Founding Product Designer, Pendulum
Contract / Full time
£80-110k
Founding equity
A new kind of language learning company
Open for applications
A new kind of language learning company
1-20 employees
Open for applications
£80-110k
Founding equity
1-20 employees
Company mission
Our mission is to open access to the world's culture through democratising language learning
Role
Who you are
- As the first and only Founding Product Designer at Pendulum, you will be instrumental in shaping the overall product vision. You will design intuitive and simple interfaces on top of an agentic system for voice, image, and text AI — transforming technical complexity into simplicity. You will steer design decisions informed by a comprehensive understanding of customers' needs. You will have the autonomy to push design principles forward based on new capabilities made possible by generative AI, but in a way that remains unwaveringly human-centered.
Desirable
- You’re a builder. You have a track record of shipping consumer products in a fast-paced environment
- You consistently seek out and experiment with the latest generative tools for creativity
- You have a bias toward product. You want (and know how) to translate backend capabilities to frontend UIs that solve real-world problems
- You thrive in a startup environment. You’re excited to solve user problems through quick iterations, you’re okay with priorities changing, and you’re comfortable with risk
- You value working with people who are low ego, ambitious, and pragmatic
- You are excited to design things that haven’t existed before
What the job involves
- Extensive experience with the end-to-end design process, from discovery to execution
- An ability to move lightning fast, a willingness to experiment, and complete openness to getting things wrong
- A solid portfolio of case studies of building products that consumers love. Ideally this includes works informed by generative modalities
- At least 5+ years of professional experience designing consumer-focused tech products at a 0-1 startup, design studio, or platform company known for user-centric design
- Curiosity, ambition, kindness, and firm opinions loosely held
- A passion for language learning and world culture
Application process
- Apply with your profile and a link to your portfolio.
- Intro call. We’ll schedule a 15-30 minute chat to get to know you, discuss your work history, and answer your questions.
- Debrief. We’ll debrief as a team and get back to you within a few days
- Work with us. If you’re a good fit, we’ll invite you to work with us as a contractor for a few weeks. This trial period will give both you and our team the chance to collaborate and determine if we’re the right match
Salary benchmarks
Our take
Pendulum is an immersive language learning company, developing AI products that redefine the very basics of learning a new language. Pendulum develops its products off the philosophy that to truly learn a language, one must experience the culture, differentiating it from the gamified learning of Duolingo and the traditional focus of education on grammar and sentence memorising.
Its products leverage conversational voice AI and autonomous LLM agents to create evolving digital landscapes that are fluid to the customer's fluency level. Essentially, customers are immersed in open-ended scenarios that are actively shaped by their conversations, thus replicating the experience of speaking to someone in a foreign language
Founded by a small team emerging from the South Park Commons Founder Fellowship, Pendulum has garnered support from notable investors, including Shine Capital and Mercuri, and early backers from platforms like Notion, Vimeo, and Patreon. These endorsements reflect confidence in Pendulum's approach to learning new languages. The team behind Pendulum brings extensive experience in AI product development, having previously built solutions at Spotify, led product and strategy initiatives at Google, and conducted research on generative media and natural language processes at Oxford and Imperial College. With this extensive background, Pendulum is ready to transform the way we learn new languages.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Company
Funding (1 round)
Jun 2024
$3.8m
Seed
Total funding: $3.8m
Company HQ
London, UK
Leadership
William Usdin
(Co-Founder)Previously worked at Google through several roles, most recently as Head of Strategy and Operations, EMEA. Also founded Woven Science and acted as their Chief Operating Officer.
Zo Ahmed
(Co-Founder)Ex-Spotify, most recently as their youngest ML Engineering Lead. Built out Spotify's podcast recommendation engine from scratch. Previously researched deep learning at Oxford University.
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