About Us and Why Were HiringWere YNAB (why-nab), a financial education company with a spendfulness app that helps people all over the world spend their money (guilt-free!) on what matters most to them. For over 20 years, YNABs proven method has been changing livesand people cant stop telling their friends about the difference its made. Think: debt paid off, marriages strengthened, goals achieved, stress erased, and sleep finally restored. But dont just take our word for itdive into our vibrant communities on Facebook, TikTok, and Reddit (really!) or skim through our glowing appreviews. Youll quickly see why people rave about YNAB and why were so passionate about creating something that truly changes lives for the better.Our Marketing team loves spreading the word about YNAB, and eye-catching designs are an integral part of thatwhich is where you come in! Youll join our team of designers, who have a special talent for crafting designs that effectively communicate our message, represent our brand, and make both current and potential YNABers go :heart-eyes:. Youre the person were looking for if youre curious to learn new things, happy to roll up your sleeves and help wherever needed, and jazzed to work on a brand that is (humbly) playful, yet sophisticated.What were looking for:We have two hard requirements for this roleyou must:Have at least 23 years of experience as a designer. Ideally, youre a well-rounded designer who is:Proficient in Figma and Illustrator.Comfortable with time-sensitive production work.Able to create illustrations by following our guidelines (but you dont need to be a formal illustrator!).Live in a timezone that is within two hours (plus or minus) of Central Time.Beyond that, were open-minded. We value a diversity of experience and skills at YNAB, and every career path is different. That said, it may help you be successful in this role if you also have:Knowledge of performance-driven design (or a willingness to learn). If you understand CTR, engagement metrics, and A/B testing for optimization, you already speak our language.Experience bringing a brand into a product. While most of your designs will be created to serve marketing, youll also produce product and service communications.If you know (or are interested in!) motion graphics & animation, you may also design animated ads and/or visuals for YouTube.If youre proficient in Webflow, youd be a big help with our website!An understanding of what works visually for YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, and other social platforms. Youll design eye-catching, high-converting thumbnails for YouTube, creative ads for paid acquisition channels, and engaging visuals for social media.A bit about life at YNAB:Thats a super brief intro to what were looking for. But first, you need to know if youll even like working with us. Wed love to share more about YNAB, and then well get into (many) more details about this role.YNAB started in 2004 and we havent taken any outside fundingwere established, profitable, and in this for the long haul. We have one overarching requirement when it comes to joining our team: our original Core Value Manifesto has to really click with you. If youre nodding emphatically while reading it, youll probably really like it here, and we cant wait to hear from you!We live our Core Values every day at YNAB, and we mean it when we say we are an equal-opportunity employer. We believe that a diversity of backgrounds, abilities, beliefs, and experiences is critical to our success, and we are passionate about creating a welcoming, supportive, and collaborative environment for all employees. All are encouraged to apply as we continue to grow a smart, hard-working, and diverse team that loves working together to build something that matters.We also work really hard, together, to make working at YNAB an amazing experience, and were (humbly) proud to have received many of Fortunes great place to work awards over the last several years, including #1 two years in a row! We have a team full of truly exceptional peoplethe kind youll be excited to work with. Wed love to introduce you to a few of them!Who youll be working with:We mentioned that youd be joining a team of designers, so wed love to introduce you to some of them: Meet Andrea, Lauren, Tristan, and Casey!Andrea will be your manager. She joined the product design team in 2018 and jumped over to the marketing team last year just in time for the brand refresh! With a career steeped in user experience, shes found her dream job where creativity and helping others collide. When shes not obsessing over pixels and fan fests, youll find this compulsive doodler soaking up live music, art shows, and ocean waves.Lauren joined YNAB in 2016 and has loved watching the Marketing team grow from a scrappy 3-person squad to a several-dozen-strong powerhouse of creativity. She has a passion for color and branding, dabbles in hand lettering and digital painting, and splits her free time between playing