Our mission is to create the first comprehensive platform that combines top-tier insurance offerings with world-class software so commercial businesses can manage risk and prevent losses. We began with the $10 trillion commercial construction industry and are expanding into new verticals in 2025.
Our thesis is that technology can solve the sustainability challenges facing commercial insurance, and to accomplish this we’re building a platform that incentivizes our clients to adopt the best tools when they buy our coverage. Across construction and other commercial markets, technology is available but fundamentally underutilized, despite the potential for improving loss outcomes and stopping this crisis.
To date, Shepherd has raised $20M+ from top tier VCs including Y-Combinator, Susa Ventures, Spark Capital, Costanoa Ventures, Era Ventures, Greenlight RE and Intact Ventures..
About You
You enjoy working in a face-paced environment working closely with leadership on defining product goals and design outcomes. You sweat the details, crafting designs and a product you’re proud to share with the world. You respond to customer feedback, oftentimes challenging our earlier assumptions and hypotheses. You enjoy experimenting with different ideas in search of the best solutions. Finally, you care about customers – especially ones who are not tech native, figuring out ways to break down complex workflows into easy-to-use ones.
About the Role
As our founding designer, you will have a wide product surface area, covering customer facing products, Shepherd’s internal platform, and more.
As our founding designer, you will work closely with our engineering team and our Cofounder + CTO, Mo, taking their feedback and making fast iterations. We don't expect you to get it right the first time (no one does) but we do expect you to seek out and quickly turn around feedback both from the team and our users.
We aren't a super traditional team, but we are an extremely effective one. We love unique backgrounds, hard workers, and intelligent people who take pride in everything they do. This is a high impact, high visibility role where you will partner closely with teams across Shepherd to evaluate key questions, solve problems, and drive results.
We have offices in San Francisco and New York. We love working together in person and are looking for candidates who can be onsite at our San Francisco HQ.
What You’ll Do:
- Own all of design at Shepherd, shaping our design language, branding, user experience and more
- Create a design process and review process with engineering
- Work closely with the Cofounder/CTO and Head of Product on ideation
- Work closely with customers to understand their needs and design mocks and/or prototypes to collect feedback
- Work closely with engineering to make sure we’re building products that are easy to use and intuitive
You would be our dream candidate if….
- 5+ years of experience, preferably at a SaaS company
- Experience shipping at least one full product or a significant feature as the lead designer
- Experience iterating with engineers and other team members on both visual and UX designs to get the experience and details just right
- Great presentation, collaboration and communication skills
- Fluency in Figma and prototyping tools
- Understanding of the technical limitations and workflow for building web interfaces
Here’s a glimpse into our interview process:
- You’ll speak with a Shepherd Recruiter
- You’ll speak with our CTO and Cofounder, Mo
- You’ll speak with Team Members
- You’ll come on-site to our SF HQ and meet the team
The salary range for this role is $135,000 to $167,000 for this position. Actual salaries will vary depending on factors including but not limited to location, experience, and performance. The range(s) listed is just one component of Shepherd's total compensation package for employees. Other benefits include stock options, an unlimited paid time off policy, and 100% coverage on medical, vision and dental insurance.
#LI-Onsite
100% contribution to top-tier health, dental, and vision
Unlimited PTO
Flexibility to take the time off, recharge, and perform
SF, NYC, or Dallas Fort Worth Offices
Premium office spaces on both coasts with daily lunches provided
Professional Development
Access to premium coaching including leadership development
401(k) Plan
Competitive 401(k) plan offered
Top Skills
What We Do
Making construction safe and sustainable through innovative insurance products
