Product Designer at Almabase

THE WORK HERE IS HARDER THAN IT LOOKS. THAT'S WHY IT'S WORTH DOING. Most design jobs ask you to make things look good. This one asks you to make hard things work AND look exceptional, without sacrificing one for the other. That's a rarer combination in B2B software than it should be. Getting there takes craft all the way down: the transitions, the states most teams never get around to designing for, the edge cases that ship right instead of looking broken. ABOUT ALMABASE: TRANSFORM EDUCATION THROUGH DESIGN We help schools increase their fundraising efficiency and keep their alumni communities active. As one of India's few profitable, bootstrapped SaaS companies, we're building lasting value for our team, customers, and the educational institutions we serve. Our Impact: - 6 million alumni connected - 500,000 students impacted - $10M+ in donations raised - 54 million engagement opportunities created - Profitable and bootstrapped since day one THE ROLE You'll join our 35-person PDEQ team (Product, Design, Engineering, Quality) that researches, designs, and ships products transforming how educational institutions connect with their communities. You'll design for multiple audiences with distinct needs: advancement professionals, alumni, students, and administrators. Each brings different technical comfort levels and emotional relationships with their institution. THE DESIGN CHALLENGES YOU'LL SOLVE Complex problems, elegant solutions: - How do you simplify complex workflows without removing the things people need? - What does a professional tool look like when users need to move fast without making mistakes? - How do you present dense data in a way that drives action, not analysis paralysis? Contribute to our design culture: As part of a lean, focused design team, you'll contribute to design practices, evolve our design system, and help raise the bar as we grow. Your input will influence how we approach design for years to come. WHAT YOU'LL OWN End-to-end product design - Own complete design process from concept to execution for key product area(s) - Define new interaction patterns for core/new workflows - Create clear, intuitive experiences for professional users across complex B2B scenarios Cross-functional collaboration - Partner closely with engineers and PMs to define problems and deliver high-quality solutions - Balance craft, speed, and business results in every design decision - Contribute to product strategy through design thinking and user advocacy Design excellence & culture - Maintain high standards of craft while moving quickly - Build and evolve our design system using atomic design principles - Share knowledge and refine processes as we scale WE'RE LOOKING FOR SOMEONE WHO Understands design beyond pixels Every interface decision either helps or hinders someone accomplishing their goals. You approach design as a conversation between user and product, ensuring clarity at every step. Thrives in complexity without creating it B2B products involve intricate workflows, but that doesn't mean they need to feel complicated. You excel at finding elegant solutions hidden within seemingly chaotic requirements. Balances speed with craft You know when to ship the 80% solution to learn faster and when to perfect details that matter. You're comfortable iterating in public while maintaining quality standards. Thinks beyond the screen Great product design considers the entire user journey, from discovery to successful task completion months later. You design for adoption, not just usability. Embraces AI fluency You use AI tools as part of how you work, not as a novelty. Whether it's exploring ideas faster, generating variations, or automating the repetitive parts of the process, you treat AI as a practical collaborator while keeping the judgment that makes design good. YOU'LL BE A GREAT FIT IF YOU - Believe less is more when it comes to design - Iterate relentlessly - you treat the first version as a starting point and keep improving based on what you learn - Ask fearless questions - courageous enough to learn and suggest improvements - Obsess over details - lose sleep over colors, typography, and pixel-perfect execution - Love the full lifecycle - want involvement from discovery through shipping quality products THIS ROLE IS NOT FOR YOU IF - You need lots of direction or structured processes to get started - You don't obsess over details (we need someone who sweats the pixels) - You prefer strategy over execution (this is a craft-heavy role) REQUIRED EXPERIENCE & SKILLS Experience: 1-3 years designing B2B digital products, with a portfolio of work that shipped Technical Skills: - Figma mastery: Components, variants, layouts, libraries using atomic design principles - Design systems thinking: Building scalable, maintainable design systems - B2B product experience: Understanding professional user needs and complex workflows - Visual craft: Create intuitive, appealing interfaces for professional users Core Capabilities: - AI fluency: Comfortable using AI tools as part of your design workflow to explore, iterate, and move faster - Business acumen: Balance user needs with business practicality and technical constraints - Communication: Tell compelling stories and articulate design decisions with clarity - Autonomy: See what needs doing and take ownership to make it happen Good to have - CS background or genuine technical curiosity (we use AI tools heavily across our workflows) - HTML/CSS familiarity - Motion and animation experience in Figma or equivalent SUCCESS METRICS You'll know you're successful when: 1. You've raised the design bar - Your work becomes the standard others reference 2. You've shipped measurable impact - Areas you own are visibly and statistically better 3. You operate autonomously - You identify opportunities and execute without waiting for direction WHY ALMABASE? Mission-driven impact: Your design work directly enables educational institutions to better serve students and create opportunities Design leadership: Shape design culture at a profitable, growing SaaS company alongside experienced designers Collaborative environment: Work with a tight-knit team that values both speed and quality Professional growth: Learn from experienced team members while taking ownership of significant product areas Sustainable business: Join a profitable, bootstrapped company focused on long-term value creation READY TO APPLY? We'd love to see your portfolio and understand your design thinking. Please share: 1. Portfolio showcasing 2-3 B2B or complex product case studies 2. Process documentation showing how you approach design problems 3. Brief note about what excites you about designing for educational technology Focus on: Your problem-solving approach, design process, and how you balance user needs with business constraints. We care more about your thinking than perfect visuals. WHAT TO EXPECT IN THE FIRST YEAR Within the first month - Get to know the various problems we are solving, and the people we are solving them for - Learn about the products we offer and how they address the needs of our customers - Schedule 1:1 chats with members of the Almabase team across all functions to learn how we work - You will take on interface design work right from your first week, helping you understand current design processes within the product team - You have your first monthly 1:1 with your manager to identify priorities for your ramp-up Within 3 months - Several features you've designed have been released to production. You have your first quarterly review with your manager - You've observed customer calls and user feedback sessions to understand how users interact with your designs - You're comfortable using our design system and contributing components and patterns - You're collaborating effectively with engineers and PMs on design implementation and iteration Within 6 months - You're designing complete user flows and features from wireframes to high-fidelity mockups - You understand our key user personas and can design with their needs and contexts in mind - You're contributing ideas for improving user experience based on data insights and user feedback - You're participating in design critiques and providing thoughtful feedback on team projects - You can articulate your design decisions clearly to stakeholders across the organization Within 12 months - You're independently owning design for specific product areas or user journeys - You're using user research, analytics, and feedback to inform and iterate on your design decisions - You're mentoring newer team members and helping maintain design quality standards - You're contributing to design process improvements and helping scale our design practices - You work with your manager to identify areas for continued growth and expanded responsibilities WORK TIMINGS 1. Our customers are primarily in the US. So any research and feedback calls that you need to conduct will happen between 4PM and 2AM IST. But apart from scheduled calls, most of the collaboration with the product and engineering team happen async and during the day. 2. The product team works out of our office in Bangalore. Our work processes allow anybody to work remotely for extended periods of time when they need to, but in general, everybody is in the office while they are in Bangalore. 3. If you love working with people around, you will enjoy the work we do at Almabase.