video games, writing her latest book, romping around with various TTRPG groups, and planning her next elaborate Halloween costume. If it requires whimsy and imagination, shes in.Tristan joined the marketing design team in 2017 as a motion designer, specializing in bringing visuals to life through animation. Outside of work, hes an award-winning freelance illustrator who shares insights on the challenges of being an artist through social media videos, offering advice and perspective to fellow creatives.Casey joined the Marketing Design team in 2021 and quickly made her way over to the YNAB marketing site (or as she likes to call it, YNABs storefront). She makes sure the site looks its best and obsesses over how to multiply the efforts of the rest of the marketing team by optimizing it to capture the most YNAB trials possible. When shes not in front of her laptop using Webflow, shes behind a camera or doing a puzzle.Youll also work closely with other marketerslike Reema (our Marketing Operations Lead), Rachel (our Content Marketing Manager), Kelly (our Production Manager), Ashley (our Video Content Manager), and Janelle (our Referral Programs Manager)and benefit from the fun and fearless leadership of Lindsey (our Head of Marketing) and Dylan (our Director of Design). Whew. We are all excited for you to join us!How Youll Work at YNABStill with us? Now that youve met some of your potential future teammates, lets talk more about YNAB as a company. Heres how we operate:Live Where You WantWeve always been a fully remote team, and have people all over the world. For this particular position, however, were looking for someone within +/- two hours of Central Time, due to the high amount of synchronous coordination needed with the rest of the team. Anywhere within those time zones is okay, though. Just make sure you have a reliable internet connection.Work Four Days a WeekWeve adopted a four-day work week (still 100% paid!) and rarely work more than that. There are occasions and seasons where things get busy and people put some extra time inbut then we encourage them to take some extra time off, too. We work hard and smart and care deeply about what we do, but we also love our families and about 2,000 other things. We have perspective and, ultimately, we think it makes usand our workeven better.Flex Your Work ScheduleWere fully remote, so a lot of our work is done asynchronously, but we love working together in real time when it makes sense. We try to schedule most meetings between 123 pm Eastern time MondayThursday. Outside of your meetings, we trust you to set your own schedule by balancing your teams needs with your own needs. You dont need to ask for permission to take off early one afternoon to see the doctor, or be active on Slack if youre working deeply on a project. We look at what you accomplishnot when or how long you're in front of a computer.Take Vacation (Seriously)We want you to take vacation. In fact, we have a minimum vacation policy of three weeks per year. Five weeks feels about right (plus two extra weeks for our company-wide December Break). Its important to get plenty of downtime and to get out and do something. Well look forward to seeing pictures of your adventures in our #office-wall Slack channel!Meet the Team IRLSome of our best work (and bonding!) is done in person. Youll generally have the opportunity to meet with your YNAB teammates at least once a year, at a small-team work-focused meetup or at our company retreat. At the YNAB retreat, we love to catch up on spreadsheets and powerpoints in a Best Western conference room. Just kidding. (Its actually hard to write that sentence, even knowing its a joke.) So far, weve gone to Costa Rica, a gigantic cabin in the mountains, a beach house in the Outer Banks, a ranch in Montana, Laguna Beach, Palm Springs, and most recently, Cape Cod. We work together, play together, and reinforce the bonds weve made as a team and company. Every time we meet up, we leave refreshed, motivated, and excited for the year ahead together.Up Your GameWere serious about helping you improve your craft. Its one of our favorite spending categories, and its the most important work of our managers. Think conferences, coaches, online courses and subscriptions, dedicated time away from work to learn something new It's really up to you and your manager. We love to see our people grow!Other BenefitsOur team is spread all over the worldmostly in the United States, but also in the UK, Canada, Germany, Brazil, Mexico, and several other countries. Team members who live in the US or UK are set up as employees, and those who live in other countries set themselves up as independent contractors. No matter where you live, youre eligible for our generous paid family leave, vacation, holidays, and sick time.If youre in the US, we also offer fantastic medical, dental, and vision insurance, where we cover 100% of the premium for you and your family. No need to check your vision, you read that right100%. (Although