Junior Product Designer at Pocket Prep in Durham, NC

About Us

Pocket Prep is a leading mobile and web-based learning platform offering efficient and affordable study solutions for professional certifications. We believe that education should be within everyone's reach. Professional certification exams are often a stressful and expensive barrier to career advancement — Pocket Prep strives to prepare our members to pass with confidence.

Design at Pocket Prep

Our design team is focused on improving our products to bring more value to our users while supporting the needs of the business. We believe good design is built on listening and caring — about our users, our craft, and each other. We treat design as a facilitator and collaborator, not a gatekeeper. We embrace a spirit of improvement, welcome feedback generously, and believe that being clear is being kind.

We're grounded by our design process — it's not a rigid checklist, but a guide that keeps us thoughtful and makes sure important steps don't get skipped.

About the Role

This is a great opportunity for a designer who is early in their career and eager to grow in a collaborative, mission-driven environment. You'll work closely with the design team, receiving mentorship and guidance as you build confidence and skills across the full design process.

You'll contribute to our core study product (iOS, Android, web), collaborating with product managers and engineers throughout the product development lifecycle. You'll have ownership over work that's scoped to your level with meaningful opportunities to grow.

The right candidate brings curiosity, a willingness to learn, and a genuine interest in the intersection of design and education.

What You Will Do

• Lead small-scale design projects with support and guidance from the design team, while collaborating with product managers and engineers throughout the product development lifecycle.

• Clarify user flows and explore multiple solutions through lo-fidelity wireframes to help the team narrow down to the best solution to move forward with.

• Develop hi-fidelity visual designs in Figma, using our design library to maintain consistency — use of color, layout, hierarchy, state design, and considering actual content or data are all important — resulting in mockups that engineers can build from.

• Communicate designs clearly to engineers and review their work during development. (We call this VQA, visual quality assurance.)

• Support Product Designers on larger, more complex initiatives by taking on scoped tasks. Examples include pulling precedent research, pulling relevant user research, or creating Figma components or variants.

• Contribute to and help maintain our design library. This helps maintain consistency and quality for our users and makes us more efficient internally.

• Learn about our users' journey, their pain points, and product opportunities by watching user interviews and reviewing survey data. You will have opportunities to build your design research skills.

• Observe how a product trio (product squad) operates at Pocket Prep. Product squads have a Product Manager, a Designer, and a Developer who collaborate closely to identify solutions that drive towards our business outcomes. You'll have opportunities to support the squad you observe.

• Participate in design jams — sharing work in progress and giving feedback to the design team.

About You

Required:

• Some design education or training (degree, bootcamp, certification, or equivalent self-directed learning)

• Past internship, contract work, or school projects that demonstrate design thinking and process

• Some experience with Figma or a close equivalent design tool

• A portfolio that showcases product work, not marketing or traditional graphic design work. We are looking to see process work, design thinking, and awareness of composition, color, and typography. Most projects may be school or self-initiated work, and that's expected for this level.

Preferred:

• Experience designing for mobile apps or web platforms (iOS, Android, web)

• Figma experience

• Located in Durham, NC, or triangle area

You also bring:

• Genuine curiosity and excitement about being in a professional design environment

• Eagerness to ask questions, receive feedback, and grow quickly

• Alignment with our design values

• A collaborative spirit — you're energized by working with others and believe we can create better experiences together

You're excited about our culture:

• Embrace a spirit of improvement and welcome feedback

• Choose curiosity instead of judgment

• Share your opinions and perspectives, and kindly disagree when you see things differently

• Love for continued learning, individually and as a team

Benefits

• Stability: We're 10+ years old, 100% profitable without investor backing, and we continue to have year-over-year growth.

• Work/Life Balance: Freedom to live your life while building something awesome in the education space. Flexible PTO and a 3-week company-wide holiday break from mid-December through New Year.

• Competitive Compensation: Generous profit-sharing program and base pay. This role will pay $[TBD range] based on experience.

• 401k matching: 100% company match up to 6% per paycheck.

• Professional Development Budget: Yearly funds for conferences, workshops, or resources to help you grow professionally.

• 100% Healthcare: We cover all of our employees' healthcare premiums because we are invested in your well-being. We also cover 80% of dependents.

• Paid Parental Leave: Paid time off to welcome a new baby.

• Disability Coverage: Short term and long term disability plans offered.

• Life Insurance: Optional life insurance plans offered.

• Remote Flexibility: You can work where and when you are most effective. We have an office in the American Tobacco Campus in downtown Durham. We’re supportive of remote work options.

• Give Back: We are active participants in our communities through volunteer partnerships with local nonprofits. We offer VTO (volunteer time off) for independent engagement with your community.