Founding Product Designer

About Meadow

Meadow is the modern payments platform for higher education that simplifies the entire student financial experience. We're transforming the $600 Billion higher education payments industry in the United States — building for universities what Shopify built for retail businesses, and bringing the entire student financial experience online.

The need for a platform like Meadow has never been greater. If you're passionate about our mission to empower students financially and strengthen economic mobility through higher education — and you're excited to join a highly ambitious, talented team — we'd love to hear from you.

About the Role

Overview

As our first Product Designer at Meadow, you'll partner with other Product Designers (We're currently looking for 2+ Product Designers!), Product Managers, and Software Engineers to conceptualize and ship product that powers the student financial experience.

Design at Meadow is AI-first and builder-led. We're looking for a Product Designer who is excited to 1) use AI as a core part of how they design — prototyping early, testing with real customers, and staying involved through launch and iteration, and to 2) design for AI — building products that assume the system can understand context, take initiative, and collaborate with the user.

This is a full-time position reporting to Nathan, Meadow's Chief Product Officer.

What You'll Do

• Own Product Work End-to-End: You'll work in lockstep with Product and Engineering to define problems, explore solution spaces, validate concepts, and ship product.

• Prototype Using AI Tools: You'll use Cursor and Claude Code to build and iterate on flows and interactions, then partner with Engineering to turn them into production-ready designs.

• Polish Validated Concepts Using Figma: You'll translate validated concepts into Figma for full state coverage, system alignment, and production readiness.

• Build Meadow's Product Design Practice: We're a small team of builders who thrive on ownership. As our first Product Designer, you'll help shape Product Design at Meadow from the ground up.

About You

What Your Bring

• 4-6+ Years of Experience in Product Design

  • Experience with Figma and/or Front-End Engineering Skills

• Craftsmanship

  • You build well-crafted products that are delightful to use and create passionately loyal customers.

• Product Sense

  • Empathy: You keep a steady rhythm of contact with your users. You understand the desired outcomes and surface patterns worth acting on.

  • Creativity: You form opinions on what to build, not just how. You generate and propose solutions to problems worth solving, including ones beyond their assigned work.

  • Taste: You judge which options actually move the needle on user outcomes and back them. You help teammates see defects and product-sense gaps, raising the bar around you.

• Ownership

  • End-to-End Product Ownership: You partner with Engineering and Product to define problems, explore solution spaces, validate concepts, and ship product improvements that move key metrics. You stay involved through launch and iteration, not just handoff.

  • Builder Mindset: You demonstrate High Agency x High Urgency.

    • You own problems end-to-end.

    • You make consequential decisions that impact outcomes.

• Communication

  • You effectively communicate and collaborate with Engineering and Product.

What Makes You Stand Out

• 0→1 Product Development Experience

• Experience at an Early Stage Startup (Seed, Series A, Series B)

• Active Use of AI Tools in Your Design Workflow (e.g. Claude Code, Cursor)

• Experience Interfacing with Clients for Research & Discovery

Compensation and Benefits

Meadow wants all employees to be supported in their personal and professional development, so we take a comprehensive approach to compensation and benefits.

The initial annual salary for this position is expected to be $124,950-$206,000 USD. Actual compensation will depend on numerous factors such as: experience, knowledge and skills, qualifications, location, and other job-related factors.

In addition to the chance to positively impact the world while building a company around a $600B opportunity, Meadow offers:

• Competitive Salary

• Competitive Equity

• 401(k) Retirement Savings Plan

• Subsidized Medical, Dental, and Vision Insurance (with HSA & FSA Plans Available)

• Flexible Paid Time Off

• Paid Company Holidays

• Paid Parental Leave

• 1-2 Onsites Per Year

• Membership in an Ambitious, Kind, No-Drama Team

We believe in hiring adaptable, curious, and fast-learning people who are eager to develop their skills every day. If you’re excited about this role but your experience doesn’t align exactly with the job description, we encourage you to go ahead and apply. You may be just the right candidate for this role.

Meadow is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity in all its forms, and we encourage our employees to participate as their authentic selves in our work environment. We strive to build better for all, towards a more open, inclusive space. Come as you are.