Founding Product Designer

Packz•New York City, NY

3d•Onsite

About The Position

Packz is a best-in-class gamified collectibles platform where users can open digital packs, receive physical trading cards, and either have them shipped home or sell them back instantly. Since launching six months ago, users have opened over $15M of packs and shipped tens of thousands of cards. The company is backed by prominent investors and has found strong traction with its web product, with an iOS app launching this month. This is an opportunity to join a small, hands-on team early and build in a large market category. The role is for the first full-time designer, with broad ownership across web and iOS platforms. The ideal candidate will own the user experience end-to-end, helping to define the look, feel, and functionality of Packz as it scales. Design is crucial for creating excitement, building trust, clearly communicating odds and value, and simplifying complex flows on both web and iOS. The designer will collaborate closely with founders and engineering, moving beyond execution to product thinking, interaction design, and high-craft UI, bringing structure to ambiguity, focusing on details, and elevating the company's overall quality.

Requirements

5+ years of product design experience, ideally on consumer products with both mobile and web surfaces
A strong portfolio that shows high-quality visual design, interaction design, systems thinking, and product judgment
Ability to take ambiguous problems and turn them into clear product directions and elegant user experiences
Strong proficiency in Figma and prototyping tools, with a sharp eye for detail and a high bar for craft
Experience collaborating closely with engineers and shipping production-ready work in fast-moving environments
Strong user intuition and a habit of grounding design decisions in customer behavior, feedback, and real-world usage
Comfort operating with high ownership and limited structure as an early hire
Strong communication skills and the ability to explain design rationale clearly to both technical and non-technical teammates
Excitement for building in collectibles, gaming, or other high-engagement consumer categories

Nice To Haves

Experience as an early or first design hire
Experience designing products that combine entertainment, commerce, and real-money or value-based mechanics
Experience designing game-like systems, reward loops, or other highly engaging consumer experiences
Experience designing for moments of delight, anticipation, and reveal without sacrificing clarity or trust
Familiarity with design systems and building cross-platform consistency from the ground up
Comfort using modern design tools and AI-assisted workflows

Responsibilities

Own product design end-to-end across Packz web and iOS, from early ideas and flows to polished UI and final handoff
Lead design on the core customer journey, including pack discovery, purchasing, opening, reveal moments, collection management, redemption, and cash-out
Turn complex product, collectibles, and value-exchange mechanics into simple, intuitive, and high-trust user experiences
Partner closely with founders, engineering, and other cross-functional teammates to shape priorities, pressure-test ideas, and ship quickly
Use AI-assisted tools, prototyping, and lightweight code to explore flows, test ideas, and refine interfaces quickly
Conduct lightweight but high-signal user research, usability testing, and feedback synthesis to better understand customer behavior
Establish and evolve Packz's design system, interaction patterns, and visual language across platforms
Improve the product's overall level of polish, consistency, and craft while maintaining startup speed
Work directly with engineering during implementation to ensure quality in the shipped product, not just in mockups
Help define how design operates at Packz, including process, standards, critique, and how we work with external partners when needed