Founding Designer

Location: San Francisco - Hybrid

About Pathos: Pathos is an early-stage startup building the world’s first truly intelligent emotional-health companion. Pathos is a science-driven, AI-powered experience designed to make high-quality emotional support more accessible. Co-founded by leaders across neuroscience, mental-health innovation, and consumer tech, Pathos is in active development and preparing for its first product launch. We’re creating a secure, private, multilingual platform grounded in evidence-based therapeutic approaches, and we’re looking for builders who want to shape the product from the ground up.

The person we’re looking for: We’re seeking a Founding Designer with a proven ability to own the end-to-end design process, create polished and intuitive user experiences, and solve user and business problems using design thinking. You thrive in a fast-paced startup environment and can move quickly without compromising the quality of your outputs.

Job Overview: Some things you will be responsible for:

• Lead the design of a new mobile app from scratch, creating beautiful visuals, intuitive interactions, and innovative UX for our flagship product.
• Build a comprehensive, future-proof design system, with accessibility, internationalization, and modularity in mind.
• Collaborate with engineers and product leadership to prioritize the roadmap and scope new features.
• Apply a strong user-centered approach to research and design, translating real user needs into clear, actionable product direction.
• Leverage AI tools to accelerate ideation while producing human-centered, polished designs that align with the Pathos brand.

Requirements

• Proven experience as a product designer, preferably in consumer mobile products.
• Expert proficiency in Figma, with strong skills across UX, visual design, typography, iconography, and animation. Nice to have: marketing design experience.
• Strong visual communication and design thinking.
• Good at understanding users and using research to guide decisions.
• Comfortable working in a small, fast-moving startup team, managing multiple projects, and meeting deadlines.
• Understands current and emerging AI trends and can use them to create practical, user-centered designs.

Benefits

• Health and dental benefits
• On-site parking
• Public transportation reimbursement

Compensation Range: $140K - $240K