if you did need to check your vision, NBD, weve got you covered!) We also have a Traditional and Roth 401(k) option, where YNAB matches your contributions up to six percent, and matches vest immediately. (Are you a personal finance junkie like our founder Jesse? He set up YNABs 401k to have the lowest fee structure possible, where all plan costs are paid by YNAB, not your retirement nest egg. The investment funds available are fantastic, passively-managed, ultra low-cost index funds. Youre not a PF junkie? Trust us, its awesome.)Competitive CompensationAt YNAB, were committed to equitable, market-driven, data-based compensation and we aim to offer a competitive benefits package to our team members. The starting salary for this role will be between $72,000 - $87,000 USD annually (with the top of that range reserved only for the most experienced candidates). If we decide to make you an offer, well determine the most appropriate number based on what we know about your experience and competency for the role, and then well make you our best offer and hope that you accept! If you join our team, youll also be eligible for a raise once a year and for our profit-share twice a year. (YNAB wins, you winthat kind of thing.)A Few Final TidbitsOnce you start, we DEMAND (in a friendly, ALL CAPS IS YELLING way) that you fill out your Bucket List spreadsheet with 50 items. (Thats harder than it sounds!)We love to celebrate with you when you complete something on your bucket listAND, we love using your bucket list as inspiration for your best birthday present(s) ever.We want you firing on all cylinders, so well set you up with a shiny new computer and replace it every three years. Did we mention that YNAB makes a huge, positive difference in peoples lives? You may not think that matters much, but then a few months down the road, youll realize its made your job really, really enjoyable. Dont underestimate this one!If this sounds like your ideal environment, read on because now we want to talk about you. You will play a big, big part in helping the YNAB brand come to life and reach wider audiences. Well only say that six more times.Now back to you, our new Designer....Youre the designer were looking for if youre creative, detail-oriented, and collaborative, with a strong understanding of design principles, visual storytelling, and audience engagement strategies, plus excellent communication and time management skills in a remote environment. (Thats it, huh? Honestly, we bet youre all that and a bag of chips.)Your main responsibilities will be to design engaging visual communications, support our brand identity, and collaborate cross-functionally to ensure that your designs effectively support our company goals.On a day to day basis, youll:Design a diverse range of visual communicationsprimarily digital, but sometimes analogsuch as: email templates, landing pages, print collateral, lead-generating content, app store screens, event design (like for FanFest or our company retreats), and more. You pride yourself on delivering high-quality, polished assets on time and within budget. In all of that, youll have plenty of opportunity to be creative, but you also love the very smallest parts of the jobits in your pixel-perfect attention to detail that you hone your craft.Excel in an iterative design process. Youll rapidly test, refine, and optimize your designs to maximize engagement and effectiveness, based on performance data, industry trends, and feedback from internal teams and/or our target audience. Youre not primarily responsible for analyzing or reporting on the performance of visual communications, but you should be well-versed in communicating with those who do.Uphold our visual brand identity in customer-facing assets, product designs, and internal materials. To do so, youll rely on consistent design elements and our established style guidelines.Speaking of our style guidelines, youll also develop and maintain templates, graphic elements, and other resources to ensure design consistency across all non-product, customer-facing, and internal materials. This may include creating new illustrations by following our guidelines (again: you dont need to be a formal illustrator!), and collaborating with Dylan, our Director of Design, in updating style guides when we need to refine our visual brand identity.Collaborate with cross-functional teams to ensure that materials are well designed, on-brand, and effectively communicate the desired message. For example, youll participate in product launches and integrated marketing campaigns; work closely with writers to ensure your designs evoke the appropriate emotion; and brainstorm with marketers to create and optimize platform-specific ads and content. In all your projects, communication is key!Speaking of communication, we strive to keep an open dialogue between all our designers (including your team and our product designers). Youll help us share ideas and decisions, keep assets visually consistent