Principal Product Designer

Posted Nov 11

Neon is an open-source company on a mission to create a cloud-native database service for every developer

We are looking for a Principal Product Designer who wants to focus on creating a friction-free developer experience. You will be responsible for designing a simple way for developers to use Postgres in their workflow.

You will join a Design team (4 people) and make a huge impact on the usability of Neon's cloud platform. 

You're passionate about details and think in systems, not just screens. This multidisciplinary design role requires user research, prototyping, interaction design, and visual design skills.

In this role, you will:

  • Set and communicate a clear design vision for the Neon database, ensuring consistency and quality across all product lines.
  • Drive design excellence by establishing and maintaining design standards and best practices.
  • Design end-to-end holistic experience, from discovery to ideation, testing, and prototyping of the ideal user experience.
  • Define, test, and iterate on the interaction design of new and existing features (user flows, detailed product wireframes, prototypes).
  • Participate in user research to guide product design decisions (contextual inquiry, usability testing, competitive analysis, etc.).
  • Ensure all aspects of our product are easy to use and delightful.
  • Influence product and design direction through compelling storytelling that communicates a clear UX vision to all the stakeholders.
  • Collaborate with the Engineering team to ensure the implementation of design components and patterns.
  • Drive the collaboration and build strong partnerships with Design, Sales, Product, Engineering, and Marketing teams to collaboratively create, align, and execute your vision.

We are looking for someone who has

  • Proven experience as a Principal Product Designer or similar role, with a strong portfolio showcasing your design work for developer tools or complex software applications.
  • Deep expertise in interaction design, user-centered design principles, and usability testing.
  • Experience with design tools (like Figma, Sketch, Invision, AdobeSuit).
  • Strong leadership and communication skills, with the ability to collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams.
  • Technical aptitude:
  1. Worked closely with engineers
  2. Understand software development life cycles and development flow with git
  3. Used or co-created a CLI
  • Solid understanding of user-centered design process and strong knowledge of user experience principles.
  • Experience applying lean UX principles focusing on collaboration with extended team members.
  • Experience iterating to improve designs based on feedback from peer reviews, demonstrations to stakeholders, and usability evaluation activities such as usability testing.
  • Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including techniques to persuade and negotiate and the ability to articulate alternative approaches.
  • You're not afraid of getting technical: No prior developer tools experience is required, but you are excited to learn about databases, developer workflows, and application development.

Additional Bonus

  • You are familiar with relational databases and typical developer and operational workflows around them.
  • You understand developer workflows, you are accustomed to CI/CD, and you have worked with CLIs.
  • You have experience in PLG-led SaaS - a proven track record of designing successful SaaS-based software products and features from scratch in the startup building dev tools or productivity tools – from initial research and discovery through concept design/iteration to completed product launches and continued improvements.
  • You thrive in a fast-paced work environment that requires independent self-direction with an aptitude for team collaboration and open communication.

About Neon

Neon is building open-source cloud-native PostgreSQL. Our architecture separates storage from compute, allowing for stateless and serverless Postgres. We’re a well funded startup with deep knowledge of Postgres internals and decades of experience building databases. We are a systems company; we work on low-level code with strict performance and correctness requirements.

Neon was created by a team of Postgres hackers and led by CEO Nikita Shamgunov (co-founder of SingleStore). Neon is built on open-source principles and is focused on giving back to the Postgres and developer communities.

Our Team

  • We are a distributed team of 75 people working from 25 countries (concentrating around North America and Europe time zones)
  • We are a team built on open sources cultural principles (transparency, contribution, accountability, proactivity)
  • Team with decades of experience building databases and deep knowledge of Postgres internals. We are deeply technical
  • We have experienced Postgres committers and hackers on the team (check Heikki, Anastasia, Arseny, Matthias profiles)
  • We believe in the efficacy of collaborative open source
  • We aim for a diversity of thoughts and backgrounds
  • We are keen to be a fast-moving flat org and avoid hierarchical structures

Our Investors

  • Top-tier investors backed up Neon's vision:
  1. We raised $104 million in funding from Menlo Ventures, GGV, Khosla Ventures, General Catalyst, Founders Fund.
  2. Venture vehicles of Snowflake and Databricks invested in Neon.
  3. Our angels investors are prominent technologists, and ecosystem players. More than 20 awesome angels supported Neon, including Nat Friedman, Elad Gil, Mike Ovitz, Ajeet Singh, Guillermo Rauch, Søren Brammer Schmidt, and Wes McKinney.
  4. Our Board includes Quentin Clark, Glenn Solomon, Joe Morrissey, and Tim Tully.

Our Offer

  • You have an opportunity to be an early employee in the fast-scaling ambitious team
  • You can work 100% remote: we'll handle all formalities to arrange work from your home
  • We pay top of the market in most parts of the world
  • We grant equity (stock options) to all full-time hires
  • We offer a competitive benefits package in line with all tech companies (top-notch equipment, unlimited vacations, paid parental leaves, and much more)
  • We are distributed, yet make our bonds during regular offsites (the last one was in Cyprus)

Our Hiring Process

We like to keep things and get awesome people fast. 

  • The entire hiring process is fully remote.
  • Once you have submitted your CV and portfolio, our team will review them, and we can contact you to schedule an Intro Call with a Recruiter.
  • If we move on to the next steps, you will have 1:1 calls with our Head of Design, Product Manager, Frontend Engineer and Head of PLG Sales. 
  • Once all the interviews are over, our team will swiftly analyze the results of all the steps, run a reference check and present the final decision.

At the application stage, you should be ready to provide us with your portfolio of work demonstrating a high level of expertise in user research, information architecture, interaction design, prototyping/testing, and visual UI design. 

 You should be confident to discuss the following during the interview process: 

  • Your design skills as demonstrated through an in-depth portfolio review of previous, relevant product design work.
  • Your ability to collaborate with a team of product managers, designers, and developers
  • How can you keep projects on track and progressing despite setbacks and unforeseen issues?
  • Your experience presenting ideas and designs to coworkers and customers
  • Your ability to distill and communicate results of user research and demonstrate how it impacts the design
  • The prioritization skills that let you work on many projects at once while maintaining commitments
  • How you self-manage your time and productivity