Product Designer

About Butter We are a team of 6 ex-Airbnbers building a new kind of social product. Most social apps are built around broadcasting, content consumption, and passive engagement. We think the most important interactions happen in smaller groups: close friends, inside jokes, shared rituals, and the things people actually do together. Butter helps friend groups create and play inside custom mini-apps. Some are games. Some are utilities. Some are weird one-off experiences that only make sense to a specific group of friends. Over time, we want Butter to become the primary place where friendships live and evolve online. We're a team of 6 former Airbnb-ers with additional experience building at Instagram and Snap—backed by top-tier investors and moving fast. About the role We're looking for a product designer with exceptional craft and strong product instincts to work remote or hybrid in San Francisco. This is a contract role with the likelihood of transitioning into a full-time position should it be a great fit. We're looking for someone who wants to make a meaningful impact early and help shape the future of the product. This role requires someone who thinks beyond UI and cares about the full product experience. You'll work directly with the founders to define the product, shape the design culture, and make foundational decisions about how Butter feels. You'll own work from concept through execution across our core product experiences, including group spaces, mini-apps, creation tools, onboarding, discovery, and our emerging AI systems. The product is still early. That means a high degree of ownership, ambiguity, and influence. What you'll do • Design product experiences from first idea to shipped product • Create simple, elegant solutions to complex interaction problems • Define interaction patterns, motion, visual systems, and product quality standards • Design and iterate on our most important user experiences, including group spaces, mini-apps, creation flows, and discovery • Partner closely with founders, engineering, and product to shape company strategy • Talk directly with users and translate insights into product direction • Raise the quality bar across the entire product Must-haves • 3+ years designing consumer products • Strong visual design, interaction design, and product thinking • A portfolio that demonstrates exceptional craft and attention to detail • Ability to simplify complex workflows into intuitive experiences • Strong taste and a deep understanding of internet culture, communication, and modern social products • Comfortable working from ambiguity and creating clarity • Fast execution without sacrificing quality • Excellent communication and storytelling skills • Excited by startup environments and founder-level ownership • Available M-F during regular work hours Bonus points • Experience at a consumer startup or 0→1 product • Motion, prototyping, or creative coding skills • Experience designing social products, creator tools, gaming products, or AI-powered experiences • Based in San Francisco or interested in working hybrid (we're open to remote for the right person) What we're offering • Competitive hourly compensation during the contract period • Opportunity to transition into a full-time role with salary, equity, and benefits • Flexible schedule and remote flexibility • A small team with high trust, high ownership, and high standards • The chance to help define a product from the earliest stages Equal opportunity Butter is built around friendship and belonging. Every friend group has its own humor, traditions, perspectives, and way of connecting. Building a product that feels natural across all of those experiences requires a team with different backgrounds, viewpoints, and lived experiences. We believe great products come from teams that bring a variety of perspectives to the table. We welcome and celebrate candidates of all backgrounds and are committed to creating an inclusive environment where everyone can do their best work. Butter (Bonfire Technologies, Inc.) is an equal opportunity employer. We evaluate applicants based on their skills, experience, potential, and alignment with our mission. Please mention the word **SUSTAINABLE** and tag RMzQuMTgyLjIzMy43NQ== when applying to show you read the job post completely (#RMzQuMTgyLjIzMy43NQ==). This is a beta feature to avoid spam applicants. Companies can search these words to find applicants that read this and see they're human.