Lead Brand Designer

at  Lightyear

ABOUT LIGHTYEAR

We’re on a mission to make investing better for everyone in Europe. More specifically, we’re making it light years better (sorry… we had to!). We’re combining multi-currency accounts with unlimited access to global markets so that everyone in Europe can invest without sneaky hidden fees or unnecessary barriers.
Over the last 2 years, we’ve grown from being just an idea to a regulated business in both the UK & the EU, launching in 22 countries and raising $35M along the way. And we’ve hired a team of 50+ people from some of the best fintechs and startups in Europe.
We’ve got a stellar group of investors behind us including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sir Richard Branson, Mosaic Ventures, Taavet Hinrikus, Jaan Tallinn, Sten Tamkivi, Eileen Burbidge as well as a host of angel investors. In 2022, we raised a $25M Series A round and have been covered in CNBC, TechCrunch, Business Insider and City AM.

REQUIREMENTS

• 5+ years of proven experience working for brands and/or agencies, with a preference for candidates who have worked in high-growth startups.
• You can balance strategic ideas with design craft, you can engage and contribute to the “why” and not just the “how”.
• Expert in the tools e.g. Figma and Adobe Creative Suite (including After Effects).
• Fluency with 3D tools and CSS/HTML/JavaScript is a plus.
• Extensive experience in producing engaging creative for brand advertising, editorial and social media.
• Exceptional at presenting your work, taking others through your thinking and rationale, internalising feedback and acting on it where necessary.
• Experience designing highly visual landing pages.
• Prioritisation and time-management are not an issue for you/
• An understanding of the investment world is great, but it’s not required. A willingness to learn about it is a must, though!

ROLE OVERVIEW

Design at Lightyear is run by Kish, here’s how he’s described the role, the team and the state of Design at Lightyear:
We’re an incredibly ambitious team with plans to become the dominant investment platform across the continent of Europe. We’ve spent the last couple of years building a great product that customers love, but we’ve struggled to tell our story and express ourselves visually through our brand.
That’s where you come in! As our first Brand Designer at Lightyear, you’ll be spearheading Brand Design - translating the fuzzy aspects of our company and mission into something tangible, being responsible for defining our brand expression, owning our visual direction, leading design execution of all marketing campaigns and being the owner of all brand assets and marketing collateral.
That’s a lot to own, isn’t it? Well, that’s what’s exciting about being an early Designer at a new company. It’s day 0, everything is yet to be defined - it’s yours to figure out, decide what’s important (and more importantly what isn’t), decide how things will be done and make it happen.
When it comes to the Design team itself, I believe less is more — we’re trying to build a small, talented and closely-knit Design team. People at Lightyear are given a lot of ownership and autonomy, which makes this role perfect for those who love their craft, despise bureaucracy and know what to do with a boat-load of ownership.
Our customers constantly rave about the design of our product, which has given us a licence to do our best work and continuously push things further and further. The bar for Design is incredibly high and our founders are massive proponents of Design — which creates an unstoppable flywheel for excellence.

WHAT YOU WILL DO

• Own, oversee and execute design for all brand, advertising and marketing-related initiatives.
• Own our brand expression — how Lightyear looks and feels visually.
• Define and create visually engaging work for all of the above, using Motion Design where appropriate