Founding Product Designer

AI Financial Operations for Construction San Francisco, CA, US Full-time Will sponsor 3+ years We're building the financial ops platform for construction, a $12T global industry run by software built 20-40 years ago, much of it on‑prem with no APIs and no documentation. We spent 3 years building the rails to read and write across those systems, and we use them to deploy AI for invoicing, expenses, compliance, billing, and more. We have 500+ customers and have been profitable & cashflow positive for over two years. We're backed by Accel and Y Combinator, with investors from Procore, Autodesk, and Plaid. Our three co‑founders have worked together for 12+ years, across Graphiq (acquired by Amazon in 2017) and Amazon. About the role Fresh off a $15M Series A led by Accel (total funding now $20M+), Agave is profitable, growing fast, and scaling the team. We're hiring our first design hire to own the look, feel, and usability of Agave as we go from one product to a platform. You'll build our design system from scratch, design across every product we ship this year (2-6 new ones), and work directly with the cofounders, engineers, and PMs to make the Agave platform simple to use. Responsibilities Own the end‑to‑end product experience. Across every product we have today and every product we launch this year, you own how it looks and how it feels to use. Build our design system from zero. Tokens, components, patterns, documentation. We have none of this. A controller using three of our products should feel like they're using one tool, not three. Design data‑dense interfaces. Our users work with thousands of invoices, hundreds of vendors, dozens of jobs, and GL codes that matter to the dollar. You're comfortable making tables, filters, reconciliation flows, and sync states that hold up at scale. Go deep on the customer. You'll sit in on calls with controllers, AP managers, and project accountants. You'll watch them use our product. You'll see the workflows, hear the frustration, and turn it into product improvements. Partner with cofounders and PMs on what to build. You'll be in the room for all major product decisions, not just the pixel decisions. Your taste and instincts will shape what ships. Must have Shipped B2B product work. A portfolio of real products used by real users, not concept reels. Bonus if you can point to specific outcomes your design drove (activation, retention, conversion, reduced support load). Systems thinking. You've built or meaningfully contributed to a design system for a multi‑product platform and can walk through the tradeoffs you made. Comfort with data‑dense, workflow‑heavy software. If your portfolio is all marketing sites and consumer apps, this won't be a fit. Taste and strong opinions, loosely held. You know what good looks like, you can explain why, and you're not precious about any single screen. High ownership + conscientiousness. Able to manage many threads at once: multiple products, a design system, etc., without sacrificing quality. Clear + concise communication. Oral and written. You can write crisp design docs and explain your decisions to engineers, cofounders, and customers. In‑person. Pumped to work in‑person in SF 5 days per week. Nice to have You can ship code. React, TypeScript, Tailwind, or equivalent. You don't need to be a senior engineer. You do need to prototype in code and push small frontend changes yourself. Experience designing for blue‑collar, back‑office, or operations‑heavy industries: construction, logistics, manufacturing, field services, trucking, energy, or accounting/ERP software Experience as the first or second designer at an early‑stage startup: someone who's set up the tooling, the system, and the bar before. Benefits Healthcare: we cover 90% of your healthcare costs with several plan options. 401k: we match 100% of your contributions, up to 4% of annual salary. Performance Bonuses: we offer annual performance bonuses when we hit company growth goals, which are a % of your base salary. These are large, meaningful rewards that scale with the amount we grow in a particular year. Relocation: sizable relocation bonus for folks currently located outside of the Bay Area, and a bonus for anyone (even within the Bay Area) who moves within a 15‑minute walk of our office. Breakfast & Dinner, delivered: breakfast and dinner stipends through DoorDash. Plus a kitchen stocked with coffee, snacks, drinks, and more. Gym: on‑site gym with Peloton, squat rack, Tempo, Yoga setup, and more. Visa: we sponsor Visas (H1B, TN, etc.) for candidates who are a good fit! Commuter benefits: employees can make pre‑tax contributions toward commuting costs, and we'll cover the full cost of a Muni pass for those using public transit. In‑Person We've built Agave in‑person since day 1, and will maintain an in‑person culture in San Francisco going forward. We form tighter bonds, build a stronger culture, and move faster since we're all working from one location. Our office is at 101 New Montgomery Street, San Francisco, right near Salesforce Park, coffee shops & restaurants, and a bustling downtown. We believe building in‑person is a huge strategic advantage, and we hope you'll join us. Interview Process Intro (virtual, 15 mins): informal chat for you to learn more about the role. We'll ask about your past projects and what you're looking for next. We want to know that you meet our basic requirements and can speak about your work clearly. You're welcome to ask lots of questions about whether working at Agave makes sense for you. Product Critique (take‑home, ~45 mins): we'll send you a live screen from one of our products. Write us a short critique (1 page max) — what's working, what's broken, and what you'd change first. We'll also have you briefly explain what Agave does. Design Thinking Question (virtual, 60 mins): we'll walk through a real product problem together — one we've built at Agave. You'll ask clarifying questions, sketch out the workflow, and talk through UX tradeoffs with us. We're looking for how you think, not pixel perfection. Case Study (take‑home, ~4hrs): we'll give you a real product prompt based on one of our products. On‑site Interviews (60 min. x 4, all 1:1 interviews) [In‑Person in SF, we pay for the trip]: you'll interview with each co‑founder and our lead PM. Deeper dive into your experience, technical fluency, and overall fit. Each interview is 1 hr, 45 min for our questions and 15 min for yours. San Francisco, CA, US Full‑time $100,000 - $150,000 0.01% - 0.10% Any (new grads ok) #J-18808-Ljbffr