Product Designer

Substack Inc.

Job Overview

Location

San Francisco (HQ)

Job Type

Full-time

Full Job Description

📋 Description

• Design beautiful, usable, and scalable interfaces and flows across a wide range of product areas including profiles, CRM/analytics, publication aesthetics, moderation systems, email layouts, and interactive content actions.
• Rapidly build context about disparate product areas, community dynamics, and industry norms across domains such as print media, podcasting, and online social systems.
• Identify high-leverage opportunities for the team and translate them into practicable paths through rigorous conception, batch-sizing, staging, and go-to-market planning.
• Think holistically about second-order effects across Substack’s product system, balancing trade-offs between user groups and constraints to achieve optimal outcomes.
• Help creators and audiences build long-lasting, rewarding, and healthy relationships by empowering audience members to become contributors and creators.
• Drive efforts to diversify the types of creators Substack supports through novel media type support, alternative reader experiences, and outreach program design.
• Leverage LLMs to enhance design workflows—applying them to prototyping, pixel-fitting, bug-fixing, and even front-end production—without requiring mastery of a specific programming language.
• Work closely with engineering, executive leadership, and other functions in a non-territorial, high-output environment with minimal fixed processes.
• Operate with high autonomy while remaining collaborative; shift fluidly between independent exploration and team-driven execution.
• Design for multiple platforms including web dashboards, iOS and Android apps, feed surfaces, and smart televisions.
• Embrace uncertainty and ambiguity as core aspects of Substack’s evolving product and organizational structure; adapt quickly to shifting priorities and strategic directions.
• Contribute to shaping the culture and processes of the Design team at Substack, including how design intersects with implementation and product strategy.
• Apply commercial and economic realities to product decisions, ensuring design solutions align with Substack’s subscription-based model where revenue is generated only when creators earn.
• Prioritize user trust and long-term investment from audiences over metrics tied to advertising or platform scale.
• Maintain a pragmatic, high-output approach to design that values impact over polish, with a focus on solving real problems in dynamic, early-stage environments.

🎯 Requirements

• 3 years of experience designing software, with preference for experience in social networks, content networks, or content systems
• High degree of competence with Figma
• High tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity; ability to thrive in a rapidly evolving, startup environment
• All applications must include a portfolio demonstrating capacity to craft design solutions in relevant product areas
• Interest in both independence and collaboration; comfort working without rigid guidance and being asked to act as a service designer when needed

🏖️ Benefits

• Market-competitive salary ranging from $150K to $215K USD annually
• Equity for all full-time roles
• Exceptional benefits package
• Flexible work location; remote candidates are encouraged to apply, though SF Bay Area or NYC-based candidates are slightly preferred
• Opportunity to work on a platform enabling independent expression and a new economic model for creators
• Exposure to cutting-edge use of LLMs across design and development workflows

Skills & Technologies

TypeScript

React

iOS

Android

Design

Remote

$150k-215k

Degree Required

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Substack Inc.

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About Substack Inc.

Substack operates a publishing platform that lets writers send digital newsletters and charge subscription fees. Founded in 2017, the company provides email distribution, website hosting, payment processing, analytics and design tools, enabling independent journalists and subject experts to earn revenue directly from readers while retaining ownership of their content and subscriber lists.

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