What are the responsibilities and job description for the Founding Product Designer position at Agave?
tldr: tl;dr: We're hiring our first design hire to own the look, feel, and usability of Agave as we go from one product to a platform. You'll build our design system from scratch, design across every product we ship this year (2-6 new ones), and work directly with the cofounders, engineers, and PMs to make the Agave platform simple to use.
Why join us? Early-stage, yet de-risked. We are a rare combo of being early stage (high upside) but lower risk (5XX paying customers, $Xm recurring revenue, profitable & cash-flow positive for over 2 years, hockey-stick growth). You get the benefits of an early stage startup without the risk you'll have at almost any other startup. You'll have a ton of impact, work directly with our customers, and ship real product for real users. Although we're early stage, we've eliminated the key strategic risks you'll face at other startups — unproven product, lack of market validation, lack of revenue, over-reliance on VC funding, co-founder disputes. We're all young and hungry. Our team is fully in-person, tenacious, and committed — most of us moved to SF from far away (Canada, SoCal, Texas, Virginia) specifically to build Agave from the ground up.
A blank canvas with real stakes. Most first design hires join companies that are either pre-product (nothing to design for) or post-product (constrained by whatever was built before you). We're in the sweet spot. We have 2 live products customers already love, and 2-6 more launching this year. You'll build all of our design system, component library, and product surface it, and every product shipping for the next several years will carry your fingerprints.
Your work compounds. Every product you design plugs into infrastructure we've spent years building, and every new product makes the rest of our suite more valuable. You're not designing in a vacuum — you're designing for an existing customer base, a co-sell network with some of the largest companies in construction, and a platform that's still being defined. The decisions you make in your first six months will shape how thousands of construction teams interact with their critical software for years.
Huge opportunity with little direct competition. Startups are incredibly hard, so you want to join one that has a unique advantage. Construction is the world's third-largest industry and overlooked by most people in startup land. We have a multi-year head start against potential competitors. We're backed by world-class investors (Accel, YC) and construction insiders (Procore and Autodesk executives, founders of the largest construction tech companies like PlanGrid).
Responsibilities
We've spent years building deep, proprietary integrations with every major construction ERP and project management platform. This year we're launching 2-6 more products on the same platform, on top of our existing products. Your job is to make all of it look, feel, and work like one tool.
We've built Agave in-person since day 1, and will maintain an in-person culture in San Francisco going forward. We form tighter bonds, build a stronger culture, and move faster since we're all working from one location.
Our office is at 101 New Montgomery Street, San Francisco, right near Salesforce Park, coffee shops & restaurants, and a bustling downtown. We believe building in-person is a huge strategic advantage, and we hope you'll join us.
Why join us? Early-stage, yet de-risked. We are a rare combo of being early stage (high upside) but lower risk (5XX paying customers, $Xm recurring revenue, profitable & cash-flow positive for over 2 years, hockey-stick growth). You get the benefits of an early stage startup without the risk you'll have at almost any other startup. You'll have a ton of impact, work directly with our customers, and ship real product for real users. Although we're early stage, we've eliminated the key strategic risks you'll face at other startups — unproven product, lack of market validation, lack of revenue, over-reliance on VC funding, co-founder disputes. We're all young and hungry. Our team is fully in-person, tenacious, and committed — most of us moved to SF from far away (Canada, SoCal, Texas, Virginia) specifically to build Agave from the ground up.
A blank canvas with real stakes. Most first design hires join companies that are either pre-product (nothing to design for) or post-product (constrained by whatever was built before you). We're in the sweet spot. We have 2 live products customers already love, and 2-6 more launching this year. You'll build all of our design system, component library, and product surface it, and every product shipping for the next several years will carry your fingerprints.
Your work compounds. Every product you design plugs into infrastructure we've spent years building, and every new product makes the rest of our suite more valuable. You're not designing in a vacuum — you're designing for an existing customer base, a co-sell network with some of the largest companies in construction, and a platform that's still being defined. The decisions you make in your first six months will shape how thousands of construction teams interact with their critical software for years.
