Pocket is a beautifully designed AI recording device and the intelligent apps that transform your captures into real productivity. We're building the founding design team, and this senior role is a cornerstone hire.
You won't just execute — you'll shape the product. You'll lead design across complex surfaces, mentor junior talent, and help define what great looks like at Pocket. The CDO is a hands-on collaborator, not a gatekeeper, and this is a relationship built on mutual investment.
The most exciting part of working here isn't the title or the equity, it's that you'll hold what you make. AI Hardware is an emerging space with almost no established playbook, which means the designers who show up now get to write it. The interaction paradigms, the design methods, the industry vocabulary for this category — they don't fully exist yet. We're building them.
We believe the way designers will define interfaces and experiences in the AI era won't resemble the tools or workflows we use today. You'll be on the team that figures out what comes next.
Founding team equity. Real ownership. A CDO who's here to build something together with you.
What you'll own
- Visual (Graphic) Design excellence
- Lead peer designers on complicated projects
- Mentor designers earlier in their careers than you
- Design user interface for Pocket's companion apps
- Design AI hardware device user interface and interaction models
- Own end-to-end design across key product surfaces
- Research latest design trend and style and continuously keep us fresh
- Execute end-to-end experience design with empathy and craftsmanship
- Lead foundations and patterns of our emerging a state-of-the-art design system
- Invent new UI components, interaction models, and with new technologies
- Drive cohesive visual identity across all touch points
- Bring aesthetic rigor and interaction clarity to every surface you touch
- Partner with Engineering and Product every step of the way
- Establish documentation: usage rules, accessibility, content and voice guidelines
- Be a steward of an emerging world-class, high-design brand language
- Drive concept development, user research synthesis, and design system architecture
- Enjoy the journey
What we're looking for
You’re a fit if you are curious, brave, relentlessly optimistic, and deeply thoughtful. Designers do empathy. You are an empath. And..
- Fascination with Artificial Intelligence, and have a daily relationship with it
- A trained Designer (accredited design program or other formal training)
- 5–8 years of product design experience, with meaningful 0-to-1 product work
- Have designed at the intersection of hardware and software, or are deeply fluent in both
- Know how to hold design quality under pressure and bring others along with you
- Highly capable with all elements of Graphic Design and Brand
- Fluent with iOS and Android guidelines and Web design standards
- Expert in Figma and various prototyping tools
- UI Animation design proficiency and Motion sensibility
- Experience with design systems, accessibility, and design-to-dev workflows
- Are energized by ambiguity and curious about where the practice of design is heading
- Think seriously about where the practice of design is going, and want a role in shaping it
- You can be a voice in product strategy and a model of craft for the team we're building
Strong plus:
- Have invented AI Design workflows and can share knowledge with the team
- Have shipped holistic hardware, software, and services
- Have experience working with manufacturing in Asia
- Content design/copywriting skill for in-product education and product engagement
- Analytics-informed iteration; experimentation with clear success metrics
What we offer
- Direct impact on a fast-growing YC company with strong early revenue traction
- Work directly with senior team and founders who care about quality and move fast
- High trust, high ownership environment
- Best-in-class tools (design, motion, testing devices, prototyping kits)
Pocket
