About the role
Role: Senior Product Designer
Company: SimpleStudy
Location: Remote, Europe (preferably Western / continental); relocation to Lisbon possible
Job Type: Full-time
About SimpleStudy
AI changes how people will educated for the future. SimpleStudy is building better education for every student from Biology to Art History.
In some numbers:
- 1.5M+ students across the UK, Ireland, Brazil, South Africa, and Australia already use the product.
- And 40–50k new students joining every week
- $4M seed round with investors from Strava, OpenAI, and Meta
The company is building a brand, and design language that can scale the product to millions of students over the next few months. The job now is to play a key role in building, and designing that product.
The team is ~25 people, hybrid/remote with a Lisbon office. You'll report to José, the Founding Designer, and work with him as a partner. José tends to lead early framing and direction. You bring strong craft and take the work to the finish line, in close sync with engineering. You both shape the new design language, and you push back with a better idea when you see one.
What you are expected to do
- Shape the new design language and brand: design system, rebrand, and the new mobile app.
- Own the full design process — from an ambiguous problem to a polished, shipped solution.
- Drive the consumer experience: onboarding, social features, retention, and the learning loop.
- Work in close sync with engineers and PM, not as a handoff step - polish the implementation together until it feels right.
- Bring your own initiatives and say "no, but…" when you see a better way.
- Raise the bar for the whole design team.
What you need to succeed
- High craft — your visual work is polished and intentional; the details reveal your thinking.
- Storytelling over process — you take an ambiguous problem, frame it, and make it simple. Your portfolio shows artifacts, not diagrams; it has a point of view.
- Consumer instinct — you've shipped B2C products that people chose to use. You understand product metrics and use them as input, but you lead with feel and craft.
- Opinions with backbone — you have a design philosophy, can defend it under pushback, and bring your own initiatives. You don't wait to be told what to build.
- Energy and curiosity — you're an interesting person with a life outside work, and you leave people energised after a conversation.
- English — fluent, written and spoken.
What would be a plus
- A standout specialty: prototyping, illustration, animation, or motion.
- Experience with social or viral product mechanics.
- Background at consumer companies like Spotify or Strava.
- Early-stage or founding designer experience.
- Comfortable in code: prototyping or polishing the front end.
What you get
- Build from scratch, at scale — a new design language for a product already used by 1.5M+ students.
- A strong partner - work closely with José, the Founding Designer (ex-Shopify), with direct access to the founders.
- Equity — generous stock options, early enough for them to matter.
- Remote Europe — work from where you choose, with in-person meetups three times a year; relocation support if you want to move to Lisbon.
- Competitive salary — no fixed budget, flexible.
The vacancy is proudly presented by the hirehire recruiting agency.
"Craft matters here from day one. You'll rebuild the brand, the design system and the product together with José, a founding designer who cares a lot about how things feel. 1.5M students, real traction, and a team that picks quality over speed."
- Tanya Sivo
Product Design Expert, hirehire