Founding Designer

Founding Product Designer

📍 New York City (Onsite)

Shields Group Search is working with a fast-growing, venture-backed construction-tech startup that is building the next-generation operating system for commercial HVAC, Electrical, and Plumbing suppliers and subcontractors.

Background

Our client is building the next-generation operating system for commercial HVAC, Electrical, and Plumbing suppliers and subcontractors. Over the past year, their V1 quoting product has scaled to 250 quotes per day and grown to $1.5M ARR, with adoption across many of the top suppliers in North America. Fresh off an $11M Series A (backed by leading construction-tech investors), they are entering their next phase of growth, with product and engineering at the center of everything they build next.

About the Role

They are looking for a Founding Product Designer to own and elevate design across the entire platform as the company scales from early traction to industry leadership.

This role is ideal for someone who loves 0 to 1 product work, thrives in fast cycles, and is excited to bring modern, thoughtful design to an industry that has historically lacked it.

As the founding designer, you will shape the design philosophy, systems, and execution from the ground up. You will bring clarity to ambiguous spaces, move quickly without sacrificing craft, and work directly with the CPO, engineering, and go-to-market teams. As the company grows, there will be opportunities to take on broader design leadership, including building and leading the design function.

What You’ll Do

• Own UX and UI across the web app, internal tools, and future product lines, turning complex technical workflows into simple, confident experiences
• Build the design system from scratch, including components, patterns, and frameworks that help the entire team ship faster and with more consistency
• Apply strong visual taste with clean hierarchy and polished UI so every surface feels thoughtful and trustworthy
• Bring definition to ambiguity by turning loose ideas into crisp concepts, prototypes, and clear tradeoffs for the team to react to
• Pair user conversations with product usage data to understand behavior and anchor decisions in real customer needs
• Work closely with engineering, the CPO, and the broader product team to drive strategy, narrative, and end-to-end UX coherence
• Raise the bar on design culture through high standards for craft, communication, iteration, and cross-functional collaboration

Who You Are

• 5 years of product design experience with true end-to-end ownership, ideally in B2B or complex workflows. Strong consumer design experience also works
• Excellent visual design skills with strong UI, clear hierarchy, and attention to detail
• A user plus data thinker who blends qualitative learning with usage patterns and analytics
• Energized by 0 to 1 work and fast-paced environments, comfortable moving quickly from concept to prototype to shipped product
• A clear communicator who exposes their thinking and collaborates smoothly with engineering and product
• Someone who operates with real ownership, is proactive and resourceful, and makes confident decisions with imperfect information
• Strong across interaction design, visual design, and prototyping. Bonus if you have front-end experience or have used AI coding tools like Cursor
• Excited by the opportunity to grow into a broader design leadership role as the company scales

Compensation and Benefits

• Salary: $200K to $250K base
• Equity: Meaningful, founder-level equity grant depending on experience
• Benefits: Medical, dental, vision
• Perks: Free lunches and dinners, onsite in NYC

This is a full-time, in-person role located in NYC’s Flatiron District, steps from Madison Square Park and Union Square.