Stack Overflow exists to help developers: whether we’re helping them get answers to their questions or find a new job, we build products that millions of developers use. As a designer at Stack Overflow, you’ll create and build products that directly impact the work and the lives of those developers.
You’ll be working alongside a small product team on our public Q&A sites. This role focuses on our main Q&A experience, but also has a particular focus on making Stack Overflow more welcoming and inclusive to people new to the site, new to programming in general, and/or people who are more likely to feel unwelcome on our site (including people from groups underrepresented in tech). This is a great opportunity to dig into design for a product that impacts millions of people every month. And as a member of the product design team, you’ll also spend lots of time working with the rest of us, whether that’s contributing to our design system, participating in critique, or just hanging out with us in Slack. We’re a team that rejects competition between designers and instead embraces collaboration. We’re always looking for ways to teach and help each other.
We’re looking for a generalist - someone who has the skills to do everything from research to early-stage design explorations to high-fidelity prototypes and mockups and maybe even a bit of front-end development. But most importantly, we’re looking for someone who’s excited to join our small team, to dig into big projects, and to learn and grow with us.
Skills & Requirements
What you’ll do:
Work with the product manager and researcher to explore and define the team’s product strategy
Work within our fast-moving product development process in collaboration with the rest of the product team
Identify when user research and experience design methods are necessary, and conduct or help conduct that discovery work
Design high-quality visuals, interactions, workflows, and copy that are user-centered and consistent with our design language
Use your design work appropriately in context with the overall product and business goals to impact and drive product strategy
Write clean and maintainable front-end code, if that’s one of your competencies
Contribute to a collaborative and inclusive team environment where design ideas and feedback are shared openly and with the best intentions
What we want to see:
At least 6 years of product design experience
Experience with designing for online communities
Evidence of thoughtful, thorough experience design work
Evidence of internally consistent and high-quality visual designs
Evidence of participation in, usage of, or execution of user research
Excellent written and oral communication skills
A desire to or experience with working in a distributed environment (where all team members are remote)
High levels of organization and ability to work independently
(Optional) Experience with or interest in learning basic front-end development (HTML, CSS, some Javascript)
(Bonus) experience with designing for developers or other technical audiences
(Bonus) experience using (and/or contributing to) design systems
Also note:
If this job interests you but you aren’t certain if you meet all of the requirements, please apply anyway!
We don’t consider applications without cover letters - please make sure to include yours, and make sure to talk specifically about why you want to work here at Stack Overflow, on this specific team! We promise - we read every single one.
What you’ll get in return:
Flexible hours
20 days paid vacation + holidays
Completely free health insurance - no copay, no premiums (US residents)
Generous parental leave (10-16 weeks at 100% pay), family care leave, and unlimited sick days
Employees will never be poked with a sharp stick
If you want to work remotely…. We’ll help you set up a great home office, with an ergonomic chair, standing desk, and any other equipment you need to do your job.
If you want to work in our office… You’ll get your own private office in our headquarters in New York City, and enjoy additional benefits like free lunch every day prepared by our own in-house chefs, transportation reimbursement, and all the espresso you can drink.
About Stack Overflow
Stack Overflow is the largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers. More than 50 million professional and aspiring programmers visit Stack Overflow each month to help solve coding problems, develop new skills, and find job opportunities.
We partner with businesses to help them understand, hire, engage, and enable the world's developers. Our products and services are focused on developer marketing, technical recruiting, market research, and enterprise knowledge sharing.
We believe in hiring smart people and getting out of their way. We have an office in New York with some of the best amenities of any New York startup, and we have people who work remotely all over the world. We keep meetings and ceremony to an absolute minimum.
Employment is conditioned upon successful completion of a background check and upon having the appropriate legal right to work.
What we value:
Servant Leadership: We lead by empowering and inspiring people to do their best work, not by micromanaging. We hire smart people, set them up for success, then get out of their way.
Collaboration: The best products are created when people from different backgrounds and disciplines work closely together in an environment of respect and trust.
Transparency: Trust is built on openness and transparency. If there is not a good reason to keep it a secret, we share it. For example, we share our complete engineering salary formula.
Inclusion: We do our best work when we can be our whole selves at work. We’re committed to policies and benefits that support people, and leaders who foster an open and inclusive culture.
Diverse teams build better products.
Legally, we need you to know this:
Stack Exchange, Inc. does not discriminate in employment matters on the basis of race, color, religion, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, military service eligibility, veteran status, sexual orientation, marital status, disability, or any other protected class. We support workplace diversity.
But we want to add this:
We strongly believe that diversity contributes to a broader collective perspective that will consistently lead to a better company and better products. We are working hard to increase the diversity of our team wherever we can and we actively encourage everyone to consider becoming a part of it.
