Director of Product Design, Handshake
Core Employer Experience and Monetization
$255-265k
+ Equity
3+ days a week in office
College career network and job board
Open for applications
College career network and job board
501-1000 employees
Open for applications
$255-265k
+ Equity
3+ days a week in office
501-1000 employees
Company mission
To democratize access to opportunity and ensure any student can build a great career no matter who they know, where they live or what school they attend.
Role
Who you are
- Leadership: 5+ years of experience as a people manager at a similar or later-stage tech company; proven ability to effectively manage people, including developing talent on your teams and recruiting a diverse team that reflect the audience of our products
- Team builder: Experience sourcing, interviewing, hiring, and onboarding for your team, and the ability to spot promising design talent
- User-focused: You deeply understand and advocate for your users, grounding your approach in data and research
- Craft leader: Your expertise in visual and interaction design transforms the products you touch, resulting in high-quality experiences that resonate with users; you have a portfolio of you and/or your teams’ work that demonstrates the ability to create work that is both beautiful, effective, and impactful
- Detail-oriented: You strive for perfection in every aspect, delivering a flawless and user-friendly product
- Complex problem solver: You navigate, define, and drive complex design challenges, balancing user needs with business goals
- Data-informed: Comfortable using quantitative and qualitative data for tactical and strategic decision-making, as well as rapid iteration
What the job involves
- Handshake is hiring a Director, Product Design to focus on the core employer experience and monetization.
- This individual will be critical to the strategy and execution of Handshake’s Employer product used by 900k companies, overseeing the design of the employer experience for both free and self-service products.
- More specifically, they will be a lynchpin in up-leveling and transforming the employer experience for small- and medium-size businesses to drive rapid business growth in a market segment with massive upside
- This role is a unique opportunity to help accelerate Handshake’s growth in a way that drives Handshake’s mission and our business. Today, the biggest employers have access to the most powerful tools in the recruiting journey.
- This role will be critical to making those powerful tools more accessible to small- and medium-size businesses, and therefore expand access to opportunity for more students.
- And this role will help drive massive business value. Our initial venture into self-service doubled run-rate revenue in the past quarter—now, it’s time to scale
- The company will look to you to take the lead in developing these products into beautiful, well-crafted, and high performing experiences that users love and that perform well for the business.
- You’ll work closely with senior R&D leadership to create and execute strategic plans and the tactical efforts required to achieve them—and you’ll work with your team to motivate and inspire them and the broader team of designers, writers, and ux researchers, while holding a high bar for performance and design quality
- Work from concept to delivery, informing product strategy and shaping how Employers can create authentic connections with students
- Develop the skills, talents, and careers of the designers and design managers on your team by finding the right opportunity at the right time and coaching them to success and impact
- Lead with user empathy for students but also employers and universities
- Set high-level and detailed product design direction in collaboration with other design leaders and cross-functional peers
- Partner with product, research, content, data science and engineering to ensure projects are well-defined, high impact, and successfully executed
- Partner with product and engineering peers in strategic planning and decision making for product development
- Develop and improve a shared product design language across all student surfaces reflective of our brand
- Hold a high quality bar for all work and help set the standard for our product experience
- Be a strong and influential advocate for design influence and design priorities
Our take
The three founders of Handshake established their company in an attempt to eliminate inequality and make the student hiring landscape fairer. The Handshake platform acts as a LinkedIn for college students, pairing students from every walk of life with more than 650K employers, including the entire Fortune 500, which includes Google and Nike.
The graduate recruitment platform is open to any student with a valid @.edu email address, with more than 12 million active users from thousands of colleges and universities. With a student-first philosophy, the company generates revenue from both universities and employers rather than students.
Valued at $3.5B, Handshake has gained traction in a competitive market, although it has strong competition from recruiting giants LinkedIn and Indeed. It stands out, however, by helping students build new relationships and skills, rather than simply making connections to people they already know.
Steph
Company Specialist
Insights
Company
Funding (last 2 of 7 rounds)
Jan 2022
$200m
SERIES F
May 2021
$80m
SERIES E
Total funding: $434m
Company benefits
- đź’°Equity and ownership in a fast-growing company
- 🍼16 Weeks of paid parental leave for birth giving parents & 10 weeks of paid parental leave for non-birth giving parents
- đź’ťComprehensive medical, dental, and vision policies including LGTBQ+ Coverage. We also provide resources for Mental Health Assistance, Employee Assistance Programs and counseling support
- đź’»Handshake offers $500/ÂŁ360 home office stipend for you to spend during your first 3 months to create a productive and comfortable workspace at home
- đź“šGenerous learning & development opportunities and an annual $2,000/ÂŁ1,500 stipend for you to grow your skills and career
- 🏦401k Match: Handshake offers a dollar-for-dollar match on 1% of deferred salary, up to a maximum of $1,200 per year
- 🏝 All full-time US-based Handshakers are eligible for our flexible time off policy to get out and see the world. In addition, we offer 8 standardized holidays, and 2 additional days of flexible holiday time off. Lastly, we have a Summer and Winter #ShakeBreak, two one-week periods of Collective Time Off
Company HQ
Financial District, San Francisco, CA
Articles
Leadership
Garrett Lord
(Co-Founder & CEO)Majored in Computer Science at Michigan Technological University. Interned at Palantir Technologies before co-founding Handshake in 2012.
Ben Christensen
(Co-Founder)Graduated from Michigan Technological University with a degree in Computer Networking & Systems Administration. Interned at Target and worked as a Developer at Up and Running Software. Was part of Arbor Networks' ASERT Security Research team.
Scott Ringwelski
(Co-Founder)Attained a degree in Computer Software Engineering from Michigan Technological University. Co-founded Handshake in 2012.
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