Product Design Lead

What We DoShepherd is a technology-driven Managing General Underwriter (MGU) transforming commercial Property & Casualty insurance for high-hazard industries. Our mission is to make risk frictionless for the builders and operators shaping the physical world — protecting progress from concept through construction and into decades of operation.We’re building the fastest, smartest commercial risk platform, where underwriting expertise, data, and automation work together to deliver:Faster decisionsSmarter, more accurate pricingBetter risk outcomesWith Shepherd, safety, speed, and quality no longer trade off against one another — they compound. We’re not just modernizing insurance products. We’re building the risk infrastructure for the next generation of financial services, where technology, underwriting, and partnerships operate in harmony to support the world’s most important industries — and the progress they make possible.Our InvestorsTo date, Shepherd has raised over $20M from leading investors, including:Spark CapitalCostanoa VenturesY CombinatorSusa VenturesIntact VenturesAnd several othersOur TeamWe're a team of technologists and insurance enthusiasts, bridging the two worlds together. Check out our About page to learn more. The RoleAbout YouYou enjoy working in a face-paced environment working closely with leadership on defining product goals and design outcomes. You sweat the details, crafting designs and a product you’re proud to share with the world. You respond to customer feedback, oftentimes challenging our earlier assumptions and hypotheses. You enjoy experimenting with different ideas in search of the best solutions. Finally, you care about customers – especially ones who are not tech native, figuring out ways to break down complex workflows into easy-to-use ones. About the Role As our founding designer, you will have a wide product surface area, covering customer facing products, Shepherd’s internal platform, and more. As our first full time designer, you will work closely with our engineering team and our Cofounder + CTO, Mo, taking their feedback and making fast iterations. We don't expect you to get it right the first time (no one does) but we do expect you to seek out and quickly turn around feedback both from the team and our users.We aren't a super traditional team, but we are an extremely effective one. We love unique backgrounds, hard workers, and intelligent people who take pride in everything they do. This is a high impact, high visibility role where you will partner closely with teams across Shepherd to evaluate key questions, solve problems, and drive results. We have offices in San Francisco and New York. We love working together in person and are looking for candidates who can be onsite at our San Francisco HQ.What You’ll Do:Own all of design at Shepherd, shaping our design language, branding, user experience and moreCreate a design process and review process with engineeringWork closely with the Cofounder/CTO and Head of Product on ideationWork closely with customers to understand their needs and design mocks and/or prototypes to collect feedbackWork closely with engineering to make sure we’re building products that are easy to use and intuitiveYou would be our dream candidate if….5+ years of experience, preferably at a SaaS companyExperience shipping at least one full product or a significant feature as the lead designerExperience iterating with engineers and other team members on both visual and UX designs to get the experience and details just rightGreat presentation, collaboration and communication skillsFluency in Figma and prototyping toolsUnderstanding of the technical limitations and workflow for building web interfaces Benefits 🏥 Premium Healthcare100% contribution to top-tier health, dental, and vision🏖️ Unlimited PTOFlexibility to take the time off, recharge, and perform🥗 Daily lunches, dinners, and snacksWe work together, and enjoy meals together too🖥️ SF, NYC, or Dallas-Fort Worth ... (truncated, view full listing at source)