[Hiring] Staff Brand Designer @Retool

Role Description

Retool designers make decisions that will affect millions of people, from the developers creating software to the employees who operate it every day. Instead of designing just one product, we’re effectively designing unique software products for thousands of companies across many different verticals. This also presents a unique design challenge. Because it’s possible to build nearly anything in Retool, we don’t have absolute control over how our users experience the product. We’re constantly seeking just the right balance between convention and configuration, between technical expressiveness and conceptual simplicity.

Retool’s visual identity is very much in its infancy with massive potential to expand and grow in how it applies to various aspects of the business. As a brand designer you will play a key role in helping explore and define what that future looks like. You’ll advocate for brand systems while still finding opportunities to break out and explore new territories, iterating through conceptual approaches for a brand that stands out in a sea of generic SaaS businesses. We’re not interested in playing it safe—we want to win the hearts and minds of software developers, builders, entrepreneurs and more. This position sits within our Brand Design team and will play a critical role in further shaping Retool’s brand.

• Partner with product, marketing and engineering to create an extraordinary brand experience across retool.com, marketing campaigns, branded content moments, events, product experiences, etc.
• Help maintain and expand flexible brand system for Retool that scales to meet the needs of the business.
• Collaborate within the brand team to establish how Retool’s visual identity is strategically expressed across all experiences.
• Act as a champion for the brand and how design is applied globally.
• Brief and collaborate with external partners for various needs across illustration, motion, video and other agency engagements to execute projects with high production quality.
• Design through iteration, experimentation and learned user behaviors.
• Ensure consistency in brand work across all marketing channels while seeking opportunities to experiment and grow the capabilities of our visual system.
• Be an active participant in design at Retool, providing thoughtful feedback across design and product teams in critiques, reviews, and more.

Qualifications

• Minimum of 10 years of experience in visual design in-house or in an agency setting.
• Experience and understanding of the formal elements of graphic design—including typography, color, layout, and composition.
• A creative focus on visual design applied across various surfaces such as web, environmental experiences, print and digital campaigns, video, product, etc.
• Passion for branding, demonstrable through a portfolio of strong work in a variety of contexts and execution with a focus on brand systems.
• Experience working with motion designers to conceptualize animated visualizations as a part of a brand system–individual motion experience is a plus.
• Strong communication skills and the ability to collaborate effectively.
• A curiosity to stay educated on the latest design technologies and techniques, tempered by a desire to establish an original, opinionated style—not follow trends.
• A track record of successfully collaborating with design, marketing and business partners to translate project needs, audience insights, and constraints into informed design decisions.
• An ability to balance many simultaneous projects, independently prioritize work based on project objectives and business goals, and thrive in a fast-paced, high-growth startup environment.
• A proactive, self-starter work ethic with the ability to operate independently within a small team; Thoughtful, empathetic and creative.
• Secondary design skills are a huge plus! Motion, 3D, sound design, prototyping, creative coding, etc.