Founding Brand Designer

📍 Job Overview

Job Title: Founding Brand Designer

Company: Basis AI

Location: New York, NY, United States

Job Type: FULL_TIME

Category: Brand Design / Creative Direction

Date Posted: 2026-08-11

Experience Level: 5-10 years

Remote Status: On-site

🚀 Role Summary

• Spearhead the foundational brand identity and visual language for Basis AI, a cutting-edge applied AI company.

• Develop and implement a comprehensive brand system that ensures consistency and recognition across all customer and technical touchpoints.

• Drive creative direction and set design standards for a wide range of visual assets, from websites and campaigns to customer stories and recruiting materials.

• Build scalable design systems, reusable templates, and AI-enabled workflows to enhance creative output and operational efficiency.

• Collaborate cross-functionally with Marketing, Product, Sales, and Recruiting teams to integrate brand strategy into all company initiatives.

📝 Enhancement Note: This role is explicitly defined as a "Founding Brand Designer," indicating a critical, ground-floor opportunity to establish the brand's visual identity from its inception. The emphasis on "building a consequential brand from the ground up" and setting the "creative direction" suggests a high degree of autonomy and strategic influence, typical of early-stage hires in high-growth tech companies. The role is deeply integrated with business objectives, requiring a strong understanding of B2B markets, complex technical products, and go-to-market strategies, positioning it within the broader GTM (Go-To-Market) operations landscape.

📈 Primary Responsibilities

• Define and evolve the core visual identity, brand voice, and aesthetic for Basis AI, ensuring it resonates with both customer and technical audiences.

• Design and manage the end-to-end brand experience across digital platforms, including website design, landing pages, and interactive web experiences, in close partnership with developers.

• Develop compelling visual narratives and creative concepts for marketing campaigns, product launches, and customer success stories that clearly articulate the company's value proposition.

• Establish and maintain comprehensive brand guidelines, design systems, templates, and standards to ensure brand coherence and enable efficient content creation across the organization.

• Leverage AI tools and workflows to explore creative concepts, optimize production processes, and enhance the overall quality and speed of design output.

• Collaborate closely with stakeholders in Marketing, Product, Content, Demand Generation, Customer Marketing, Sales, and Recruiting to align brand strategy with business goals and operational needs.

• Guide and mentor external agencies, freelancers, and future design hires to maintain brand integrity and elevate creative quality.

• Champion design excellence by challenging weak ideas, defending creative decisions, and ensuring all visual output meets a high standard of quality and strategic alignment.

• Translate complex technical concepts and the company's ambitious narrative into clear, credible, and memorable visual communications.

• Develop and iterate on visual assets for recruiting materials to attract top talent and reflect the company's innovative culture.

📝 Enhancement Note: The responsibilities highlight a dual focus on strategic brand building and operational execution. The emphasis on "building the operating system for design at Basis" and creating "AI-enabled workflows that raise creative output without lowering the bar" points to a need for process optimization and system thinking, core tenets of operations roles. The requirement to design for "multiple go-to-market motions, each with a different buyer and different needs," underscores the need for strategic segmentation and adaptability within the brand system, a key GTM consideration.

🎓 Skills & Qualifications

Education: While no specific degree is mandated, a strong understanding of design principles, visual communication, and brand strategy is essential. A Bachelor's degree in Graphic Design, Visual Arts, Marketing, or a related field is often preferred in such roles.

Experience: 5-8 years of progressive experience in brand design, visual design, or creative direction.

Required Skills:

• Proven expertise in developing comprehensive brand systems from concept to execution, demonstrating a strong portfolio of complete brand identities.

• Exceptional taste and proficiency in typography, composition, color theory, hierarchy, and visual storytelling.

• Advanced digital design skills with a track record of shipping responsive and engaging web experiences.

• Experience in building and maintaining scalable design systems, standards, and reusable templates.

• Strong strategic thinking and creative judgment, with the ability to articulate and defend design decisions.

• Technical curiosity and the capacity to quickly grasp complex products, markets, and buyer personas.

• Experience working in high-growth environments, ideally within software, AI, fintech, or technical product companies.

• Proficiency in design software such as Adobe Creative Suite (Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign), Figma, Sketch, or similar tools. Preferred Skills:

• Experience in category-defining brand work that has successfully carved out a distinct market position.

• Deep understanding of B2B website design, including narrative development, information hierarchy, interaction design, and final visual execution.

• Demonstrated ability to develop integrated campaign concepts that translate effectively across digital, editorial, social, events, and sales channels.

