative teams actually need. We're not here to generate AI slop—we're eliminating the tedious parts of creative work: waiting for downloads, manually tagging files, sorting archives, license verification. Because we operate at the file system level, we're positioned as critical infrastructure for how creative teams store, access, and leverage their media. That foundation unlocks endless possibility.

Takeaway

We're laying the tracks as we drive the train. You’re getting in on the ground floor of the next Cursor or Figma.

WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR

An experienced product designer to join full-time as our 3rd design hire, working closely with founding designer Karina, CEO Brandon, and product designer Dan.

• You’ve scaled product and worked with systems before: 2-3 years of experience, preferably at a scaling startup (Series A and beyond), you know how to maintain and scale complex design systems across mobile, web, and desktop

• Figma expert: fluent in variables, auto-layout, responsive design, prototyping, and component library management

• High ownership: you’re happy being the first and last set of eyes on a feature buildout

• Engineer-friendly: you want to work with our engineers, understand our tech stack, and are experienced in design-developer handoff. You defend your designs but are mindful of implementation cost.

• High empathy: you’re highly motivated and selfishly invested in solving creative friction, you understand our end user and when you don’t, you learn to

• Meticulous but pragmatic: you’re prone to memorize HEX codes and can distinguish Geist from Inter by eye but **are willing to sacrifice perfection for speed and product

• Shipped work across mediums: We’re looking for real, shipped products with live links—ideally spanning web, desktop, and mobile. Concept work is great, but we also want to experience the actual end-to-end UX.

  • Show us how you organize your work in Figma: share a screenshot or prototype of your flow structure, theme organization, or token naming. It doesn’t need to be perfect—don’t let an “imperfect” portfolio keep you from sending examples.

  • Bonus: Any design work beyond product—animation, data visualization, illustration, editorial, packaging, or anything else that shows your range.

PERKS!

You are more than “shareholder value.” We build our team around personal investment and ambition, so we offer benefits like:

• Office snacks, free lunch, comp-ed dinners

• Full health insurance (w. dental & vision), 401k with % match

• Unlimited PTO

• Lifetime gym membership

• Commuter cards for subway/bus —> we work in-person

• ^^ You’ll want to work in-person! We are fun! Our office is cool!

And, of course, these are in addition to salary and equity. At Shade, you are the “shareholder.”

BONUS POINTS

“You don’t know what you don’t know” — CEO Brandon

We view team growth as an opportunity for skill capture. These aren’t “mission critical,” but they will put your application over the edge:

• Motion graphics / product animation experience whether that be in AE, Jitter, Flutter, etc.

• Graphic design, making YouTube thumbnails (in Figma and/or Photoshop), comfortable making product mockups in Photoshop

• Framer (building out our existing site and adding to it)

• Desire to work on brand messaging, visual strategy, more conceptual aspects of design

• ^^translation: we love design generalists :)