Designer (Freelance)

Founded in 2016 and based in the Pacific Northwest, our team comes from diverse backgrounds in aerospace, naval architecture, marine operations, hardware, software, and research.

About the Job

We’re a technology company that believes storytelling is critical to accomplishing our mission. The creative and communications teams are responsible for building a brand that inspires and educates our communities, team members, investors, and the public at large—helping them understand what we’re doing and why it matters.

As Designer, you will work closely with our Creative Director to concept, plan, and execute engaging projects about our company’s mission, technology, and team. These projects will come to life as a wide range of deliverables: decks, websites, photography, film, animation, publications, and product visualizations.

The ideal candidate has impeccable graphic design chops—excellent typography, smart grids, and organized systems thinking. As part of a small team, you also need to bring your ideas to life by stepping outside of graphic design, role-switching between taking photos, animating, prototyping, or writing.

We’re creating a language of design simplicity, clarity, and rational thought. It’s no-frills and utilitarian. We usually produce quality by deleting rather than adding. This puts a greater importance on the execution and craftsmanship of the distilled elements.

In addition to being interested in people and the planet, the ideal candidate needs to be curious about science, technology, engineering (and even a little math). Our team is constantly trying to simplify and humanize the complexity of these things. You are a team player with a “no task is too small” attitude. In addition to collaborating on big, long-term creative initiatives like a brand film or website, you will also own a lot of smaller design tasks like investor decks, one-pagers, digital brochures, and corporate communications. We treat everything with craft and hold high standards here, regardless of the medium or audience.

The ideal candidate possesses an entrepreneurial spirit, is unfazed by ambiguity, and doesn’t need clarity to start creating. You take big abstract concepts and make clear moves to execute them. You ask for a lot of responsibility and creative ownership. There’s not a lot of handholding here. You have to be able to identify problems for yourself and then make intuitive leaps between different skills to solve them.

Candidates should have strong interpersonal skills and be able to thrive in a creative, scrappy, and collaborative environment in which the best ideas change the company’s direction on a regular basis. Our team members have worked at organizations such as SpaceX, Blue Origin, Boeing, Virgin Orbit, Virgin Galactic, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, New Relic, Bridgewater, Raytheon, Disney Imagineering, and the naval architecture faculty of the University of Michigan. The company is structured as a public benefit corporation and backed by leading venture capital firms.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with internal team and external partners on larger projects like publications, websites, films, animations, and brand guides
• Independently own projects like decks, one-pagers, digital brochures, investor materials, corporate communications, team merch, and mission patches
• Contribute to the entire creative process from concept to execution, on both internal and external projects
• Create systems to work smarter not harder, whether you’re in Figma, Powerpoint, or After Effects
• Maintain asset libraries and archives
• Lead and participate in constructive critiques, where we focus on the work not the ego
• Drive projects forward, but know when to step back and gather feedback or ask for help
• Take as much responsibility as possible, often managing your own projects
• Help develop, maintain, and protect brand aesthetics
• Sketch, storyboard, and prototype new ideas based on company direction and self-driven observation

Basic Qualifications

• 2+ years of digital graphic/visual design experience at a creative agency, brand, or similar environment
• Expertise in Figma and Adobe
• Impeccable graphic design chops, excellent typographic sensibilities, strong grids
• Experience building and maintaining small design systems
• Be able to thrive in a creative, scrappy, and collaborative environment, while having the vision and autonomy to create systems and process for the future
• Confident in the work, but balanced by healthy self-doubt (most of us are usually wrong)
• Smart, kind, creative, collaborative
• Verbally and visually articulate
• Ability to be detail-oriented and meticulous, but also a “big picture” thinker
• You get your dopamine from pushing the work, not compliments
• Ability to maintain a calm confidence in challenging situations
• Can learn new software quickly (word processing, web, video, Excel, etc.) and bring out the best in them
• Resourcefulness and ability to locate and archive assets independently
• Approaches work with curiosity and positivity, and without ego
• Confident in your taste and ability to clearly communicate that to others (still without ego)
• Organized and able to prioritize tasks from a big pile
• Passionate about things outside of work, both creative and otherwise

Bonus Points

Experience in disciplines like photography, video, technical illustration, motion graphics, 3D, coding.

Location

Our offices, lab, and machine shop are located in Portland, Oregon. This position is on-site.

Compensation and Benefits

The expected pay range for this role is $33-$52 per hour, but will depend on the level in which you are engaged. Our typical projects require full time (40 hrs/week) support, Monday – Friday, although there are times we only need 50% capacity. Please share your typical availability in your application.

The expected full time pay range for this position is $55,000 – $85,000.

Job Type

Temp-to-hire