Product Designer & Manager

• Do you love building world-class, cutting-edge software?
• Do you believe that humans should be their most focused, efficient, intentional selves?
• Do you believe technology should always help human beings do just that?

Then we’d love you to help us increase human agency. 

We think building software to increase human agency is good. We also think it’s good business.

Agency Enterprise is a software development, data science, and design studio based in Los Angeles. We’ve bootstrapped our way to 100+ without VC, PE, or outside shareholders. It’s a simple business model - our amazing people do amazing work, we turn a profit, and we hire more amazing people. 

We take the long view and develop technology to increase human agency for our clients, our employees, and humanity. We incubate agency-increasing technology startups, building MVPs and founders. We are currently winning international competitions in neuroscience machine learning and researching the cutting edge of brain-computer interface (BCI) technology. 

We’ve built incredible MVPs for incredible startups, worked with large enterprises like Walmart, Samsung, and Berkshire Hathaway, and everything in-between. 

ABOUT THE ROLE

You will work closely with our tech leads and full-stack developers to design and plant the product development process in a cross-functional, Agile environment. You will also interact directly with clients and educate them about AE’s methodology. You will help them work through user experience mapping, building their product roadmap and feature prioritization.

OTHER RESPONSIBILITIES

• Approach projects with an ownership mentality so that both client and internal products will succeed, and you will inspire the best possible performance from your teams. 
• Co-lead kick-off meetings.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to create and manage product roadmaps.
• Manage the Agile product development process
• Facilitate sprint planning, estimation, stand-up, demo, and retrospective meetings.
• Identify business needs and translate those into product requirements.
• Create sitemaps, user flow diagrams, low, medium, and high fidelity mock-ups.
• Facilitate user testing and user feedback sessions. 
• Create user stories and manage the product backlog.
• Manage the design/developer hand-off process.
• Oversee and manage product timelines and budgets.
• Manage product releases.
• Contribute to product growth by identifying critical areas for potential improvement, then leading experimentation efforts.
• Communicate effectively with clients and stakeholders verbally and in writing.

ABOUT YOU

• You have a minimum of 5 years of professional experience as a designer and have a penchant for product management and Agile. Or maybe you’re a product manager with 5+ years on the job and an eye for UX/UI design?
• You love working in a collaborative, high-energy environment, using agile methodologies and tools like Figma, Sketch, Linear, Pivotal Tracker (or equivalents).
• You value direct and honest feedback, but you know how to communicate it gracefully so it betters your partners' (coworkers and clients) work and happiness.
• Bonus points if you have experience in HTML/CSS or product development, you have a background in entrepreneurship or consulting, or you like VR and/or ice cream.
  

OTHER COOL STUFF

• Remote work.
• Diversified, multi-company equity.
• Platinum health insurance.
• A fast-growing team with a happy bunch of former entrepreneurs, data scientists, full stack developers, UX/UI designers and product managers.
• Advance in your career or flex your entrepreneurial side by participating in our internal skunkworks projects (some projects spin out with team members as the C-suite)
• Resources for you to grow and learn on the job (this includes Udemy classes, books, participation in events, mentoring and - of course - the latest generation hardware.
• Offices right on Abbot Kinney, in the heart of Venice, CA. (Salt & Straw is steps from our office, and we get discounts in some Abbot Kinney stores.)
• Weekly lunches with the US team. Monthly happy hours with friends and families. Occasional VR and game nights, if you are into that.
• Yearly retreat bringing together the whole team (with tropical fun and hackathons).

RECRUITING NOTE

• There are an increasing number of scammers out there that are taking advantage of our company's name to scam people with fake offers that result in you ultimately giving the scammers money. Please make sure anyone who contacts you is contacting you from the domains ae.studio, agencyenterprise.com, agencyenterprisestudio.com (please make sure that the sender really is from those domains). If you have any questions about any interviews or offers you might have received and seem bogus, please contact [email protected].

Equity

Working at AE means receiving equity in some of our client projects and in the Skunkworks projects we incubate. The equity granted is priced at a value of $0 when you receive it. If it were otherwise, you’d be forced to pay taxes. But to be clear, there are no free lunches, only the choice of who pays for your sandwich.

At AE, the equity you receive is not free to AE. We invest millions annually in Skunkworks projects - paying our employees to build technology for which no client pays a bill. We receive equity from certain clients, which means we accept less in terms of our billable rate. We then pass that equity on to our employees. Sure it’s priced at $0 on day 1 - a call option on a stock trading at $100 with a strike price of $100 is priced at $0 today for tax purposes, but you’d want to receive that option. If you received that option on a dozen stocks, you’d be fairly confident that some of them would be worth a lot more than $0.

Offering this equity (by investing in Skunkworks or offering clients a lower rate) comes out of AE’s margins. Theoretically, we should be lowering salaries to compensate. But we’re competitive on that front as well. Over the long-term, we believe AE employees who stick around are likely to fare extremely well monetarily (no legal promises). We think long-term. You should too when you choose your employer.

We are looking to hire people who think long term. People create exponentially more value here in their 3rd or 4th year rather than their 1st or 2nd, and that only increases. The value you create leads to more equity issued every year, and you retain it while you remain at AE or at a Skunkworks co that spins out, in order to free up equity for others, which is how we afford to be generous with the equity.

* Disclaimer: If you leave AE on good terms, you can retain 20% of your equity if you continue to send leads our way, share our core values, etc. If you leave AE for your own AE-incubated Skunkworks project (or someone else’s), you retain 100% of your equity. Folks create exponentially more value here in their 3rd and 4th years than their 1st or 2nd - we want folks who think long-term like we do.