across teams, and ensure the coherence of a YNABers end-to-end experience.Offer design support to the entire company, including the production of internal assets, branded items, and professional opinions on miscellaneous design decisions. This wont take precedence over your other responsibilities, but we do love to help each other around here!And finally, youll advocate for company-wide visual excellence by sharing design best practices and insights, and educating and supporting teammates in the proper use of our visual brand identity and style guidelines.Thats eight (long) bullet points, but lets still say that your success as a designer at YNAB will depend on you approaching design as holistic problem-solving for both creative and business goals. Youll work collaboratively and listen to ideas, questions, and critiques from teammates with grace and patience. At the same time, you know your stuff and can eloquently and logically explain your design decisions. This type of exchange is critical to both our success and yourssharing ideas and being open to the brilliance of others is how we arrive at the best solutions, together. If this sounds like your kind of place, we cant wait to hear from you.How to ApplyApply here (including whats listed below) by Sunday, March 9th @ 11:59pm PT. Firm. Its a real deadline. The kind you love.What to include in your application:Your resume. If you dont have an updated formal resume, thats fine! An informal overview of your work history and education is all were looking for.A cover letter and answers to three questions. But not your typical cover letter. You have our permission to NOT be formal, just help us get to know you.On page 1: Wed love for you to tell us a bit about yourself, why youre interested in this role at YNAB, and why you think youd be a great fit.On page 2 onward: Please answer these questions three:1. Tell us about a time when you were convinced you were right about something at work, but have since changed your mind. What convinced you?2. How do you hone your craft as a designer? Feel free to share specific strategies, sources of information or inspiration, and/or your general approach.3. Imagine youre our new Designer and a Marketing teammate has just reached out to you with an urgent request: the FanFest team just dreamed up an extra piece of swag that we know would delight YNABers, but they need the design finalized one week from today. You have time to tackle it but they didnt provide all the information youd need to get started. Please draft a 1-2 paragraph message as though youre writing directly to them (and feel free to make assumptions about what the swag is, and what information you need to gather).Your portfolio. Please:Share as a personal portfolio website, PDF, or Dropbox folder.State the role you played on each project and specify if any parts of the design were NOT created by you.Include: examples of visual communications, such as marketing campaign content, landing pages, ads, printed media, logos, illustrations, environmental designs, and/or merch designs; a peek into your design process; and links to any live work.Wed prefer to see real work with real stories over perfect spec work, but if youd like to include personal work please be sure to label it as such.Answers to 13 quick, informational questions, which youll see when you click Apply. These include things like your contact information, location, and relevant skills for the role.A few tips:If you meet our hard requirements and follow the application instructions, we promise that a real human will review your materials. With that being said, we hope that youll feel free to be genuinely yourself in your application. We want to get to know you, not ChatGPT.Though we know its customary in some areas, please do not share a headshot anywhere in your application materials.Youll only be able to apply once, so make sure your answers are final before you click submit. You can always start your application, and then click the Save application for laterwill have an expiration date! Check your email for more information if you choose this option.)Keep an eye out for a confirmation email from @pinpoint.email titled Thank you for applying to YNAB!this means your application has been received successfully.Our goal is to make the recruitment and hiring process as accessible as possible. If we can help you with an accessibility need, email us at [emailprotected] and indicate in the subject line that youre applying for the Designer role. (Please note that we can only respond to messages related to accommodations at this email.)Finally, please click here for an outline of what this hiring process will look like. Its rigorous, but we also hear that its fun (truly!). We enjoy getting to know you throughout, and we make sure you have plenty of chances to get to know us, too.Were excited to hear from you!P.S. If youre not interested in this position right now, but know someone who might be, wed appreciate you passing this along!