Senior Product Designer

Role Type: Full-time

Compensation:  $124,900

Visa sponsorship: Not available

Hires remotely in: United States

Experience: 3+ years

Recidiviz is thrilled to be hiring a Senior Product Designer to join our team! We’re a small, fast-moving group that explores how seemingly simple interactions and interventions can have a meaningful impact on criminal justice outcomes. That’s where you come in. We’re looking for a product designer with a strong understanding of human-centered design who can plan and conduct qualitative research with diverse communities. 

About us

Recidiviz is creating safer, healthier communities by improving outcomes for justice-involved people. We build products that reduce the number of people in prison and help criminal justice leaders embrace data-driven decision-making. 

Using modern data infrastructure and thoughtful design, we’ve been able to safely and permanently reduce incarceration and improve outcomes. We work side-by-side with leaders of the criminal justice system, justice-impacted individuals, and ecosystem partners to build a better path forward. In addition to the revenue we earn from state partners, some of the most respected philanthropists and foundations support our work.

People who succeed at Recidiviz lead with kindness and humility, assume good intent, and fix problems when they see them.

About the role

A designer at Recidiviz often dives into ambiguous systemic problems and leads projects from research through ideation to bring new products to life. Their work uncovers many potential futures in order to build towards the best path. Our ideal hire will synthesize learnings into crisp insights that set the direction for our product and service offerings. They will also incorporate data findings into their process in order to ensure meaningful impact for justice-impacted individuals.

This role will require travel across the continental United States 1 or 2 times per quarter.

Core responsibilities

• Structure and lead the research portion of projects by identifying the most powerful questions to ask field actors and collaborate with colleagues to create new tools and methods that help answer them
• Build empathy for peoples' needs first-hand by conducting interviews, shadowing actors throughout their day, and interviewing experts
• Guide colleagues through insights from research and fieldwork then translate those into action by visualizing complex systems and prototyping potential solutions
• Translate findings into action by sketching and testing ideas iteratively with users
• Work with product and state engagement managers to influence the overall product strategy and roadmap to ensure that our deployed solutions achieve desired impact at various scale
• Support research efforts with qualitative analysis and occasionally conduct secondary research to understand new problem areas and opportunities
• Build tools, processes, and systems that make it easier and more accessible for the rest of the organization to engage with and conduct high-quality user research and design thinking methods
• Advocate for resources and support efforts to include justice-involved individuals’ perspectives in both high-level strategy and concrete product decisions

Minimum qualifications

• Three to four or more years of relevant work experience
• Experience with field studies, participatory design, and heuristic evaluations
• Experience planning and leading interviews, group sessions, and synthesis sessions
• Demonstrated ability to convey research insights and complex concepts to a diversity of audiences in simple terms 
• Eager to lead by example, treat partners with respect, and seek constructive feedback
• Comfortable switching between self-directed work and teamwork
• Highly collaborative
• Ability to travel across the continental United States 1 or 2 times per quarter

Preferred qualifications

• Involved with or impacted by the criminal justice system
• Passionate about working with marginalized communities and tackling challenges related to poverty and inequity 
• A lifelong learner, dedicated to experimenting with new research methods and pushing their craft in new ways
• Deeply curious and highly attuned to human behavior and emotion
• Multidisciplinary

Compensation

Compensation levels are standard across the organization and are set as rungs, not bands. These levels help us ensure equitable compensation and responsible stewardship of our resources. Please note that we do not negotiate compensation offers. 

The compensation for a Level 3 (senior) Product Designer is $124,900. 

What we offer

• Effective, extremely thoughtful colleagues, working together on a mission that matters
• 90% medical, dental, and vision insurance coverage for you and your dependents
• Complimentary One Medical membership (depending on location)
• Flexible and generous time off, including holidays, PTO, sick leave and volunteer time
• 12 weeks of paid parental leave
• 401(k) retirement plan with 5% company match and no vesting period
• Complimentary mental health support via Talkspace
• Monthly ClassPass credit for personal fitness
• Well-located offices in Oakland and Manhattan, with the flexibility to work remotely or go into either office as you choose
• An annual company offsite each spring and other ad-hoc gatherings
• All the exhilarating challenges and stretch opportunities of a tech startup, combined with the mission-driven heart of a nonprofit

More about Recidiviz

Recidiviz was an all-volunteer effort until early 2019, when Clementine, Andrew, and Joshua founded the organization. Since then, we’ve built an A-team of software engineers, designers, product managers and domain experts, from companies like Google, Apple, Dropbox, Opower, and Sidewalk Labs. Recidiviz was part of Y-Combinator’s 2019 class and has received support from some of the most respected philanthropists and foundations, including Ford Foundation, Mackenzie Scott, Schmidt Futures, Arnold Ventures, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and the Mozilla Foundation.

Today, Recidiviz works with (and earns revenue from) 11 state partners – big and small, red and blue – and covers 25% of the US incarcerated population. We have helped to get tens of thousands of people out of the criminal justice system, safely and equitably, and saved states nearly $1 billion. In the next five years, Recidiviz plans to partner with 40 states and help 250,000 people who are stuck in the system to get out and stay out. In addition to partnering with state Departments of Corrections, Recidiviz collaborates with and learns from partners – from organizations like the Correctional Leaders Association (CLA) to community based organizations and justice-impacted individuals, whose perspectives guide our work.

To learn more about how we do what we do, check out our 2022 Year in Review, read some press coverage, or watch our recent TED Talk. And if you’re really keen to see our work, you can dive into our Github :).

An important note

Lasting change is always built on diversity. Recidiviz recruits, employs, trains, compensates and promotes regardless of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, disability, age, veteran status, ancestry, citizenship, marital status, gender identity and all protected status as required by applicable law. We consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. If you have a special need that requires accommodation, please let us know in your application. Even if you don't think you meet all the criteria above, drop your resume, and we'll take a look – you might be great for another role or another time!