Product Designer

About the Role & Your Impact

This is an exciting opportunity to join an early stage company of talented Designers and Engineers, led by seasoned climate tech veterans. At Zero, Product Designers are individual contributors that report to a Lead Designer. You will work in small teams (1 Designer and 1-2 Engineers) in six-week cycles to take loosely defined projects and deliver new features. We are relentlessly focused on sustainable productivity. You should expect long stretches of deep work, minimal standing meetings, and effective in person collaboration with stakeholders and peers. We value and support a healthy work-life balance so you should also expect flexibility around your personal life.

At Zero, Product Designers are generalists - they own user research, UX, and UI. And because everyone on the team is a builder, Product Designers also build early prototypes that will bring new products and features to life. We primarily use Figma, but Designers are increasingly using AI tools to accelerate ideation and prototyping. 

Some examples of products that our Design team supports are the redesign of our mobile app for homeowners to scan their home, as well as a new mobile app for contractors. We are also working on the evolution of a web based design tool for HVAC systems, and various B2B web productivity tools for contractors and utilities.

What You Bring

You are a generalist with exceptional taste for design. Whether it’s researching user needs, brainstorming concepts, testing prototypes, or building features, you want to own projects from beginning to end. You have at least one year of professional product design experience and are comfortable working with sticky notes, whiteboard markers, Figma, AI tools, and front-end code (HTML/CSS/JS).

You are a detail oriented systems thinker. You always anchor your work on user needs, and are excited to meet users where they work, whether in the office or in the field. You may not have experience in climate tech or building science, but you are eager to dive into the messy world of residential electrification.

You have an eye for elegance - the confluence of beauty, effectiveness, and simplicity - and you have a proven track record of building elegant digital experiences. You value functional beauty in the physical world, and you are excited to build a product that will create healthy, comfortable, and sustainable living spaces for our customers.

You have strong opinions about the use of AI in the Design process. You have a point of view on which problems Agentic design tools are great at, where they fall down, and when to keep a human in the loop. You treat your AI toolchain the way a craftsperson treats their workshop: opinionated, evolving, and always sharpened.

You are a pragmatic team player and self-starter. You have a growth mindset and love tackling complex problems. You know that products only matter if they ship. You are eager to collaborate with leaders, designers and engineers across Zero, as well as customers in the field. You know that hard decisions and tough tradeoffs are required to deliver projects within a fixed time box. You want lots of freedom, but you know that comes with the responsibility to communicate and deliver.

You are enthusiastic about in-person work. You love engaging in healthy debates with teammates and converging on solutions in real time through whiteboard sessions and collaborative workshops. You want to know your users by name, meet them in person, and you want to see them smile when they use your designs. You live within 50 miles of Denver, CO or are willing to relocate.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with large scale consumer or B2B products

• Experience with native mobile app design

• Graphic design, illustration, and/or video production skills.

• Relevant industry experience: residential construction, electrification, HVAC, CAD, Solar, or Energy

• Experience at an early-stage startup