Product Design Manager (USA Only - 100% Remote)

About Us

Close is a bootstrapped, profitable, 100% remote, ~100-person team of thoughtful individuals who value autonomy and impact. We are out to supercharge sales productivity for small scaling businesses with the most modern, thoughtfully all-in-one, communication-focused CRM. 

Our Product team obsesses over delivering great SaaS to serve the 6,000+ businesses that choose Close to help them grow. We are data-driven, learn the why behind problems, focus on use cases, and talk to our customers on every occasion. We share on The Making of Close, our behind-the-scenes Product & Engineering blog.

We are looking for a seasoned Product Design Manager to guide and shape our growing team. In this role, you will oversee the design of our web, desktop, and mobile apps, and play a key role in the design and development of new features. This role reports to our Senior Director of Product.

This role is ideal for someone who likes taking a hands-on approach to leadership, enjoys the challenge of managing a dynamic team, and is passionate about solving complex problems with simple and elegant solutions.

Leadership with Purpose: You will have the opportunity to lead and nurture a team of talented designers, fostering a culture of innovation and excellence. Your leadership will directly influence our design direction and the evolution of our product.

Impact at Scale: You will get to oversee design work that has a direct and significant impact on the daily experiences of our customers and their teams. Your work will be an integral part of their success as we build a world-class CRM.

Deep Work: Our product development process is inspired by Shape Up. We work in six-week cycles, thinking deeply about the right problems and shipping impactful product on time. Product, Design, and Engineering work collaboratively on the best solution. We believe in sustainable progress and success over the long run. 

Design-Driven Work: You’ll take charge of initiatives where design leads the way, setting the standard for how innovative solutions can emerge from a design-centric approach.

About the Role

Team Management

- Lead a distributed team of 5+ designers (mostly Senior-level)

- Host 1:1s and team meetings, and provide ongoing performance feedback

- Set and execute quarterly team goals

- Build strong team culture and continue to raise the bar for design quality

- Identify professional development opportunities for the team

- Grow the team, as needed

- Build and improve team processes

Research

- Drive user research efforts to uncover pain points, opportunities, and insights

- Foster a culture within the design team of regularly doing qualitative and quantitative research (e.g., user interviews, surveys, usability testing, etc.)

- Ensure the design team integrates user research findings into design decisions

- Design & BuildProvide design review/critique on a regular basis (written feedback, video calls)

- Oversee design planning and assignments for each Cycle

- Help shape projects and ideas, especially early in the process

- Work closely with Product Management and Engineering teams at every stage

- Collaborate with Engineering on building out and organizing our design system

- Ensure consistency with Close’s overall brand

- Take on limited individual contributor work

Vision

- Define and communicate a compelling design vision that aligns with the product strategy and Close brand

- Contribute to longer-term roadmap planning

- Identify, plan, champion, and execute “Design-driven” projects (e.g., redesigns, etc.)

About You

Experience & Location

- Have 8+ years experience in product design (4+ years in management)

- Experience in all aspects of design: User research, interaction design, visual design, etc.

- Experience in establishing and improving processes for how a design team works

- Track record of working closely with Product and Engineering teams on successful projects 

- Have helped build and maintain design systems

- Able to work roughly US east coast time zone hours (with a few exceptions, most of the product, engineering, and design teams are on the US east coast or in Europe)

Design & UX Sense

- Strong portfolio of elegant and simple solutions for complex desktop/mobile SaaS products

- Strong understanding of information hierarchy, progressive disclosure, typography, spacing, color theory, etc.

- Very knowledgeable about modern UX/UI patterns on desktop and mobile

- Exceptional taste in software design

Skills & Knowledge

- Enjoy helping product designers thrive and grow in their roles

- Comfortable working remotely with a high level of autonomy

- Customer and problem-focused

- Strong soft skills, especially around communication and collaboration

- Champion for design, but also know how to work within constraints and make trade-offs (we are big believers in having a fixed timeline, with flexible scope)

- Very knowledgeable about CSS, accessibility, etc.

- Proficient with Figma (you know how to work with components, variants, variables, etc.)

Bonus Points

- Experience or familiarity with Shape Up 

- Experience in sales or with sales tools

- Experience in the B2B space

- Familiarity with GitHub Issues & Projects

🌏 Why Close?

• Watch our most recent culture video featuring our annual team retreat in Italy
• 100% remote company
• 5 weeks PTO + Winter Holiday Break with 2 additional PTO days for every year with the company
• Choose between working 5 days/wk (standard full-time) or 4 days/wk @ 80% pay
• 1 month paid sabbatical every 5 years
• Paid parental leave
• Medical, Dental, Vision with HSA option (US residents)
• 401k matching at 6% (US residents)
• Dependent care FSA (US residents)
• Our story and team 🚀

💚 Our Values

• Build a house you want to live in - Examine long-term thinking and action
• No BS - Practice transparency and honesty, especially when it’s hard
• Invest in each other - Build successful relationships with your coworkers and customers 
• Discipline equals freedom - Keep your word to yourself and others
• Strive for greatness - Constantly challenge yourself and others 

💻 How We Work Together

• Productivity, Quality & Impact - We don’t track hours. We trust you’re an adult and know best how to prioritize, meet your goals and contribute at a high level. 
• Asynchronous communication & collaboration - We have team members all over the world. We don’t expect anyone to work untraditional hours, that means our default is async. Most teams have 2-5 hours of internal meetings weekly. 
• Appreciation for Deep Work - During your normal work day, not after a day a meetings!
• Autonomy & Freedom - Create a work environment that is sustainable for you. We place a high amount of trust and responsibility with our team members from the start. 

Working from 22+ countries, we’re a collection of talented humans rich in diverse backgrounds, lifestyles, and cultures. Close has been 100% remote since 2016, creating an intentional workplace around asynchronous communication and collaboration. Every year we meet up somewhere around the world to spend time with one another. These gatherings are an opportunity to strengthen the relationships within our global community.

We practice a mature approach to the workplace -- manage your time effectively, communicate thoughtfully with your teammates and customers, and produce high quality work. We have impressive tenure amongst the team; we stay at Close because we love working with our colleagues, we appreciate the autonomy and we thrive in an environment that challenges us to do our best work.

Unanimously, our favorite value is “Build a house you want to live in.” We make decisions that are rooted in helping our customers become more successful. We care equally about the health of our business and the wellbeing of our people. 

Our application process was designed to promote equitable and unbiased hiring practices. We ask a small series of questions that are similar to what would be asked in the first interview. This helps us learn more about you right from the start so please be sure to answer each question thoughtfully. Regardless of fit, you will hear back from us letting you know if we'll be moving forward.

While we are excited by all the opportunities that generative AI has unlocked, we request that you refrain from relying on AI tools when completing an application. We ask these questions because we want to get to know you, your experience, and your communication style. All responses are read closely by humans and any obviously AI generated applications will be disregarded.