Product Designer (Software)

Product Design

• Defining and clarifying functionality to be implemented, detailing them as needed from high-level ideas

• Creating wireframes, prototypes and visual designs

• Lead User-Centered Design:

  • Develop a deep understanding of our users and their needs through user research, surveys, and feedback analysis.

  • Use this insight to inform design decisions and create products that meet user expectations.

• Lead Testing - Both before, during and after the design phase

  • Understanding a feature's viability and purpose before designing

  • Gathering feedback and iterating during design using wireframes and prototypes

  • Doing usability tests on the finished implementation. Use the insights gained from testing to refine and improve the user experience.

  • Continuously gathering feedback to help prioritise and iterate on functionality.

• Creating visual and textual assets for different channels and proposes (print, online, etc.) as needed

• Visual Design: Produce visually stunning and consistent designs and user interfaces that align with our brand identity and design language.

• Take into consideration the difference between Japanese and Western customers in design and appeal. Find the right balance.

• If and when required, outsourcing the creation of material

• Collaborative Teamwork: Work closely with cross-functional teams, including product managers and engineers, to ensure seamless integration of design concepts into the development process. Foster a collaborative and inclusive design culture within the organisation.

The product designer will work closely with the CEO and the engineering team and have continuous contact with end-users.

Bring the vision of a new eco-system to reality

As the product designer on our team, you will be responsible for working out how to bring our vision to life both functionality-wise and visually.

You will work closely with our founder and engineering team to create and test wireframes, prototypes and designs before, during and after implementation.

Our new eco-system will include working on both mobile applications, on-premise distribution terminals and further in future mobile accessories such as smart-watches.

Autonomy and responsibility in a completely new team

As a founding member of a new team, you will have a lot of say in how things will be done and even who to do this with. You will work closely with our founder to understand and translate the vision into a full product.

This role comes with a lot of freedom in terms of how you do things; ultimately, the goal is to provide an amazing product experience for the end-users. This means creating a beautiful UI with intuitive UX and, of course, testing and iterating this with end-users.

International environment

Although the first year of development and launch will be based in Japan and focus on the Japanese market, the company intends to go globally fast. For this reason, we are looking to hire an international team. Much communication will happen in Japanese, but the company’s first language is English.

Despite this, as the original release of this product will happen in Tokyo and Japan for Japanese users, you will be working with and for Japanese end-users to begin with. Native-level Japanese is a requirement.

Product stack

The company has a hardware and software branch of the product, of which you will be responsible for the software product components. The product will combine a hardware refillable bottle, a beverage dispenser terminal, the interface of this dispenser terminal (software) and end-user mobile applications.

Smartwatch integrations and back-office software will likely be developed as the product grows.

Team and method

You will be working with our founder and lead engineer as main counterparts. We will have an office in Tokyo and work in a hybrid-environment with the option to work some days from home. How you divide your time will be much of your own responsibility and as the situation requires.

We aim to work in a low-overhead agile environment with frequent short releases to be tested until public launch. This means your role is not working on handing over designs project by project but rather working collaboratively with other people on the team to innovate in prarallel and with speed and iterate up to and after product launch.