Lead / Senior Product Designer

Join our tight product design crew of three, and our passionate and open-minded team of venture builders (engineers, founders, and advisors) contributing to building impactful products. You’re an end-to-end product designer so you might be scoping out a research plan, or be tightly embedded with engineers sketching, designing and trying to solve curly problems. Importantly this role will involve helping Helix Collective as a whole sharpen its product and design skills, as well as the ventures you end up working on.

Helix Collective is different from a startup incubator or typical agency so you won’t be swapping projects every 4 weeks. We like to stay with our ventures long enough for them to build out their own team and product and keep reaching milestones at pace. Our portfolio touches on different industries (fintech, B-corp, media etc), and we typically look for founders who have been knee-deep in the pain they’re trying to solve, but also fulfilling to work with.

Helix is very flat so this role doesn’t have direct reports and you’re not reporting to anyone. This means we’ve had to come together to design and implement a roles and skills framework so everyone has some sort of north star. Every opinion is valued at Helix at all levels of decision-making - we take the ‘Collective’ part of our name very seriously. We like to learn by doing. It doesn’t matter if something goes awry - reflect on it, teach others, and we’ll have your back while you do!

About you...

An experienced and versatile designer who is adaptable and comfortable with changes and ambiguity
An entrepreneurial mentality or interest in working with startups
Led the research and design of a complex product from vague ideas to onboarding customers
Sharpened strong analytical and problem-solving skills
You know that ‘design’ isn’t a one-person job and is not limited to people with design in their title
Worked closely with engineers and product folk
You know how to pick the appropriate tool or method for the current problem
Passionate about mentoring and guiding less experienced designers

How will we work together?

Work collaboratively with a close-knit team of designers, thinkers, engineers and product specialists
Communication is key - you’re comfortable with taking founders and team members along the journey with great levels of transparency and trust
Enjoy empowering and mentoring others - we would like you to hold the space and create guidance for our less experienced designers
Create value with integrity - at every juncture we ask ourselves whether we are genuinely providing value and are proud of what we have done
Help drive design direction and improve products through a design lens
“Organising Helix” - a company-wide initiative where you can reshape Helix - previous projects include baselining remuneration, and hiring plans
Benefits
Flexible working arrangements and leave policies, hybrid of remote working with the option to work from our open space office in Redfern, NSW.
Transparent salary and employee options - Yes, transparent. Everyone at Helix knows everyone else’s remuneration and levels.
Annual company retreats and regular social hangouts
We have a huge appetite and encourage continuous learning, career and personal growth, when you join our team you can set your own path and we will support you
Office perks (when we get back into the office) - pet-friendly, a beautiful la marzocco coffee machine, large balcony and ample natural lighting, weekly lunches, beverage stocked fridge and shower facility.
We keep good company, learn from our current team that has walked the life from Silicon Valley, Atlassian, as a musician, aerospace, Google, mechatronics, radio host, Macquarie bank, as founding entrepreneurs etc.

What does applying for a job at Helix look like?

We understand that putting yourself out there and looking for new opportunities is a big deal. So keeping to our transparent values here are a few things to expect when you apply for a role with us. We’re an easy-going bunch of humans, currently a team of 25, please read our profiles on helixcollective.com to make you feel more comfortable and at ease.

After submitting your application we will connect via email. We try to do this within a reasonable timeframe.
1:1 video chat (30mins) for an initial meet and greet with our People and Culture person
1:1 video chat (30-40mins) for a further meet and greet with a Senior Designer
Group video chat with 2-3 designers (40-60mins) to talk through some of your previous projects. The team is interested in your experience with...
Research and discovery
Collaborating with cross functional teams, and ideally founders or the corporate equivalent
Interacting with potential users or customers at any phase
Interaction and visual design, and prototyping
1:1 video chat with one of our Founder/Partners (30-40mins).
Internal discussions.
Pre-offer video chat (30mins) where we discuss joining Helix as well as salaries and options (fully transparent and you can see an anonymised table of what everyone else is on). A formal offer is emailed afterwards.

Helix is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity, we believe that the future of products and services result from the diversity of ideas, perspectives and culture. We are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.

Most importantly apply! We all know that at times we are the hardest critics of ourselves, the above information is used as a guideline, it’s not about qualifying and needing to tick all the boxes. We encourage uniqueness, weirdness, and embrace individuality.