Senior Product Designer, Birda
Ā£80-100k
Figma
Mid, Senior and Expert level
Remote from Europe, UK
Birdwatching app
Be an early applicant
Birdwatching app
1-20 employees
B2CLifestyleSocial Media
Be an early applicant
Ā£80-100k
Figma
Mid, Senior and Expert level
Remote from Europe, UK
1-20 employees
B2CLifestyleSocial Media
Company mission
To help people experience the natural world so they'll fight to protect it.
Role
Who you are
- Right now, this is a solo design role. You won't be building a design org, writing process documentation, or managing other designers. You'll be deep in the work: shaping bets, prototyping fast, shipping experiments, and closing the loop on what actually moved the needle.
- A consumer app designer, primarily. You've spent real years designing mobile apps as the core product, not occasionally helping out on an app while mostly working on web. Your experience is at startups or scaleups, not enterprise. You know the difference between designing for retention and designing for a brief
- Comfortable across the full spectrum, with a strong eye for craft. Research, UX, UI, visual polish, experimentation. You can go from a messy whiteboard session to a beautifully considered interaction detail and you know when each is appropriate. You're the kind of person who's constantly exploring other products, saving references, noticing the small details that elevate something from good to genuinely great. You'd happily spend all night polishing something to make it perfect. But you also know that's rarely the right call, and you don't need someone to tell you when to stop.
- Impact-oriented, not output-oriented. You hypothesise before you design. You A/B test. You're genuinely curious about what the data tells you, even when it disagrees with your instinct. "I think this looks nice" isn't a useful contribution to a team discussion. You can explain why a direction makes sense.
- An AI optimist and explorer. You're actively curious about how AI tools can make you faster and more impactful. You see AI as the thing that buys you back time to obsess over the craft details that really matter, not as a shortcut that replaces taste. You have opinions on when to reach for a quick AI prototype vs. when to open Figma and really polish, and you make those choices based on what brings impact to the business. If you're sceptical about AI in design or think the boundary of "AI tools" is whatever Figma ships, this isn't the right fit.
- Not afraid of code. You don't need to be a developer, but you understand layout, CSS, and how the things you design actually get built. You've probably hacked together a portfolio site, maybe vibe-coded something for fun. Some teams call this a "design engineer" sensibility. At minimum, code doesn't intimidate you, and at best, you reach for it when it's the fastest path to an answer.
- A systems thinker and a good storyteller. You reason about problems and solutions in a way others can follow. You can take a complex product challenge and explain your approach clearly to PMs, engineers, and stakeholders.
- You are not a Figma jockey. If your job is moving pixels around a screen, you'll be frustrated here. Design at Birda is about solving problems and shipping outcomes, not producing artefacts.
- You are not AI-sceptical. That's a perfectly valid opinion to hold, but you won't enjoy working on a team that's actively building AI into every part of how they operate.
- You are not purely a "UX/UI designer." If you think in terms of wireframes and visual polish and don't naturally extend into research, experimentation, copy, and the messy reality of growth work, this role will feel uncomfortable.
What the job involves
- Be the design voice on a tight, AI-forward, cross-functional team
- The work splits across core product (making Birda the world's best birding companion: gamification, logging, discovery) and growth (paywalls, onboarding optimisation, website CRO). You'll move between both fluidly.
- Shape and ship (most of your time, especially early on). Take well-framed bets from the team and give them form. Rapidly explore solutions, prototype, and align on an approach. Then get the design "clear enough" to unblock developers. We have zero interest in pixel-perfect Figma files or 20-page specs. The goal is to communicate intent, flag critical details, and let devs build. That said, "clear enough" doesn't mean careless. There's always a slightly better copy choice, a simpler layout, a more considered interaction. We want someone who feels that pull and channels it into getting faster at the early stages, so there's time to sweat the details that actually matter.
- Close the loop (growing over time). Run evaluative research like usability tests. Review A/B test results and experiment data. Use what you find to iterate on shipped work and inform what comes next. You're not just designing; you're measuring whether your design actually worked.
- Discover (eventually). Generative research and opportunity discovery. Looking for new problems worth solving. Building a deeper understanding of our users and their motivations.