Huge opportunity with little direct competition. Startups are incredibly hard, so you want to join one that has a unique advantage. Construction is the world's third-largest industry and overlooked by most people in startup land. We have a multi-year head start against potential competitors. We're backed by world-class investors (Accel, YC) and construction insiders (Procore and Autodesk executives, founders of the largest construction tech companies like PlanGrid).
Responsibilities
We've spent years building deep, proprietary integrations with every major construction ERP and project management platform. This year we're launching 2-6 more products on the same platform, on top of our existing products. Your job is to make all of it look, feel, and work like one tool.
- Own the end-to-end product experience. Across every product we have today and every product we launch this year, you own how it looks and how it feels to use.
- Build our design system from zero. Tokens, components, patterns, documentation. We have none of this. A controller using three of our products should feel like they're using one tool, not three.
- Design data-dense interfaces. Our users work with thousands of invoices, hundreds of vendors, dozens of jobs, and GL codes that matter to the dollar. You're comfortable making tables, filters, reconciliation flows, and sync states that hold up at scale.
- Go deep on the customer. You'll sit in on calls with controllers, AP managers, and project accountants. You'll watch them use our product. You'll see the workflows, hear the frustration, and turn it into product improvements.
- Partner with cofounders and PMs on what to build. You'll be in the room for all major product decisions, not just the pixel decisions. Your taste and instincts will shape what ships.
- Shipped B2B product work. A portfolio of real products used by real users, not concept reels. Bonus if you can point to specific outcomes your design drove (activation, retention, conversion, reduced support load).
- Systems thinking. You've built or meaningfully contributed to a design system for a multi-product platform and can walk through the tradeoffs you made.
- Comfort with data-dense, workflow-heavy software. If your portfolio is all marketing sites and consumer apps, this won't be a fit.
- Taste and strong opinions, loosely held. You know what good looks like, you can explain why, and you're not precious about any single screen.
- High ownership conscientiousness. Able to manage many threads at once: multiple products, a design system, etc., without sacrificing quality.
- Clear concise communication. Oral and written. You can write crisp design docs and explain your decisions to engineers, cofounders, and customers.
- In-person. Pumped to work in-person in SF 5 days per week.
- You can ship code. React, TypeScript, Tailwind, or equivalent. You don't need to be a senior engineer. You do need to be able to prototype in code and push small frontend changes yourself.
- Experience designing for blue-collar, back-office, or operations-heavy industries: construction, logistics, manufacturing, field services, trucking, energy, or accounting/ERP software
- Experience as the first or second designer at an early-stage startup: someone who's set up the tooling, the system, and the bar before
- Healthcare: we cover 90% of your healthcare costs with several plan options.
- 401k: we match 100% of your contributions, up to 4% of annual salary.
- Performance Bonuses: we offer annual performance bonuses when we hit company growth goals, which are a % of your base salary. These are large, meaningful rewards that scale with the amount we grow in a particular year.
- Relocation: sizable relocation bonus for folks currently located outside of the Bay Area, and a bonus for anyone (even within the Bay Area) who moves within a 15-minute walk of our office.
- Gym: on-site gym with Peloton, squat rack, Tempo, Yoga setup, and more.
- Visa: we sponsor Visas (H1B, TN, etc.) for candidates who are a good fit!
- Commuter benefits: employees can make pre-tax contributions toward commuting costs, and we'll cover the full cost of a Muni pass for those using public transit.
We've built Agave in-person since day 1, and will maintain an in-person culture in San Francisco going forward. We form tighter bonds, build a stronger culture, and move faster since we're all working from one location.
Our office is at 101 New Montgomery Street, San Francisco, right near Salesforce Park, coffee shops & restaurants, and a bustling downtown. We believe building in-person is a huge strategic advantage, and we hope you'll join us.
Salary : $125,000 - $170,000