Head of Design
Kikoff
| Company | Kikoff |
| Category | Design |
| Location | San Francisco |
| Remote | On-site (inferred) |
| Employment | Not stated |
| Level | Director |
| Salary | Not stated by the employer |
| Posted | 24 Apr 2026 |
| Last verified | 10 Aug 2026 |
| Source | Employer ATS (greenhouse) |
Description
Kikoff: The Fintech Powering Financial Security at Scale Kikoff is a profitable, pre-IPO fintech company on a mission to empower everyone to achieve financial security. With record revenue growth in 2025 and a unicorn valuation, we've built a suite of products that help millions of people build credit, access liquidity, and save money. We're scaling fast. Join us if you want to build something meaningful and help millions of people move forward financially.
Why Kikoff:
This is a consumer fintech startup, and you will be working with serial entrepreneurs who have built strong consumer brands and innovative products. We value extreme ownership, clear communication, a strong sense of craftsmanship, and the desire to create lasting work and work relationships. Yes, you can build an exciting business AND have real-life real-customer impact. About the Role
As Head of Design, you will own the design vision, craft, and execution across the company. You will set the quality bar, rebuild the foundation our product is built on, and be a direct partner to senior leadership on the decisions that shape what Kikoff feels like to use.
This is not a hands-off role. You will be close to the pixels, close to the product, and close to the team. You will give real feedback on real work, and you will be expected to make the call when designers are stuck in ambiguity.
In This Role, You Will
Lead and Grow the Team
Manage, coach, and develop the product design team - including hands-on mentorship of junior designers, not just feedback in big meetings
Own hiring and talent strategy: bring in designers who raise the bar, and shape the org structure that lets them do their best work
Set a high bar for craft, ownership, and user obsession across the team
Invest in career growth: clear expectations, honest feedback, and a path forward for every designer on the team
Go beyond filling headcount. Understand each designer's strengths and place them where they'll do their best work and develop in the desired growth areas.
Own the Design Vision and Quality Bar
Set the overall design vision for Kikoff - what good looks like, how the team works, how designers grow
Make the call when there is ambiguity: a great design manager can resolve a design decision when the team is stuck, instead of leaving it open
Give practical, down-to-earth feedback grounded in visual, UX, and craft fundamentals - not just product framing
Champion the visual front and push the bar on what Kikoff can look and feel like
Build the Design Foundation
Build the design system from the ground up so it is something the whole company and our coding agents will want to use
Define and enforce design patterns across the product to reduce design debt and bring consistency
Drive the standards that make every screen feel like Kikoff, across product, marketing, and brand surfaces
Drive Cross-Functional Impact
Be a strategic partner to Engineering, Product, and Marketing as a peer - not a downstream resource
Bring product design and creative closer together: together ship brand-quality product and product-quality brand
Take company-wide direction on design, brand, and creative - and translate it into work that benefits product, marketing, and creative at the same time
Bring user insights into the work: run journey workshops, listen to the user's voice, and make sure the team is designing for real people, not just shipping screens
Reinvent How Design Works in the Age of AI
Define how the Kikoff design team uses AI - with a clear, hands-on plan, not a slide
Be hands-on yourself: try new tools, prototype, vibe-code small fixes, and bring back what works to the team to help them adopt it
Help the team figure out the new workflow together - what to use AI for, what to keep human, and how to keep craft from sliding
You Have
10+ years of experience in product design, with substantial time in consumer-facing, mobile-