Head of Design, Axon
$200-220k
+ Equity grants
Public safety technology
Job no longer available
Public safety technology
1001+ employees
Job no longer available
$200-220k
+ Equity grants
1001+ employees
Company mission
To cut gun-related deaths between police and the public by 50% by 2033.
Role
Who you are
- You bring 10+ years of experience across product design, with 5+ years in a senior leadership role
- You’ve scaled and led teams through growth stages in collaborative, high-performance environments (startup or scaleup preferred)
- You have deep expertise in both product UX and visual design systems, and are confident in guiding and learning across disciplines
- You can zoom out to define long-term vision, and zoom in to critique a button interaction or type scale
- You’re comfortable rolling up your sleeves to contribute hands-on when necessary, helping move high-priority work forward or unblocking the team
- You move quickly, make decisions with incomplete data, and ship with quality and urgency
- You understand how to balance user needs and business impact—your work reflects both
- You’re drawn to our mission and want your work to have real-world, life-saving impact
- You enjoy designing for complex, high-stakes environments and are energized by the challenge of bringing clarity where it matters most
- You want to work with a team that values excellence, humility, ownership, and continuous learning
Desirable
- Experience designing tools for critical or essential services (e.g., healthcare, public safety, logistics)
- Familiarity with the unique constraints of designing for high-stakes, real-time users (e.g., latency, accessibility, decision-making under stress)
- Experience building and operationalizing inclusive, scalable, and accessible design systems
- Mastery of Figma and familiarity with design tokens and component libraries for developer collaboration
- Experience partnering with brand design to produce a cohesive visual identity within our product as well as our external-facing collateral
What the job involves
- As Head of Design at Prepared, you will guide and grow a multidisciplinary team working across product design, visual design, and user experience
- This is a player-coach role: you’ll lead the team while remaining hands-on in the work
- Both in our platform and in our public presence
- You’ll help embed design thinking into how we work as a company, building systems and practices that support fast, high-quality execution
- You’ll also stay closely connected to our mission and the frontline users we serve in public safety
- You’ll work in close partnership with Product and Engineering to shape strategy, influence product development, and ensure our products are coherent, usable, and trusted
- You’ll also steward our visual identity—from marketing to in-product experiences—ensuring that Prepared reflects clarity, urgency, and care at every touchpoint
- Set and communicate a clear, ambitious vision for UX and interaction design
- Recruit, develop, and support a diverse and high-impact design team
- Foster a culture of craft, curiosity, and continuous improvement
- Evolve our visual identity to align with our mission, values, and the people we serve
- Build processes that support fast iteration and high standards
- Create and evolve systems for design review, feedback, and consistent execution
- Partner closely with cross-functional peers to ensure seamless user experiences
- Be willing and able to contribute hands-on to design work when needed—whether that’s shaping key product features, evolving our design system, or jumping into collaborative problem-solving
- Collaborate with Product and Engineering leaders on roadmap and prioritization
- Translate complex, real-time user needs into accessible, intuitive designs
- Ensure product design and brand work together to tell a unified story across all surfaces
- Champion a culture of data-driven design, where the user experience evolves based on insights gleaned from continuous discovery
- Help establish Prepared as a respected and inclusive design-led organization
- Promote psychological safety, thoughtful critique, and open collaboration
- Model clear decision-making and high expectations in service of our users and missio
Our take
Every second counts in public safety, but too often first responders are working with disconnected systems, limited information and outdated tools. In high-pressure situations, that can slow decision-making and make an already difficult job even harder. As public safety becomes more complex, there's a growing need for technology that helps people respond faster, with greater confidence.
That's where Axon comes in. Best know for its TASER devices, Axon has grown into a global leader in public safety technology, connecting advanced devices, intelligent software and AI into one integrated ecosystem. From body-worn cameras and drones to digital evidence, real-time operations and AI-powered tools, its technology is helping first responders, governments and security teams make better decisions when it matters most.
The company is most certainly defining the future of public safety by creating connected, intelligent systems that improve awareness, accountability and outcomes. Guided by its mission to protect more lives in more places, the company is showing how technology can do more than document incidents - it can also play a part in preventing them.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
Company
Company benefits
- Medical, Dental, Vision: We have several plans so that you can pick the best one for your.
- Fitness Programs: With discounted access to gyms around the world and wellness incentives, we let you choose what's right for you.
- Mental Health: With on-demand support apps and paid therapy sessions, we go beyond PTO, prioritizing emotional and mental wellness that meets employees' needs wherever they are in the world.
- Pre-Tax Savings: We empower your financial wellness, with pre-tax savings tools like our 401k with match, HSA and FSA — including options for health, commuter, and care savings.
- Annual Bonuses: One Axon means that we win together. That's why our bonuses are tied to overall company performance.
- Stocks: Our employees are the source of the innovative ideas and consistently excellent delivery that makes us so successful. In countries where eligible, stock compensation awards are included in our offers.
- In-Person Collaboration: We rely on in-person collaboration and ask that team members work onsite 4 days per week, with the flexibility to work remotely 1 day per week. We believe that connection fuels innovation, and our in-office culture is designed to foster meaningful teamwork, mentorship, and shared success.
- Paid Time Off: Time off is crucial to refresh and recharge. That's why we offer generous paid time off for salaried employees and 'quiet weeks' when we encourage our team to take time for themselves and the ones they love.
- Parental Leave: We know growing families need attention and care, so we provide paid leave to parents welcoming a new addition.
- Room to Grow; Because as we continue to grow, we need amazing employees helping us each step of the way.
- Leadership Development: We're fostering tomorrow's leaders by investing in early career talent with opportunities to rotate through innovative, impactful projects across our business during a two-year rotational program.
- Learning and Development: Learning and development is crucial to our success. We're building programs for our future, including organic offerings, tailored trainings and international new hire orientations.
Company HQ
North Scottsdale, Scottsdale, AZ
Leadership
Rick Smith
(Founder & CEO)Rick Founded Axon in 1993 and has served as the CEO since. They graduated from Harvard University with a BA in Biology and an MBA in Finance.
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