Back to jobs

Product Designer

Remote, NYC office, or Oakland office

Location: Remote, New York City, or Oakland

Role Type: Full-time 

Compensation:  $115,000

Visa sponsorship: Not available

Hires remotely in: United States

Experience: 3+ years

Recidiviz is thrilled to be hiring a Product Designer to join our team! We’re a small, fast-moving group focused on reducing the amount of people in prison in the US. That’s where you come in. We’re looking for someone with a strong understanding of human-centered design to help us build a future where incarcerated people can successfully reintegrate back into their communities. Are you curious about what that work could look like? Here’s a case study.

About us

Recidiviz creates safer and healthier communities by improving outcomes for people in the criminal justice system. We do this by building technology that reduces the number of people in prison and helps criminal justice leaders embrace data-driven decision-making.

Thoughtfully designing our products, we’ve been able to safely reduce incarceration and improve outcomes with many of our partners. We work with leaders of the criminal justice system, people in prison (including probation and parole), and other organizations, in order to build a better path forward. In addition to the revenue we earn from our government partners, some of the most respected philanthropists and foundations support our work.

People who succeed at Recidiviz lead with kindness and humility while always assuming good intent. They are great listeners, strong problem solvers, and understand that failure is part of the journey to success. For us, part of that success requires working arm in arm with government staff to improve the system from within. People who succeed at Recidiviz understand the value of building empathy for the people we work with and the people who our mission serves, even when those two groups feel at odds.

About the role

As a Product Designer on our team, you’ll explore how seemingly simple interactions and interventions can have a meaningful impact on criminal justice outcomes. You’ll dive into ambiguous systemic problems and lead projects from research through ideation to bring new products to life.

You will also be expected to travel across the continental USA 1 or 2 times per quarter.

Core responsibilities

  • Lead projects from end-to-end, including user research, requirement development, prototyping with engineering, and final implementation.
  • Become an expert on the product’s users and their journeys in order to advocate and solve for their needs and pain points.
  • Translate your insights into clear, actionable user-centered solutions that align with the product vision and the goals of the organization.
  • Build systems, platforms, and tools that lead to meaningful user interactions and scale over time.
  • Shape the design team’s operations as the product and organization continue to evolve.

Wild success

Here are a few things you might accomplish in your first year at Recidiviz that would demonstrate wild success in this role:

  • Your knowledge of systems and HCI will have helped ship multiple contributions to our product.
  • Your research and insights will have helped justice-involved people navigate out of the criminal justice system.
  • Your proactiveness and teamwork will have advanced our product initiatives with several of our Department of Corrections partnerships.

Minimum qualifications

  • Experience with field studies, participatory design, and heuristic evaluations
  • Experience planning and leading interviews, group sessions, and synthesis sessions
  • Ability to convey research insights and complex concepts to a diversity of audiences in simple terms 
  • Ability to lead by example, treat partners with respect, and seek constructive feedback
  • Comfortable switching between self-directed work and teamwork
  • Highly collaborative across functions (engineers, data analysts, etc.)
  • Fluent with Figma and other prototyping tools

Preferred qualifications

  • Involved with or impacted by the criminal justice system
  • Passionate about working with marginalized communities and tackling challenges related to poverty and inequity
  • A lifelong learner, passionate about experimenting with new research methods and pushing their craft in new ways
  • Deeply curious and highly attuned to human behavior and emotion
  • Multidisciplinary

Compensation

Compensation is standardized based on roles and responsibilities. This ensures equitable compensation and responsible stewardship of our resources. As such, we do not negotiate compensation offers. 

The compensation for this role is: $115,000.

What we offer

  • Effective, extremely thoughtful colleagues, working together on a mission that matters
  • 90% medical, dental, and vision insurance coverage for you and your dependents
  • Flexible time off, including 20 days of PTO, 3 days of paid volunteering time, and 13 paid holidays
  • 12 weeks of paid parental leave
  • 401(k) retirement plan with 5% company match and no vesting period
  • Complimentary One Medical membership (depending on location)
  • Partnership with Carrot to provide employees with inclusive fertility and family-forming benefits, as well as a small but growing number of hormonal health and gender-affirming care benefits
  • Monthly ClassPass credit for personal wellness
  • Free mental health support via Talkspace
  • Well-located offices in Oakland and Manhattan, with the flexibility to work remotely or go into either office as you choose
  • An annual company offsite and other ad-hoc gatherings
  • All the exhilarating challenges and stretch opportunities of a tech startup, combined with the mission-driven heart of a nonprofit

More about Recidiviz

Recidiviz was an all-volunteer effort until early 2019, when Clementine, Andrew, and Joshua founded the organization. Since then, we’ve built an A-team of software engineers, designers, product managers and domain experts, from companies like Google, Apple, Dropbox, Opower, and Sidewalk Labs. Recidiviz was part of Y-Combinator’s 2019 class and has received support from some of the most respected philanthropists and foundations, including Ford Foundation, Mackenzie Scott, Schmidt Futures, Arnold Ventures, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and the Mozilla Foundation.

Today, Recidiviz works with (and earns revenue from) over 15 state partners – big and small, red and blue – and covers more than 40% of the US incarcerated population. We have helped to get tens of thousands of people out of the criminal justice system, safely and equitably, and saved states nearly $1 billion. In the next five years, Recidiviz plans to partner with 40 states and help 250,000 people who are stuck in the system to get out and stay out. In addition to partnering with state Departments of Corrections, Recidiviz collaborates with and learns from partners – from organizations like the Correctional Leaders Association (CLA) to community based organizations and justice-impacted individuals, whose perspectives guide our work.

To learn more about how we do what we do, check out our 2023 Year in Review, read some press coverage, or watch our TED Talk. And if you’re really keen to see our work, you can dive into our Github :).

An important note

Lasting change is always built on diversity. Recidiviz recruits, employs, trains, compensates and promotes regardless of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, disability, age, veteran status, ancestry, citizenship, marital status, gender identity and all protected status as required by applicable law. We consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. If you have a special need that requires accommodation, please let us know in your application. Even if you don't think you meet all the criteria above, drop your resume, and we'll take a look – you might be great for another role or another time!

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

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 Recidiviz’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.