Product Designer

About the work

Our goal: a community that cares about well-made, long-lasting things, and about the small makers who still make them. Owning fewer, better things. Giving makers the tools and audience to keep their craft alive.

This is a family business, founded and run by a husband and wife who both write code. We work with a small group of trusted collaborators who care about craft and the people behind it. You'll work directly with us, with the full product, research, design, and technical context to do your best work.

What you'll do

• Become a Patina Project user to experience your own work firsthand and identify what to improve
• Design features that help independent makers reach the right audience and tell their story
• Own the experience across mobile and web, including TanStack Start web surfaces
• Define the information architecture: how the whole experience is organized and navigated
• Plan and run user research (surveys, interviews, usability sessions) and synthesize findings into clear product direction
• Work with analytics and behavioral data to inform decisions and identify where to invest
• Build and maintain a coherent design system as the product grows
• Pair with engineers throughout: share work in progress, review implementations against intent, and adjust designs based on technical constraints
• Use AI tools for ideation, copy, asset generation, and prototyping as part of your normal workflow
• Collaborate directly with the founders on product thinking and priorities

What we're looking for

Required

• Experience designing social networks or community platforms
• A portfolio or case studies showing shipped production work, your process, and at least one example of research to decision to outcome
• Experience designing mobile and web applications
• Fluency in Figma
• Experience building or substantially extending a design system in production
• A clear communicator who can explain decisions to a small team
• Someone who appreciates well-made things and the people who make them

Nice to have

• Experience with e-commerce

Why you’ll love working here

• Competitive pay for a contract engagement that respects your expertise
• Autonomy: work in whatever way helps you get things done
• Help guide where the product goes: your voice matters in shaping direction
• Small team, low bureaucracy: minimal process and fast decisions
• Consumer social app: fun features you'd actually want to use yourself
• Fully remote: work from wherever you do your best thinking

Equipment & Compensation

• Equipment: You'll need to provide your own laptop
• Compensation: Competitive, based on location and experience
• Contract: 12-month contract, renewable on mutual agreement

Apply

If this sounds like your kind of work, we'd love to hear from you. Send your resume, portfolio or case studies, and a short note about why you connect with what we're building.