• Experience creating compelling editorial content, such as reports, customer stories, and thought leadership pieces.

• Familiarity with AI tools and their application in creative exploration, production, and iteration.

• Understanding of how to leverage design systems to drive creative velocity and compounding efficiency.

• Experience guiding agencies, freelancers, and other design professionals.

📝 Enhancement Note: The "5-8 years" experience requirement, coupled with the "Founding" title, suggests this role is for a senior individual contributor who can operate with significant autonomy, akin to a principal or lead designer in a larger organization. The emphasis on "building the operating system for design" and creating "AI-enabled workflows" implies a need for process-oriented thinking and a proactive approach to operational efficiency, aligning with GTM and RevOps principles of systemization and automation.

📊 Process & Systems Portfolio Requirements

Portfolio Essentials:

• A comprehensive portfolio showcasing the development and implementation of complete brand systems, not just individual design assets.

• Case studies demonstrating how complex products or abstract ideas were translated into distinctive and impactful creative concepts.

• Examples of B2B website design, highlighting strategic thinking around narrative, information hierarchy, and user experience.

• Visuals of integrated campaign concepts that show adaptability across multiple channels (digital, print, social, events).

• Demonstrations of editorial design for reports, whitepapers, or customer stories, showcasing clarity and engagement with complex material.

• Evidence of building and utilizing design systems, templates, and standards that drive consistency and efficiency.

• Examples of how AI was integrated into the design process for exploration, production, or iteration. Process Documentation:

• Documentation of how a flexible brand system was built and maintained to accommodate different buyers and go-to-market motions.

• Examples of established workflows and standards that facilitated rapid yet high-quality creative output.

• Case studies detailing the strategic approach to translating technical products into accessible and compelling visual language.

• Evidence of collaboration with development teams for shipping responsive web experiences.

📝 Enhancement Note: The portfolio requirements are heavily focused on systems thinking and process development, not just aesthetic output. This aligns with the operational nature of the role, where demonstrating the ability to create repeatable, scalable processes (like design systems and AI-enabled workflows) is as crucial as individual design talent. The expectation to show how a brand system "compounds" and enables "creative velocity" directly relates to operational efficiency metrics.

💵 Compensation & Benefits

Salary Range: $125,000 - $200,000 USD per year.

Benefits:

• Health & Wellness: Premium Medical, Dental, and Vision coverage; Life Insurance; 6 coaching & 6 therapy sessions through Spring Health.

• Time Off: Unlimited Paid Time Off (PTO) plus 12 paid company holidays.

• In-Office Perks: Daily meal stipends, a fully stocked kitchen, and a $300 allowance for custom desk setup.

• Financial Benefits: Pre-tax commuter benefits and a 401(k) retirement plan.

• Team Culture: Monthly office activities and frequent optional team happy hours.

• Parental Leave: Comprehensive parental leave policy.

Working Hours: Full-time, assumed to be approximately 40 hours per week, with flexibility expected for a founding role in a high-growth startup. The role is on-site in the NYC Flatiron office, requiring a 5-day-a-week in-person presence.

📝 Enhancement Note: The salary range provided is competitive for a senior-level Brand Designer role in New York City, reflecting the "founding" nature of the position and the company's strong funding ($100M raised at >$1B valuation). The benefits package is robust, indicating a company that values employee well-being and offers comprehensive support, common in well-funded tech startups aiming to attract top talent. The explicit requirement for 5 days/week in-office presence is a key detail for candidates evaluating work arrangements.

🎯 Team & Company Context

🏢 Company Culture

Industry: Applied Artificial Intelligence (AI), specifically focusing on building "real agents that do real work in the real economy." The company is deploying advanced machine learning at production scale for complex tasks, initially in accounting.

Company Size: Basis AI has recently raised significant funding ($100M at >$1B valuation), indicating a growth phase where they are likely scaling their team rapidly. While exact current size isn't stated, it's positioned as a high-growth startup.

Founded: The founding date is not explicitly stated, but the company's recent substantial funding suggests it is a relatively young, dynamic organization focused on rapid deployment and innovation.

Team Structure:

• The Brand Designer will report to the Head of Marketing and collaborate closely with Product Marketing, Content, Demand Generation, Customer Marketing, Product, Sales, and Recruiting teams.

• As a "founding" member, this role will set the initial direction for design and potentially build out a design function as the company scales.

