Founding Design Lead

You are the first designer, so you own everything visual and everything about how the product feels to use. We believe that in a time where anyone can create a standard design with AI, a way to stand out is through a special design.

• Brand and identity: We are in the middle of creating our brand and design. We have a first working name, but the brand identity, website, deck, demo assets, and the whole visual language will be developed incrementally. It’s an interesting challenge to design a trust evoking brand for a start-up in a hype-heavy market.

• Product design: Our users are engineering and product leads who are technical, busy, and skeptical. They need to understand a complex risk picture in seconds. That means starting from scratch to decide how to integrating our software easily, conducting user research, designing trace and reasoning views, risk reports, coverage views, and test result interfaces that are legible under pressure. There is no design system yet. You build it.

• Design as a sales instrument: In enterprise B2B, the demo is the pitch. You would work directly with Jan on the assets that go into first calls and pilots.

• Evidence that you can design, not credentials. A portfolio, a side project, a university project, a redesign you did because the original annoyed you. Show us the thinking, not just the final screens.
• Comfort with complex, data-heavy interfaces. If you have ever tried to make a dashboard, a debugging tool, or a scientific interface actually usable, we want to talk.
• Enough craft to work in Figma or the design tool of your choice independently and enough curiosity to learn the domain. You do not need to know anything about AI agents today, we can help you understand the field better.
• Some ability to build. Being able to push your own front-end changes, with or without AI assistance, is a strong plus.
• Willingness to work in a small team where you will do the strategy and the design implementation on the same day.

Eligibility
These are hard requirements from Science & Startups. Please check them before applying.

• Main residence registered in Berlin, for the entire funding period.
• Full-time commitment, 35 hours per week, on site in Berlin. Any employment contract must end before the stipend starts. A leave of absence is not enough.
• Not in full-time studies. If you are still enrolled, you must have completed all mandatory ECTS and have your bachelor or master thesis registered. We will need a copy of the registration.
• Early-career, first-time founder. This program is for people at the start of the path, not for experienced freelancers or senior hires.
• No parallel public benefits (BAföG, unemployment benefit, parental allowance) and no previous EXIST, BSS or comparable startup scholarship.
• Valid residence permit covering the full funding period and permitting self-employment. International applicants are welcome.

• 2,500 EUR per month (gross) for 12 months. This is a personal scholarship and not an employment contract, so you handle your own taxes, health insurance and social security. There is no statutory vacation entitlement.
• Incubation, coaching and workshops through the Science & Startups Academy, plus access to Berlin university labs and the wider ecosystem.
• Total ownership of the design function in a company that is talking to serious enterprise customers from month one. Work and learn in a fast-paced environment.
• The ability to work in a growing market, embed yourself in the start-up ecosystem, and learn from a great team.

If this is interesting to you, please send your current CV with a brief case why you're the right person to Jan: jan.m.zawadzki@proton.me