About F9
F9 is a mission-oriented team of Principal Software Engineers that have come together to deliver modern software engineering capabilities to the United States Defense Industry. Our customers include the United States Air Force, Aerospace, Raytheon, and Harris.
F9’s CEO, Eric Schoonover, started his career as a software engineer at Microsoft and Netflix where he progressed from a risky hire with no experience and no education to a principal level software engineer. He co-founded a YCombinator-funded startup after leaving Netflix and eventually landed at Time Inc as Vice President of Engineering. Prior to founding F9, he was Director of Engineering for the United States Digital Service in the Executive Office of the President, and Director of Engineering at the Defense Digital Service in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
All F9 principals have extensive private sector experience and deeply value a culture of effective software engineering, freedom, and responsibility.
Responsibilities
At F9, Senior Product Designers are responsible for the end-to-end design of software applications. They are obsessed with our customers' goals and work directly with stakeholders, end-users, engineering leaders, and individual software developers to craft simple solutions to extraordinarily complex problems. As an advanced role, Senior Product Designers have expert-level competency in visual design (VxD), user experience (UX) design, user research, and project management. They are completely self-driven and are able to define, iteratively deliver and test world-class software designs with little to no guidance. Their portfolio demonstrates their expertise and success delivering products to customers.
As a Product Designer on the project, you will be responsible for:
- Interviewing customers of our software products to gather requirements
- Designing and implementing complex user flows with extensive definitions of edge-cases
- Delivering all aspects of software design: IA, wireframes, prototypes, visual design, specifications, and user research
- Defining cross-product UI/UX standards, and evangelizing these conventions across the organization
- Creating pixel-perfect final designs and specifications
- Working directly with software engineers in a self-driven manner via Git Merge Requests and other software engineering practices
- Professionally presenting your designs to all levels of leadership, and using data to drive consensus
- Defining user metrics, and using that data to continuously improve your projects after launch
- Managing and reporting on design projects (work item tracking, status reporting, roadmaps, etc.)
- Owning and successfully executing 4-5 design projects simultaneously
Required Capabilities
You are obsessed with your customers' goals, and have demonstrated success distilling customer requirements into simple UI/UX solutions. You are a self-driven learner and are able to adapt to and use new technologies and tools with ease. You are able to communicate with both non-technical team members and software engineers alike, and have a strong passion for simple and elegant software user interfaces. You are an expert in all aspects of UI/UX design, and are able to mentor junior designers to help them develop the skills needed to create world-class user interfaces.
Other Qualifications
- Bachelor Degree in Interaction Design or equivalent Design degree, or equivalent industry experience
- At least 5 years’ experience working as a Product Designer on many software projects
- Expert-level proficiency in the tools of the trade: The Adobe Suite, Sketch, Axure, InVision, Framer, and others
- Resume must include a varied selection of a successfully-launched designs
- Experience working in an engineering-focused organization
- An extensive online portfolio of past work, including one thorough case-study that illustrates your end-to-end product design methodology and philosophy
Nice-to-Haves
- Front-end UI development technologies: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc.
- Portfolio includes working interactive prototypes
- Multi-modal design experience (voice, VR, AR, etc.)
- Working knowledge of Git (including merge/pull requests) and other basic software engineering practices for interacting with your teammates
- Design project management experience
Working at F9
Generous Compensation
We came for the mission, but we know the market value of the best people. We offer generous compensation packages in-line with industry.
DIY Benefits
We give our employees a generous allowance to use on a healthcare plan of their choice from several flexible tiers and formats. If you don't spend it all, you keep the difference.
Gear for Professionals
We understand that having the right gear makes your life better, and your work better. Premium noise-cancelling headphones, a top-of-the-line computer of your choice, and a baller mechanical keyboard are all standard issue. Something else? No problem. We trust our team to expense what they need.
Unlimited PTO
As a group of senior and principal engineers, most of us have families and—quite frankly—amazing lives outside of work. Get things done, but take as much time as you need, when you need it.
Ownership & Freedom
F9 hires experts in their field and trusts them to make the most of their time. You will own every aspect of your work, because we trust you to be awesome.
Proper Playtime
Whether it's snowmobiling in the mountains or dining at some of the best restaurants in the world, our team outings are not standard corporate events. You will never be forced to participate in mediocre mandatory fun.