Founding Product Designer at paddy

Germany

<p><strong>paddy</strong> is building the agentic operating system for teaching and learning.</p> <p>Born out of our own experience in schools, our team is developing an AI platform deeply embedded in day-to-day teaching, from lesson preparation and delivery to analysis. Today, thousands of teachers and tens of thousands of students use paddy every day.</p> <p><strong>Our mission: to meaningfully reduce teachers’ workload while improving teaching quality, so students are better prepared for the future.</strong></p> <p>Backed by strong investors such as <strong>HTGF</strong>, we are growing fast with the goal of making paddy the leading AI platform for schools in Europe.</p> <p>As our Founding Product Designer, you will own product design across paddy and work directly with our CPO, CTO and Product Engineers.</p> <h2 id="aufgaben">Aufgaben</h2> <ul> <li>Own product design from research and UX to UI, prototypes and shipped experience</li> <li>Design and launch high-quality features with our CPO and Product Engineers, without traditional handoffs</li> <li>Turn complex AI workflows into intuitive products for teachers and students</li> <li>Use research, product data and experiments to validate decisions</li> <li>Work AI-native and use whatever tools get you to a realistic prototype fastest, ideally in code</li> </ul> <h2 id="qualifikation">Qualifikation</h2> <ul> <li>5+ years of product design experience, ideally in a fast-paced tech environment</li> <li>Exceptional UX and UI craft, strong product judgment and a portfolio of shipped products</li> <li>Experience designing complex SaaS or AI products across complete user journeys</li> <li>A hands-on mindset, able to go from an ambiguous problem to detailed execution</li> <li>Excellent communication skills, fluent German and strong English</li> <li>Passion for understanding users and solving real problems through product design</li> </ul> <p><strong>Bonus points</strong></p> <ul> <li>Experience working at a high-growth, venture-backed startup</li> <li>Experience with React, SQL or backend systems</li> <li>Previous experience building AI-driven or EdTech products</li> </ul> <h2 id="benefits">Benefits</h2> <ul> <li>Own the product experience in a founding role</li> <li>Receive competitive compensation and meaningful VSOP participation</li> <li>Get 30 vacation days and €50 in monthly tax-free benefits</li> <li>Grow with a personal learning budget and coaching</li> <li>Join regular team events and offsites</li> <li>Get dinner and travel home covered when working late</li> <li>Work fully remote, with the option to use our modern office in Bielefeld</li> <li>Join one of Europe’s best-funded early-stage B2G EdTech startups, backed by HTGF and experienced education and technology investors</li> </ul> <p>We’d love to hear from you and get to know you. Show us the problems you’ve solved, the decisions you’ve made and the products you’ve shipped. </p> <p><strong>Our hiring process (5 days)</strong></p> <p>When schedules align, our entire process can take as little as five days.</p> <ol> <li>CPO call and case study (D1): Meet our CPO and receive the case study directly afterwards</li> <li>Case study pitch (D4): Present your work and walk us through your approach</li> <li>Culture fit call with our CEO (D4): This can happen directly after your case study pitch</li> <li>Final team call (D5): Meet the people you’ll work with</li> <li>Decision (D5): Receive our final decision on the same day</li> </ol>