• The team is described as "in-person" and works "5 days a week" from the NYC Flatiron office, fostering a collaborative and tightly integrated work environment. Methodology:

• Data-Driven & ML-Focused: The core of Basis AI's work involves advanced applied Machine Learning and deploying production-grade, long-horizon agents. Design decisions should be informed by data and market understanding.

• Process Optimization: The company emphasizes building "real agents that do real work," implying a focus on efficiency, reliability, and end-to-end process completion. The design function is expected to build systems that "raise creative output without lowering the bar."

• Innovation & Frontier Tech: Basis is operating at the "frontier of building production-grade, long-horizon agents," suggesting a culture that embraces innovation, pushes technological limits, and is comfortable with ambiguity.

Company Website: https://www.getbasis.ai/

📝 Enhancement Note: The company's focus on "applied ML at production scale" and "long-horizon agents" positions it as a leader in a rapidly evolving AI landscape. The "founding" nature of this role means the designer will be instrumental in shaping the perception of this cutting-edge technology. The emphasis on collaboration with various departments like Marketing, Product, and Sales highlights the GTM integration of this design role.

📈 Career & Growth Analysis

Operations Career Level: This role is at a senior individual contributor level, specifically a "Founding Brand Designer." It implies a high degree of ownership, strategic input, and responsibility for establishing foundational elements of the company's brand identity and design operations. This level is critical for high-growth startups looking to build out core functions.

Reporting Structure: The designer will report to the Head of Marketing. This structure places brand design directly within the GTM and marketing functions, emphasizing its role in customer acquisition, brand perception, and market positioning.

Operations Impact: The brand designer's work will have a direct impact on:

• Customer Acquisition: A compelling brand identity attracts customers and builds trust.

• Market Positioning: Differentiating Basis AI in a crowded AI market through unique visual storytelling.

• Talent Acquisition: Attracting top engineering and operational talent through a strong employer brand.

• Internal Cohesion: Ensuring a unified brand message across all departments and communications.

• Operational Efficiency: Building scalable design systems and workflows that improve the speed and quality of creative output.

Growth Opportunities:

• Leadership Development: Opportunity to build and lead the design function as the company scales, potentially managing a team of designers or agency partners.

• Strategic Influence: Play a pivotal role in shaping the company's overall brand strategy and market perception from the ground up.

• Skill Expansion: Deepen expertise in B2B branding, AI industry nuances, and the operationalization of design processes, including AI-assisted workflows.

• Cross-Functional Expertise: Gain broad exposure to various GTM functions (Marketing, Sales, Product) and contribute to their strategic initiatives through design.

• Impactful Contribution: Be part of a high-growth, well-funded company at a pivotal stage, with the potential for significant career growth and impact on the company's trajectory.

📝 Enhancement Note: The "Founding" title suggests this is a pivotal role with significant potential for growth into a leadership position as the company scales. The emphasis on "building the operating system for design" indicates a pathway toward defining and managing design operations, a key component of GTM strategy and efficiency.

🌐 Work Environment

Office Type: The role is based in a physical office in NYC's Flatiron district, described as an "in-person team, 5 days a week." This suggests a collaborative, traditional office environment conducive to close teamwork and spontaneous interaction.

Office Location(s): New York, NY (Flatiron office). This location is a well-established hub for tech and creative industries.

Workspace Context:

• Collaborative Environment: The 5-day in-office requirement fosters direct collaboration with colleagues across marketing, product, sales, and recruiting. This is ideal for rapid iteration and feedback loops essential in design.

• Resource Availability: The company provides daily meal stipends, a fully stocked kitchen, and a budget for desk setup, indicating investment in the physical workspace and employee comfort.

• Team Interaction: Frequent optional team happy hours and monthly office activities suggest a company culture that values team bonding and social interaction alongside work.

Work Schedule: Full-time, with an expectation of approximately 40 hours per week. However, as a "founding" role in a fast-paced startup environment, flexibility and dedication beyond standard hours may be required, particularly during critical launches or initiatives.

📝 Enhancement Note: The explicit "5 days a week" in-office policy is a critical detail for candidates assessing work-life balance and preferred work environments. This setup is designed to maximize in-person collaboration, which can be highly beneficial for a founding role requiring rapid iteration and alignment across teams.

📄 Application & Portfolio Review Process

Interview Process:

• Initial Screening: Likely a review of application materials, focusing on the portfolio and resume for alignment with required experience and skills.

• Portfolio Presentation & Discussion: Candidates will likely present their portfolio, discussing key brand systems, strategic decisions, and the processes behind their work. This is where they'll demonstrate their ability to translate complex ideas into visual narratives.

