Lead Product Designer

At Help Scout, we’re on a mission to help businesses delight more customers. We’ve been on this journey since 2011, and today more than 12,000 companies use our platform to provide outstanding customer support. We’ve been fully remote from the beginning, and have a team of 140+ people all over the world.

We love crafting beautiful products and growing a business together, but we’re also trying to do something bigger. We’re building a company that brings out your best and leaves the world a better place — a company that seeks balance between profit and purpose. That’s why we’ve been a Certified B Corporation since 2019 and have pledged 1% of our equity back to the community.

Help Scout’s success hinges on hiring talented, high-accountability people who want to be part of creating a culture where we all feel challenged and supported to do our best work. We hope that excites you to join us!

Happy to Help

Help is our first name. We show up for others, not because we have to, but because we want to. We share knowledge and give freely by default, and operate with generosity and empathy for each other, our customers, and our community. After all, there is no I in team (or software).

Craft over Convention

Although it’s tempting to follow a well-worn path, we push ourselves to run beyond it — even when that sets us apart from our peers. We’re building a culture where it’s safe to be ambitious and hold each other to high standards. That’s why we obsess over the last 10%, because it shows up for our customers and the business in powerful ways.

Progress not Perfection

The work of building a product, culture, and brand is never done – we ship our best effort, listen, iterate, then repeat. Seeking progress requires the vulnerability to be curious, humble, and hungry to learn. Great ideas can come from anywhere, so we share our work openly, welcome the perspective of others, and continuously search for what can be improved.

Own the Outcome 

Ownership is key to our collective success. We consider the impact on our team and our community before we act, and believe that trust and integrity are non-negotiable. To create a better future, our decisions are made with stakeholders today and ten years from now in mind.

Help Scout has been a design-driven company from day one—it’s in our DNA. We’re low-key obsessed with delivering exceptional experiences that are customer-first. Some might say we care too much about the things “no one asked for”, but in a crowded market, our collective desire to go above and beyond—to “out-creative” the competition—is what drives us to win.

We‘re seeking a Lead Product Designer thrilled about the opportunity to learn from exceptional teammates and ship innovative, delightful experiences that drive real business impact. You’ll own projects across multiple product surfaces, help shape design team practices and culture, and contribute substantially to the evolution and pursuit of the product vision.

• This role will initially focus on the AI workstream, leading efforts to bring core AI functionality to market. As the team’s scope expands, the role will evolve to drive the delivery of AI across multiple product surfaces, shaping its integration throughout the Help Scout platform.
• You’ll partner closely with product and engineering to translate company and product strategy into focused initiatives, ensuring that we solve the right problems.
• You’ll own design and user experience for core product areas of Help Scout. From concept to completion and every detail in between.
• You’ll navigate complex, ambiguous problems and distill them down to clear, actionable steps through ruthless prioritization and clear team alignment.
• You’ll stay close to the customer to understand their goals and challenges, and leverage both qualitative and quantitative data to validate and inform your decisions.
• You’ll show your work early and often, participate in weekly design critiques, and work closely with engineers and other stakeholders to ensure a high-quality implementation.
• You’ll participate in hiring and improving the design culture within Help Scout.

• You are an experienced design leader with a track record of delivering products that people depend on every day and solve real problems.
• You over-invest in well crafted interaction and visual design that makes the customer experience feel human, modern and delightful. You’re always pushing the boundaries of what’s possible, experimenting with new ideas, and staying up-to-date with design trends and tools.
• You are comfortable navigating ambiguity and driving projects forward with a clear sense of conviction and purpose even when details are still being defined.
• Your decisions strike the right balance between gut- and data-informed, and you avoid over-optimizing for customer feedback at the expense of creative problem-solving and beautiful design.
• You’re able to balance short-term priorities through the lens of a big-picture vision.
• You pride yourself on your collaboration with others. You are exceptional at outbound communication, across multiple altitudes. You‘re an exceptional storyteller.
• You’re passionate about helping other designers grow and develop, providing guidance and constructive feedback to help the team continuously improve.

1. Value Add – you’ll meet with Jared, Co-Founder & Director of Design, to talk more about the role and your design work.
2. Logistics – you’ll meet with Mary on the Recruiting team to chat through compensation, benefits, timeline, and company culture.
3. Design Project – we’ll give you a take-home project that’s expected to take 6-8 hours (we’ll pay for your time), then our team will review it and provide feedback. We may set up some additional time to walk through it.
4. Final Chat – you’ll chat with another 1-2 people on the team, who will vary depending on what else we’d like to learn about you.
5. References – we’ll ask you for three references. Ideally, we’d like two of them to be managers, but we can be flexible.

The design team can’t wait to meet you!

• Jared McDaniel: Co-founder, Director of Product Design
• Product Designers: Kieran Hazell, Buzz Usborne, Stephen Murrill

You are located in the United States and Eastern time working hours are preferred. We believe in strong work-life balance, and since you’ll be working closely with Engineering, Product, and Design teams, we are focusing our search to this timezone. You must be able to commit to core working hours between 9AM-1PM EST.

Each role at Help Scout has a pay range aligned to our salary formula and based on national market data. We take a competency-based approach and pay is based on the level and band of your role. We assess leveling during the hiring process for new teammates, during our bi-annual performance review cycles, and when a teammate’s role changes.

The salary range for this role is $172,000-198,000.

Help Scout offers a variety of perks and benefits to support you and your family. Our offerings include healthcare coverage, wellness resources, and so much more. Visit our careers page to learn more.

All of our roles are remote, however, some roles may carry specific location-based eligibility requirements. Additionally, because Help Scout is a fully remote company and we hire from many countries, we do not sponsor visas. Help Scout teammates need to be authorized to work from their home location.

For our Sales, Product Management, Product Design, and Engineering roles, we are only able to hire in the United States.

For other roles, we are only able to hire in the following countries: United States, Canada, Australia, Finland, Ireland, Netherlands, Poland, United Kingdom, Denmark, Germany, and Norway.

We’re working on expanding this list. Our Talent Acquisition team can help answer any questions about location after starting the recruiting process.

We are an equal opportunity employer and are committed to building a company that embraces and celebrates diversity and inclusion. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We have read the studies and understand that diverse teams build better products, bring more perspective to the table, contribute to a company’s financial success, and help foster a more inclusive environment for all employees, but the bottom line is that it’s the right thing to do.

To provide you with the best experience, we can support you with accommodations or adjustments at any stage of the recruitment process. Simply inform our recruitment team during your conversation with them.

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