Senior Product Designer, Zen Educate
Salary not provided
Senior and Expert level
Chicago
3 days a week in office
Education recruitment platform
Posted today
Education recruitment platform
201-500 employees
B2BMarketplaceEducationRecruitment
Posted today
Salary not provided
Senior and Expert level
Chicago
3 days a week in office
201-500 employees
B2BMarketplaceEducationRecruitment
Company mission
To make a positive impact and bring about meaningful change within the education recruitment sector.
Role
Who you are
- Clarity over all – clear thinking, clear visuals, clear storytelling
- Systems thinking – not just how a screen works, but how it fits into the wider workflow
- Craft + impact – quality design isn’t precious, it’s purposeful
- Bias to ship – perfection is a direction, not a requirement
- Curiosity and candour – great design comes from great questions and honest collaboration
- If you read all this and thought “hell yes” (even if it’s a slightly nervous one), then please apply. If you skimmed and thought “maybe,” apply anyway — you’ll get a clearer sense once we chat. We’re always open to great people, even if the timing isn’t perfect
What the job involves
- Hi, I’m JC, Head of Design at Zen Educate. I started sketching out the first versions of the product on evenings and weekends before we had a team, a logo, or an office. Now, I lead our growing design function as we tackle more complex, ambitious, and impactful problems across both sides of the Atlantic
- I’m looking for a Senior Product Designer who wants to do meaningful work at the intersection of service, system, and interface design. Someone who cares deeply about users, communicates clearly, thinks in flows not screens, and is excited to partner closely with product, engineering, our commercial team and most importantly, our customers, to solve real-world problems in education
- Design at Zen is about shaping problems, navigating ambiguity, collaborating with conviction — and crafting simple, scalable, elegant experiences that make a real difference
- We’re still a small design team, which means you’ll have a lot of room to shape how we work, build design maturity across the org, and leave your fingerprints on a product with deep real-world impact
- You’ll work across the full product lifecycle — from discovery through to delivery — with a focus on user outcomes, speed of learning, and design quality. You’ll also mentor other designers, contribute to evolving our design culture, and help shape how we scale
- Design is a partner, not a service. You’ll co-own problems, shape solutions, and drive delivery with your squad
- Lean over large. We prefer efficiently created Figma flows, sharp critiques, and weekly iterations over lengthy decks and bloated specs
- Design system exists and is growing. But you’ll help define and evolve it — it’s not “done” or rigid
- Choose your own adventure. You’ll shape your path, not wait for a ladder to appear. We value influence, not just individual contribution
- Levels not titles. We use Levels to reflect growth and scope, not inflated titles. There’s plenty of space to stretch without switching tracks
- Shared context, not command and control. You’ll be expected to lead your work and communicate your thinking — with support but not micromanagement
Application process
- We aim to hire fast and fairly — clarity over games. Our ideal process is: apply one week, offer the next. Here’s what that looks like:
- Recruiter chat: We’ll check the basics — your availability, compensation expectations, and whether this feels like a mutual fit
- Meeting with me: I’ll want to understand how you work, what matters to you in a design role, and how we can support your best work A deep dive into a past project (or two) will follow. We’ll look for clear storytelling, design thinking, collaboration, and the impact of your work
- Design task session: You’ll work on a real product problem — shaping it, exploring options, and figuring out how you think
- Culture & collaboration chat: You’ll meet a few of the people you’d be working alongside — outside of the product sphere. This is where we get a sense of what it’s like to work at Zen. Expect a relaxed, candid chat about team dynamics, values, and ways of working
- We believe in feedback, but only share it if you ask for it. If you want it, just say so — we’ll be honest and constructive about how we saw things
Our take
With UK schools under immense financial pressure, Zen Educate is providing a smarter approach to education staffing. Recruitment in schools often relies on inefficient and expensive practices. Zen Educate is focused on tackling the pain points in the industry and providing a way to ensure schools get the best teachers possible.
It provides an online platform as an alternative to recruitment agencies, which is the only online platform accredited by the UK's Department of Education, helping schools fill staffing needs quickly and cost-effectively. Schools using the platform have reportedly saved 20-30% on supply cover costs.
On top of this, the company has also raised significant funding to support acquisitions in the UK and the US, plus the expansion of its operations and offering.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
Top investors
Company
Funding (last 2 of 7 rounds)
Aug 2025
$17.7m
SERIES B
May 2024
$37m
SERIES B
Total funding: $103.7m
Company benefits
- Macbook and tech equipment provided
- Regular "lunch 'n' learns" every month on a range of topics
- Investment in your professional development
- Regular socials
- Ownership in the company
- Pension scheme
- Health benefits (Zen pays 75% of premiums) including vision and dental
Company values
- Commit to the mission- We commit to our mission, our customers, and our teams. We work hard because we care more
- Choose greatness over comfort- Greatness and comfort rarely coexist. We seek greatness. We understand success takes grit & determination so we seek colleagues that possess it
- Act like an owner- We all take responsibility for driving the company forward and making it a success. If we see something that could be better, we fix it. We offer stock options to all employees
- Help each other be better- Every person at Zen is someone we can respect and learn from
- A culture of trust- We hire people who are great at their jobs and we let them get on with it while being there to lend a hand when needed
- Challenge the status quo- We take action when we can see opportunities for improvement. We are in it to make our customers' lives better and to fix a broken system
- Embrace learning over perfection- We make decisions quickly and we don't hesitate. We may disagree with a decision, but we support the team and the mission by committing to it. We embrace making unknowable mistakes and learning from them
Company HQ
HQ, London
Articles
Leadership
Slava Kremerman
(Co-Founder & CEO)Previously a member of the Leadership Team at Nutmeg a FS startup, they also worked at Barclays and Aon.
Oren Cohen
(Co-Founder & Chief Customer Officer)Ran the UK office of Optimizely, a Silicon Valley tech company. Prior to this, they worked at G-STAT and Intel.
Salary benchmarks
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Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at Zen Educate
- At Zen, we strive to build a culture of equity and inclusion, where everyone is respected, valued and appreciated for their unique traits, experiences and perspectives. We are committed to creating a safe, inclusive and equitable environment where our team can thrive, regardless of age, ethnicity, race, gender identity, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, disability, religion or beliefs. We value our differences and believe that practices of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion help us create a fairer, more compassionate environment for all
- We welcome applicants with diverse backgrounds and different experiences and perspectives — just like the staff who teach through Zen and the children at the schools we work with. We believe in hiring the best people from the widest pool and creating an inclusive culture where people’s voices are heard and all our team can look forward to coming to work
- We are committed to building a team that reflects the diversity of our community and promoting an equitable and inclusive environment for all. We seek out diverse opinions, beliefs, and experiences because they collectively make us stronger; we’ve had former teachers, pilots, fundraisers, engineers, lawyers, marketers, social media experts and more join our team
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