• Cross-Functional Interviews: Interviews with key stakeholders (e.g., Head of Marketing, PMM, Product leads) to assess collaboration style, strategic thinking, and understanding of B2B/AI markets.

• Creative Challenge/Case Study: A potential exercise where candidates might be asked to critique an existing brand element, propose initial concepts for Basis AI, or outline how they would build a design system. This assesses their creative judgment and problem-solving approach.

• Final Round: Possibly with senior leadership to discuss overall vision, company culture fit, and long-term impact.

Portfolio Review Tips:

• Show, Don't Just Tell: Ensure your portfolio clearly demonstrates the process behind your brand systems – research, strategy, concept development, execution, and iteration.

• Highlight Brand Systems: Focus on projects that showcase comprehensive brand development, not just isolated assets. Emphasize how you created coherence and scalability.

• Quantify Impact: Where possible, articulate the business impact of your design work (e.g., improved conversion rates, stronger brand recognition, increased campaign engagement).

• Tailor to Basis AI: Research Basis AI thoroughly. Understand their product, target audience, and competitive landscape. Frame your experience and case studies in a way that directly addresses their needs and challenges, especially regarding B2B, AI, and technical products.

• Address AI Integration: If you have experience using AI in your design workflow, highlight it, explaining your approach and the benefits it brought.

Challenge Preparation:

• Understand the "Why": For any hypothetical challenge, focus on understanding the underlying business or user problem before jumping to solutions.

• Strategic Approach: Be prepared to articulate your strategic thinking regarding brand positioning, target audience segmentation, and communication goals.

• Process-Oriented: Demonstrate your ability to break down complex design problems into manageable steps and outline a clear process for execution.

• Articulate Point of View: Be ready to defend your creative decisions with clear reasoning, backed by design principles and business objectives.

📝 Enhancement Note: The emphasis on "complete brand systems" over "individual assets" and the request for "Category-Defining Brand Work" indicate that the hiring team is looking for strategic brand builders, not just execution designers. This aligns with the operational expectation of establishing repeatable processes and foundational frameworks.

🛠 Tools & Technology Stack

Primary Tools:

• Design Software: Proficiency in industry-standard tools is expected. This likely includes:

  • Figma: For collaborative interface design, prototyping, and design system building.
  • Adobe Creative Suite: Photoshop for image manipulation, Illustrator for vector graphics, InDesign for layout and print collateral.
  • Sketch: (Potentially, depending on existing workflows)

• Prototyping Tools: While Figma offers robust prototyping, experience with tools like InVision, Adobe XD, or Principle might be beneficial for more complex interactive concepts.

Analytics & Reporting:

• Web Analytics: Familiarity with tools like Google Analytics to understand website performance, user behavior, and the impact of design on engagement metrics.

• Heatmap/User Session Tools: Tools like Hotjar or FullStory could be useful for understanding user interaction on web pages.

• Data Visualization: Basic understanding of how to interpret data and present insights, potentially using tools like Tableau or Looker if integrated into marketing dashboards.

CRM & Automation:

• Marketing Automation Platforms: Familiarity with platforms like HubSpot, Marketo, or Pardot can provide context for campaign design and lead generation workflows.

• CRM Systems: Understanding of Salesforce or similar CRM systems to appreciate how marketing and sales collateral are utilized in customer journeys.

• Content Management Systems (CMS): Experience with platforms like WordPress or Webflow for website development and content management.

📝 Enhancement Note: While the job description doesn't explicitly list a "technology stack," a Founding Brand Designer in an AI company would be expected to be proficient in leading design tools (Figma, Adobe Suite) and have a working knowledge of web technologies, analytics, and marketing platforms to ensure brand consistency and effectiveness across all GTM touchpoints. The mention of "AI-enabled workflows" suggests an openness to leveraging AI tools for design exploration and production.

👥 Team Culture & Values

Operations Values:

• Excellence & Ambition: The company is "racing to deploy the most advanced applied ML at production scale" and aims to be a "leading agent lab." This translates to a drive for high achievement and pushing boundaries in design.

• Credibility & Trust: Building agents for large accounting firms requires a brand that instills confidence and trust. This value emphasizes clarity, professionalism, and reliability in all visual communications.

• Innovation & Forward-Thinking: Operating at the "frontier of building production-grade, long-horizon agents" means a culture that embraces new ideas, experimentation, and staying ahead of industry trends, including in design practices (e.g., AI-native creative).

