UX Designer at Contrarian Thinking in Austin, TX

About Us

Contrarian Thinking is building the infrastructure layer for modern entrepreneurs.

We already have attention.

Now we’re turning it into software.

The goal: Take someone from “I want to buy/build a business” → “I did it” faster than anyone else.

Role

We're hiring a UX designer who ships.

You take fuzzy problems and turn them into clear, usable products -- fast. Most of your day is self-directed: you define the problem, make the design calls, and don't wait for a brief to tell you what good looks like. You know when to sketch on paper, when to go straight to high-fidelity, and when the right answer is a conversation instead of a mockup. No 40-slide decks. No pixel-perfect handoffs that live in Figma and die there. You treat "done and learning" as better than "perfect and pending."

When you work with leadership, you come with a recommendation, not a mood board. You translate vague instincts -- "this feels off," "we want it to feel premium" -- into design decisions you can defend. You push back when a request would make the product worse, and you can connect your design choices to business outcomes without someone asking you to. You're not waiting to be told what the product should do. You already have a theory.

The one-dimensional designer doesn't survive here. You have enough product sense to know what should be built before you design how it looks. You have enough technical fluency to know what's easy to build and what's going to cause a week of back-and-forth with an engineer. You can write a brief clear enough for an agency or an offshore team to execute without you holding their hand -- and you can tell in the first round of reviews whether they understood it or not. Your job isn't to make things pretty. It's to make things work, and then make them beautiful.

What You’ll Do

• Design end-to-end user experiences across web apps and internal tools
• Turn product ideas into wireframes, flows, and prototypes in hours or days, not weeks
• Work directly with engineering -- no design-to-dev theater
• Run fast user research and translate insights into design decisions
• Define interaction patterns, information architecture, and UX standards
• Iterate based on real usage data, not assumptions

Tech Environment

• Design & Prototyping: Figma (or similar)
• Research & Testing: Maze, Hotjar, Loom (or comparable)
• Handoff & Collaboration: Jira, Linear, Notion, Slack
• Product Context: React/Next.js front ends, HubSpot, internal dashboards
• Tooling: AI-assisted design and research (e.g. Claude, Perplexity, or similar)

Note: Experience with this stack is a strong advantage, not required.

What We’re Looking For

• You’ve actually shipped products that real people use (portfolio > resumes)
• You can move from research → wireframe → prototype without waiting on direction
• You think in systems, not screens
• You're comfortable with ambiguity and opinionated about clarity
• You care about outcomes — did users actually understand it? Did it convert? Did it help business owners maximize their results?

Strong Signals

• Designed 0→1 products or features
• Experience designing for SaaS, dashboards, or data-heavy products
• Comfortable doing your own lightweight user research
• Startup, agency, or high-ownership environment

Not a Fit If

• You need a fully scoped brief before opening Figma
• You optimize for beautiful over usable
• You hand off and disappear
• You've only worked in large orgs with dedicated researchers, PMs, and writers doing the work around you

Success Looks Like

• Designs that reach production weekly
• UX that measurably reduces confusion and drop-off
• A growing design system that speeds up future work
• Clear impact on activation, retention, or revenue

Why Join

• High ownership, low bureaucracy
• Direct line to product and engineering
• Design fast with modern tooling + AI
• Small team, real impact

Screening Process

Fast. Practical. No theater.

1. Intro Call (20 min): Alignment, background, speed check
2. Build Exercise (2–4 hours max)
   • Take a real product idea
   • Outline + prototype how you’d ship it
   • Focus: speed, clarity, decisions
3. Deep Dive (45 min): Walk through your thinking live
4. Follow-Up Interview(s)
5. Founder Conversation: Final alignment on ownership + expectations

Benefits

• Health Coverage: Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans to support you and your family
• 401(k) with Company Match: Competitive match to help you build long-term financial security
• Flexible Time Off:  Take the time you need to perform at a high level—no unnecessary constraints
• Ownership & Upside: Compensation is structured to reward impact, with meaningful performance-based upside tied to the success of the products and business
• Build Your Own Lane: Opportunity to take on increasing responsibility, lead initiatives, and shape the direction of the company as it grows