Back to jobs
New

Founding Product Designer

SF

About Chalk

Chalk is building the data platform that powers the future of machine learning applications. We tear down complexity, latency, and scale barriers that have traditionally constrained ML capabilities. Our platform combines Rust-speed performance with elegant tools that developers love to use. Leading companies depend on Chalk for everything from stopping fraudulent credit card swipes, verifying identities, and maximizing clean energy capture.

About the role

We’re looking for our Founding Product Designer to help define how engineers, data scientists, and ML practitioners interact with Chalk across our web and CLI tools.

As a founding designer, you’ll join us full-time, in-office, and early—shaping not just our product, but our visual language, interaction patterns, and design standards from the ground up.

You’ll collaborate with Chalk’s founders, engineers, and customers to turn complex data infrastructure and workflows into clean, intuitive interfaces. If you love turning gnarly back-end power into smooth front-end magic and are eager to deliver designs weekly, we’d love to meet you.

We work in-person Monday through Friday in our SF office. We don’t currently offer remote or hybrid positions. 

What you will do

  • Work directly with engineers and founders to navigate the problem space, define requirements, prototype solutions, and ship polished experiences (we do not have product managers)
  • Own UI/UX end-to-end, from concept to high-fidelity mocks to implementation
  • Actively gather feedback from peers and users (mostly engineers and data scientists) to validate designs and rapidly iterate
  • Balance speed and polish, with a bias to making pragmatic trade-offs to ship fast and learn
  • Help start the design system: components, patterns, and principles that scale with the team
  • Within your first 7 days, ship designs ready for implementation

What we’re looking for

  • 3+ years of full-time design experience
  • Portfolio that showcases shipped work
  • Comfort building for an engineering persona, with enough technical literacy to discuss APIs, data flows, and constraints
  • A collaborative mindset – low ego about your designs and open to feedback
  • Strong communication skills – articulate design decisions clearly and ask clarifying questions to align on context or feedback
  • Ability to work autonomously in a fast-paced environment, where “just enough process” is the goal and without a formal PM structure or formal product documentation
  • Fluent in Figma

Bonus points

  • Experience designing for developer tools or data-heavy B2B products
  • Familiarity with SQL, Python, data engineering, or machine-learning workflows
  • Dabbled with front-end code (HTML/CSS, React, or TypeScript)

Benefits

⚕️Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision insurance

🏦 Flexible Spending Account (FSA), Health Savings Account (HSA)

🦮 Expert Healthcare Guidance

💵 Retirement savings

🎄15 company holidays each year

🏖️15 days of personal time off each year

🚌 Flex Commuter Benefits

🌮 Daily lunch and dinner on Chalk

🥤Office is fully-stocked with drinks and snacks to fuel your work day.

🍽️ Staying late? Dinner is on us

🚖 Staying even later? Grab an Uber / Lyft home on Chalk

Compensation

Range: Salary + Equity based on experience 

Actual compensation awarded to successful candidates will be based on several factors, including individual qualifications objectively assessed during the interview process.

Our comprehensive total package plays a major role in how we recognize individuals for the impact they will have on Chalk’s growth and us achieving our goals.

Chalk offers early team member equity and competitive benefits package in addition to the cash compensation.

Inclusivity

Chalk is an equal opportunity employer. We value diversity and inclusion and provide reasonable accommodations to anyone in need of individualized support.

Apply for this job

*

indicates a required field

Resume/CV*

Accepted file types: pdf, doc, docx, txt, rtf

Cover Letter

Accepted file types: pdf, doc, docx, txt, rtf


Education

Select...
Select...
Select...

Voluntary Self-Identification

For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self-identification survey. Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiring process or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in a confidential file.

As set forth in Chalk’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy, we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.

Select...
Select...
Race & Ethnicity Definitions

If you believe you belong to any of the categories of protected veterans listed below, please indicate by making the appropriate selection. As a government contractor subject to the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), we request this information in order to measure the effectiveness of the outreach and positive recruitment efforts we undertake pursuant to VEVRAA. Classification of protected categories is as follows:

A "disabled veteran" is one of the following: a veteran of the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service who is entitled to compensation (or who but for the receipt of military retired pay would be entitled to compensation) under laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs; or a person who was discharged or released from active duty because of a service-connected disability.

A "recently separated veteran" means any veteran during the three-year period beginning on the date of such veteran's discharge or release from active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval, or air service.

An "active duty wartime or campaign badge veteran" means a veteran who served on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service during a war, or in a campaign or expedition for which a campaign badge has been authorized under the laws administered by the Department of Defense.

An "Armed forces service medal veteran" means a veteran who, while serving on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service, participated in a United States military operation for which an Armed Forces service medal was awarded pursuant to Executive Order 12985.

Select...

Voluntary Self-Identification of Disability

Form CC-305
Page 1 of 1
OMB Control Number 1250-0005
Expires 04/30/2026

Why are you being asked to complete this form?

We are a federal contractor or subcontractor. The law requires us to provide equal employment opportunity to qualified people with disabilities. We have a goal of having at least 7% of our workers as people with disabilities. The law says we must measure our progress towards this goal. To do this, we must ask applicants and employees if they have a disability or have ever had one. People can become disabled, so we need to ask this question at least every five years.

Completing this form is voluntary, and we hope that you will choose to do so. Your answer is confidential. No one who makes hiring decisions will see it. Your decision to complete the form and your answer will not harm you in any way. If you want to learn more about the law or this form, visit the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) website at www.dol.gov/ofccp.

How do you know if you have a disability?

A disability is a condition that substantially limits one or more of your “major life activities.” If you have or have ever had such a condition, you are a person with a disability. Disabilities include, but are not limited to:

  • Alcohol or other substance use disorder (not currently using drugs illegally)
  • Autoimmune disorder, for example, lupus, fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, HIV/AIDS
  • Blind or low vision
  • Cancer (past or present)
  • Cardiovascular or heart disease
  • Celiac disease
  • Cerebral palsy
  • Deaf or serious difficulty hearing
  • Diabetes
  • Disfigurement, for example, disfigurement caused by burns, wounds, accidents, or congenital disorders
  • Epilepsy or other seizure disorder
  • Gastrointestinal disorders, for example, Crohn's Disease, irritable bowel syndrome
  • Intellectual or developmental disability
  • Mental health conditions, for example, depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder, schizophrenia, PTSD
  • Missing limbs or partially missing limbs
  • Mobility impairment, benefiting from the use of a wheelchair, scooter, walker, leg brace(s) and/or other supports
  • Nervous system condition, for example, migraine headaches, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis (MS)
  • Neurodivergence, for example, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder, dyslexia, dyspraxia, other learning disabilities
  • Partial or complete paralysis (any cause)
  • Pulmonary or respiratory conditions, for example, tuberculosis, asthma, emphysema
  • Short stature (dwarfism)
  • Traumatic brain injury
Select...

PUBLIC BURDEN STATEMENT: According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 no persons are required to respond to a collection of information unless such collection displays a valid OMB control number. This survey should take about 5 minutes to complete.