Founding Creative Director / Design Lead

Location: San Francisco, CA or Phoenix, AZ (In-Office) Partnership: EQL Tech has been exclusively retained by a high-growth technology startup to appoint a mission-critical Creative Director to own the brand feel of the company and the movement they're building. About The Company & The Mission EQL Tech is proud to represent a highly ambitious, well-funded startup that has raised $16M from top-tier VCs and angels. The company is building the financial rails to help families access new State education funds (known as ESAs or School Choice Funds). The $900B US Public Education budget is being opened up for parents to take control of their portion, which averages $7.5k per kid per year. Ambitious homeschool parents are already using these funds to piece together their dream education experience. Helping them access these funds is Step 1 in the journey to build the next-gen education system. The company treats this as their life's work and has already rejected an acquisition offer because they care about this being done right. The Team You will be joining an in-person company, working together in the office. The Founders: The founders are engineers who have run their own alternative school together. One previously worked as a Quant at Goldman Sachs, and the other built the computer vision system for the largest smart warehousing company globally, serving 1M customers/day at age 19 The Core Team: You will work alongside top talent, including a founding engineer who did AI research at MILA and at Elon Musk's SpaceX school, a Head of Risk from Mercury, Stripe, and Circle, and a Payments Engineer from Microsoft and Goldman Sachs. The team also includes the former Deputy Director at Arizona's ESA department and leading school choice advocates The Role: Creative Director As Creative Director, you will own every customer-facing touchpoint — from product design to film, media, events, and communications. You will work directly alongside the co-founders to define the visual soul of the company. Responsibilities Design Across Core User Journeys: Build with deep empathy — understanding not just what parents do, but how they think and feel. Design for the moment a parent is confused, not just the happy path Define the Visual Identity: Evolve the brand across product, film, and media. Create a cohesive brand system that scales from hundreds of families to hundreds of thousands External-Facing Touchpoints: Deliver the website, decks, emails, launch materials, and social. Ensure coherence across product, brand, and communication so everything feels intentional and unified Product Strategy: Work closely with the founders on positioning and roadmap. Build Internal Design Systems: Define processes for shipping high-quality design. You will be responsible for building our internal design system to help others on the team ship with your taste Requirements You're deeply customer-obsessed and care about the details: You know that the best design comes from intimacy with the problem, and with that, you're willing to go to users' homes and onboard them 1:1 to see their reactions to your work. Systems Thinker: You see product, brand, and voice as one unified thing. Small inconsistencies bother you because they erode trust with users making high-stakes decisions about their child's education High-Output & Resourceful: You have conviction in your taste but can iterate with new information across product, brand, and voice. You're comfortable giving strong opinions and getting pushback on your work. You're not scared to try things and be bold Simplicity-Obsessed: You're obsessed with making complicated things feel simple. Our users are constantly overwhelmed — you distil information to its core and communicate it in their language Benefits Commitment, Compensation & Benefits: This will be a big commitment, and we're aiming high. It needs to be something you are energised about taking on, or this isn't the team for you. Generous Founding Equity: We compensate you well with equity Top-Tier Backing: We've raised $16M from top-tier VCs and angels Relocation Support: You are willing to relocate to San Francisco, CA, or Phoenix, AZ, and travel to visit customers. We're an in-person company and are in the office together Comprehensive Visa Sponsorship: If you do not have a visa, we can support you Unmatched Impact: The rare opportunity to directly shape how the $900B US Public Education budget is being opened up for parents to take control of their portion (avg. $7.5k/kid/year) #J-18808-Ljbffr EQL Tech (sales & engineering talent)