About Kobalt

Kobalt is a global music publishing business that just celebrated it’s 20th anniversary. We’ve got offices in North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. Our roster contains some of the most renowned, established songwriters in the world, and some of the most exciting emerging creators too. We specialise in creating opportunities for our songwriters to connect and create, collecting their royalties as quickly and efficiently as we can, and providing them with the best level of service possible whilst they’re with us.

Diversity at Kobalt

At Kobalt, we’re committed to creating a culture of belonging, where each and every employee can be their authentic self. We are constantly striving to increase the makeup of our teams and business by exploring ways in which we can offer opportunities to applicants from under-represented communities, and we track our progress as we go.

We really believe that an increasingly diverse workforce will improve our ability to serve clients, and deliver on our vision.

About the role

​​We are looking for a Product Designer to own the design of our new songwriter ‘portal’. As part of a dedicated and cross-functional team, you’ll have the opportunity to contribute to user research and synthesis, create prototypes for usability sessions, help translate learnings into production-ready designs, and work closely with engineers to deliver real value to our roster of writer's and producers.

You’re also going to be the sole design contributor to the design system and documentation that sits behind the product, ensuring it’s maintained and refined going forwards.

With that in mind, we’re hoping you’ll be excited by the chance to own some/all of the following:

• Mapping out wireframes and user journeys to visualise user outcomes
• Creating prototypes to communicate and refine your thinking
• Contributing to the planning, facilitating and synthesis of user interviews to refine and improve what’s being delivered
• Supporting the planning and facilitation of design crit’s for the team ahead of interviews or delivery
• Working closely with product managers and engineers to ship new features and improve old ones as regularly as possible.
• Taking learnings from product metrics and user data to iterate and refine existing features
• Collaborating on creating clear, concise and detailed design documentation
• Applying of the (newly refreshed) Kobalt brand to the songwriter portal
• Learning about the links between business goals, user outcomes, and the experiences we create to deliver on them
• Keeping an eye on best practice in the world of trends, brands, and visual styling - and sharing them with the team!

What we’re looking for

We’re a very small Design team - in fact you’ll be the second permanent member! And as part of a wider group of engineers and product managers, you’ll have the opportunity to learn from and support a wide range of passionate people.

With that in mind, we’re hoping you:

• Have proven experience in creating clear, simple and compelling UX/UI designs
• Are a fan of (and confident with) Figma as a design and prototyping tool
• Are excited to share works in progress, and enjoy collaborating to evolve them
• Have a fundamental understanding of design systems and their principles, and can grow to take ownership of making the user experience more consistent and intuitive (and less time consuming to deliver)
• Are comfortable operating in a multi-disciplinary team, sometimes with shifting priorities or evolving short-term goals
• Have a keen eye for detail, and a passion for your craft
• Are excited by contributing to the development of our design practice in a business with 20 years of history and a reputation as a true disruptor

What success looks like

• You’ll be comfortable working alongside product managers and engineers as part of a squad that’s in an increasingly regular delivery cycle
• You’ll be comfortable explaining your design decisions to the team, and on occasion out to a wider audience
• You’ll always aim to link your work to the product vision, and by extension, the ambitions of the wider business
• You’ll be excited to represent the end-user in any product discussions, and channel your experiences and learnings from the user research sessions you participate in
• You’re passionate about your craft, and are able to help maintain and improve the quality of our experiences wherever you’re invited to contribute

The hiring process

If you like the sound of what you hear, or would like to ask any questions, please get in touch. And if you do want to apply for the role and we think you’re a potential fit, the process will go through three stages:

1. An initial chat with our Product Designer and a product manager. This is to get an idea of your outlook and experience, and give you and us a chance to ask any questions about the role or expectations.
2. A design interview focused on your work. We’d love to know as much about your thought process, challenges and learnings as well as the final designs and the impact they had.
1. Ideally we’d love to walk through a working Figma file of yours. But don’t worry, we’re not here to discuss layer names or file structure!
3. A culture interview, where you’ll spend some time with team members from product, engineering and the music side of the business.

We can’t wait to hear from you!