Brand Design Lead

We are a renewable energy and ocean technology company committed to rapidly developing and deploying technologies that will ensure a sustainable future for Earth by unlocking the vast energy potential of its oceans. Our focus is on capturing civilizational levels of ultra-low-cost renewable energy for applications including computing and affordable renewable fuels delivered to shore.

The company is a public benefit corporation headquartered in Portland, Oregon and backed by leading venture capitalists, philanthropic investors, university endowments, and private investment offices. We operate as an idea meritocracy in which the best ideas change the company’s direction on a regular basis.

The Creative team is responsible for building a brand that inspires and educates our communities, team members, investors, and the public at large.  We believe storytelling helps people understand what we’re doing and why it matters. 

You’ll help us create our design language, rooted in simplicity, clarity, and rational thought. It’s no-frills and utilitarian. Quality comes from deleting rather than adding. As our lead, you’ll reflect simplicity in quality not only in your work, but also establish and instill the team’s practices with this approach.

Your day-to-day as Brand Design Lead includes the concepting and execution of brand and design projects that communicate our company’s mission, technology, and team. Deliverables include websites, publications, and brand guides, decks, one-pagers, digital brochures, investor materials, and corporate communications. 

The ideal candidate has impeccable graphic design chops reflected in typography, smart grids, and organized systems thinking. You’re an expert across digital, prototyping, UI, and UX. As part of a small team, you set the design bar and guide others toward it, providing creative direction and feedback across projects. 

Key qualities of a successful Panthalassian include curiosity, not only in the people and the planet, but also science, technology, engineering (and even a little math). You possess an entrepreneurial spirit, are unfazed by ambiguity, and don’t need clarity to start creating. You can take big abstract concepts and turn them into actionable design strategies that you execute on. You seek responsibility and creative ownership. There's not a lot of handholding here. You have to be able to identify problems for yourself and then make intuitive, cross-disciplinary leaps to solve them. You lead by doing, and by helping others navigate complexity with confidence.

Candidates should have strong interpersonal skills and be able to thrive in a creative, scrappy, and collaborative environment in which the best ideas change the company’s direction on a regular basis. Our team members have worked at organizations such as SpaceX, Blue Origin, Boeing, Virgin Orbit, Virgin Galactic, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, New Relic, Bridgewater, Raytheon, Disney Imagineering, and the naval architecture faculty of the University of Michigan. The company is structured as a public benefit corporation and backed by leading venture capital firms.

• Collaborate with internal stakeholders and external partners, setting the creative bar and ensuring cohesion across all deliverables
• Independently drive design and brand projects from concepting to execution, and also know when to step back and gather feedback or ask for help
• Oversee design systems and ensure visual consistency, ensuring materials are executed to a high level of craft and clarity across all mediums and audiences
• Lead thoughtful, constructive critiques, where we focus on the work not the ego
• Take as much responsibility as possible, often managing your own projects
• Define, refine, and protect brand aesthetics
• Sketch, storyboard, and prototype  websites, publications, and brand guides, decks, one-pagers, digital brochures, investor materials, and corporate communications
• Be a team player with a "no task is too small" attitude, but also know when to delegate and how to mentor others
• Maintain asset libraries and archives

• 8+ years of experience in graphic, brand or communication design experience at a creative agency, brand, technology company or similar environment
• 3+ years of experience leading projects, teams or cross-functional initiatives
• Mastery of Figma and Adobe Creative Suite
• Exceptional graphic design fundamentals, typographic sensibilities, strong grids, hierarchy and systems thinking 
• Experience building and evolving design systems
• Proven ability to thrive in a creative, scrappy, and collaborative environment, while having the vision and autonomy to create systems and process for the future
• Confident in the work, but balanced by healthy self-doubt (most of us are usually wrong)
• Smart, kind, creative, collaborative
• Verbally and visually articulate
• Comfortable mentoring junior designers and contributing to a healthy team culture
• Ability to be detail-oriented and meticulous, but also a “big picture” thinker
• Ability to maintain a calm confidence in challenging situations
• Organized and able to prioritize tasks from a big pile

• A strong network of freelance creative collaborators across design and web development

If hired for this full-time role, you will receive:

• Cash compensation of $110,000 - 155,000
• Equity in the company. We’re all owners and if we’re successful, this equity should be far and away the most valuable component of your compensation.
• A benefits package that helps you take care of yourself and your family, including:
  • Flexible paid time off
  • Health insurance (the company pays 100% of gold level PPO plan for full time employees, their partners, and dependents)
  • Dental insurance (the company pays 100% for full time employees and 100% for their partners and dependents)
  • Vision insurance (the company pays 100% for full time employees, their partners, and dependents)
  • Disability insurance (the company pays 100% for a policy to provide long term financial support if you become disabled)
  • Ability to contribute to tax-advantaged accounts, including 401(k), health FSA, and dependent care FSA
• Relocation assistance to facilitate your move to Portland (if needed).

Our offices, lab, and machine shop are located in Portland, Oregon. This position is on-site.