- Wear whatever hat's needed. This is a small team where everyone does a bit of everything. That might mean writing copy for a push notification, QA-ing the weekly app release, building a paywall in RevenueCat's UI, or designing and sending a user email. If it needs doing and you can do it, you do it.
- Start committing code with agents. This is where the role is heading: when you spot a UI detail that needs tweaking, you steer a coding agent to implement, test, and submit a fix for engineering review. If you're already doing this, amazing. If not, that's OK. The rest of the team is already working this way, and we'll help you get there. What matters is that you see this as an exciting direction, not a threat.
Application process
- Video call with our CPO to explore whether there's a mutual fit. Come with questions. This is as much about you interviewing us. Walk us through 1ā2 projects you're proud of. We want to understand how you think, not just what you shipped. How did you frame the problem? What did you explore and discard? How did you know it worked? This is a conversation, not a presentation.
Our take
Birda's app lets users keep a record of what they saw during their birding session. Users can then share this information easily with fellow birders in their network and beyond.
Birda is tailored to any kind of user, from casual nature-lovers, which are granted an easy way to access and learn about birding, to serious birders, which are provided with all taxonomies together in one place, making it easier to keep track of their observations.
Besides learning about the fascinating world of birds, Birda users can effectively help protect biodiversity, by simply sharing a birds location on the platform, customers can help conservationists to obtain the vital data they need to preserve thousands of bird species.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Company
Funding (last 2 of 4 rounds)
Mar 2025
$4.1m
Seed
Jun 2023
$2.7m
Seed
Total funding: $9.8m
Company benefits
- š° Competitive Salary: Your life is too precious to spend it making something that doesn't matter. Of course, you can't pay your rent / mortgage / deliveroo habit on good feelings so we'll be paying a respectable salary. We won't be able to compete with banks or large tech companies though, so our mission will need to matter to you
- š Stock Options: This role comes with a very generous stock options grant, ensuring you share in Birdaās success as we grow
- š§āš» Remote & In-Person Balance: We mostly all work remotely as we are spread all over the UK/Europe and chat over Slack and Google Meet. We like saving time, money and our carbon footprint by not travelling as much, but we also miss not hanging out together - both professionally and socially. So we currently divide our time up into 'doing' and 'collaborating'. Doing can be done wherever you choose within the 1/+1 CET time zone, but collaborating is done in person, somewhere quiet with whiteboards and coffee. Like an office. Right now that's a day or 2 every 6 weeks in London (near Euston)
- š§ Flexible Working: We understand the importance of work-life balanceāwhether itās making the school run or working during your most productive hours
- š¢ Co-Working Space: We want to support effective remote work for everyone and we understand that sometimes a change of scenery is helpful. You can work from a co-working space when you choose and we'll cover the cost
- š„³ Team Gatherings: There's the usual Christmas party as well as other team days
- š Awesome Perks: Enjoy 25 vacation days plus bank holidays and a bonus day for your birthday. Everyone gets a laptop that suits their role and youāll receive some amazing Birda swag to show off your pride in our mission
Company HQ
Holborn, London, UK
Articles
Leadership
John White
(Co-Founder & CEO)Previously a Business Analyst at The Coca-Cola Company, Co-Founder of Food Glorious Food, Associate, Vice President at Deutsche Bank, Co-Founder of Tracking the Wild and Consultant at Stratecon Consulting.
Lee Clissett
(CPO)Product leader with more than 15 years of experience in a mix of high-growth B2C and B2B products.
Natalie White
(Co-Founder & CDO)A purpose-driven co-founder of Birda, combining a background in Law and Strategy with a deep passion for nature and community-building.
Alvaro Yuste Torregrosa
(Head of Engineering)Engineering leader, with an extensive startup-up background, helping teams grow and become efficient while having fun. In total +12 years of experience in the software industry.
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at Birda
- At Birda, we believe birdwatching is for everyoneāno matter your gender, race, religion, or background.
- Our diverse team spans 5 nationalities and speaks multiple languagesāwe thrive on different perspectives.
- Weāre committed to fostering an inclusive, welcoming community and workplace where everyone can belong and contribute.
- As an equal opportunity employer, we value varied life experiences and encourage applications even if you donāt meet 100% of the listed criteria. So if you just have a good feeling that youād love this role, please donāt hesitate to apply.
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