Head of Design

Kikoff: The Fintech Powering Financial Security at Scale Kikoff is a profitable, pre-IPO fintech company on a mission to empower everyone to achieve financial security. With record revenue growth in 2025 and a unicorn valuation, we've built a suite of products that help millions of people build credit, access liquidity, and save money. We're scaling fast. Join us if you want to build something meaningful and help millions of people move forward financially. Why Kikoff: This is a consumer fintech startup, and you will be working with serial entrepreneurs who have built strong consumer brands and innovative products. We value extreme ownership, clear communication, a strong sense of craftsmanship, and the desire to create lasting work and work relationships. Yes, you can build an exciting business AND have real-life real-customer impact. About the Role As Head of Design, you will own the design vision, craft, and execution across the company. You will set the quality bar, rebuild the foundation our product is built on, and be a direct partner to senior leadership on the decisions that shape what Kikoff feels like to use. This is not a hands-off role. You will be close to the pixels, close to the product, and close to the team. You will give real feedback on real work, and you will be expected to make the call when designers are stuck in ambiguity. In This Role, You Will Lead and Grow the Team Manage, coach, and develop the product design team - including hands-on mentorship of junior designers, not just feedback in big meetings Own hiring and talent strategy: bring in designers who raise the bar, and shape the org structure that lets them do their best work Set a high bar for craft, ownership, and user obsession across the team Invest in career growth: clear expectations, honest feedback, and a path forward for every designer on the team Go beyond filling headcount. Understand each designer's strengths and place them where they'll do their best work and develop in the desired growth areas. Own the Design Vision and Quality Bar Set the overall design vision for Kikoff - what good looks like, how the team works, how designers grow Make the call when there is ambiguity: a great design manager can resolve a design decision when the team is stuck, instead of leaving it open Give practical, down-to-earth feedback grounded in visual, UX, and craft fundamentals - not just product framing Champion the visual front and push the bar on what Kikoff can look and feel like Build the Design Foundation Build the design system from the ground up so it is something the whole company and our coding agents will want to use Define and enforce design patterns across the product to reduce design debt and bring consistency Drive the standards that make every screen feel like Kikoff, across product, marketing, and brand surfaces Drive Cross-Functional Impact Be a strategic partner to Engineering, Product, and Marketing as a peer - not a downstream resource Bring product design and creative closer together: together ship brand-quality product and product-quality brand Take company-wide direction on design, brand, and creative - and translate it into work that benefits product, marketing, and creative at the same time Bring user insights into the work: run journey workshops, listen to the user's voice, and make sure the team is designing for real people, not just shipping screens Reinvent How Design Works in the Age of AI Define how the Kikoff design team uses AI - with a clear, hands-on plan, not a slide Be hands-on yourself: try new tools, prototype, vibe-code small fixes, and bring back what works to the team to help them adopt it Help the team figure out the new workflow together - what to use AI for, what to keep human, and how to keep craft from sliding You Have 10+ years of experience in product design, with substantial time in consumer-facing, mobile-first products 7+ years leading and managing design teams - you have grown designers into senior…