• Collaboration & Partnership: The role requires close partnership with Marketing, Product, Sales, and Recruiting. This indicates a value placed on cross-functional teamwork and shared success.

• Efficiency & Scalability: Building "systems" and "workflows" that "raise creative output without lowering the bar" highlights a commitment to operational efficiency and scalable processes.

Collaboration Style:

• Integrated & Cross-Functional: The designer will work daily with multiple departments, requiring proactive communication and a deep understanding of different functional needs.

• Point-of-View Driven: The role is for a designer who can "set the creative direction, challenge weak ideas, and bring a point of view." This implies a collaborative style that is also confident and assertive in advocating for strong design.

• Systems-Oriented: A collaborative approach focused on building reusable components, templates, and clear standards that empower others and ensure brand consistency.

• Feedback-Driven: The ability to "take feedback, and improve the work" is crucial, indicating a culture that values constructive criticism for continuous improvement.

📝 Enhancement Note: The company's emphasis on "production scale," "long-horizon agents," and "real work in the real economy" suggests a practical, results-oriented culture. The "founding" nature of the role means the designer will be instrumental in shaping how these values are visually communicated.

⚡ Challenges & Growth Opportunities

Challenges:

• Defining a New Category: Basis AI is operating in a nascent and rapidly evolving field of AI agents. Establishing a brand that clearly communicates this complex, cutting-edge technology to diverse audiences (customers and technical peers) will be a significant challenge.

• Balancing Technical & Customer Brands: The brand must serve both as a customer-facing entity and a technical brand within the AI community, requiring a nuanced visual identity that bridges these two aspects without dilution.

• Avoiding AI Tropes: Creating a distinctive visual identity that stands out in a crowded AI market without resorting to generic or overused AI imagery.

• Building from Scratch: Establishing a complete brand system, design operations, and workflows from the ground up in a fast-paced startup environment.

• Rapid Scaling: As the company grows, ensuring the brand system remains coherent and effective while accommodating new products, markets, and communication needs.

Learning & Development Opportunities:

• Deep Dive into AI: Gain in-depth understanding of applied AI, machine learning, and agent technology, translating these complex concepts into compelling visual narratives.

• Strategic Brand Building: Develop expertise in building consequential brands for high-growth tech companies in emerging markets.

• Design Operations Leadership: Opportunity to define and build the operational framework for design within a scaling organization, including process optimization and AI integration.

• Cross-Functional Impact: Broaden understanding of Go-To-Market strategies, product marketing, and sales enablement through close collaboration.

• Industry Recognition: The potential to create category-defining brand work that could set new standards in the AI industry.

📝 Enhancement Note: The challenges presented are inherent to a "founding" role in a cutting-edge technology company. Successfully navigating these requires strong strategic thinking and operational execution, aligning with the enhanced job description's focus on process and impact.

💡 Interview Preparation

Strategy Questions:

• "How would you approach building a brand identity for a company operating at the forefront of applied AI, specifically for complex B2B tasks like accounting automation?" (Focus on your strategic framework, research methods, and understanding of target audiences.)

• "Describe your process for developing a comprehensive brand system that can scale across different go-to-market motions (e.g., customer acquisition vs. technical thought leadership) without fragmenting the core brand identity." (Highlight your system-building approach, flexibility, and consistency management.)

• "How would you ensure Basis AI's brand stands out in the crowded AI market while avoiding common AI visual tropes?" (Demonstrate your creative judgment, understanding of visual language, and ability to innovate.) Company & Culture Questions:

• "Based on your research, what do you see as the biggest brand challenges and opportunities for Basis AI?" (Showcase your understanding of the company, its market, and your strategic insight.)

• "How do you envision collaborating with marketing, product, and sales teams to ensure brand consistency and impact across all touchpoints?" (Emphasize your cross-functional collaboration style and understanding of GTM operations.)

• "What does 'AI-native creative practice' mean to you, and how would you integrate AI into your design workflow at Basis AI?" (Assess your forward-thinking approach and technical curiosity.) Portfolio Presentation Strategy:

• Narrative Arc: Structure your presentation around the story of each project – the challenge, your strategic approach, the creative solution, and the results or impact.

• Focus on Systems: For brand projects, emphasize the entire system you built: guidelines, templates, core assets, and how they were applied.

• Demonstrate Process: Clearly articulate your thought process, decision-making, and how you leveraged research, user insights, and business objectives.

• Showcase Adaptability: Highlight projects where you had to design for different audiences or contexts, demonstrating range and strategic application.

• Be Ready for Critique: Expect questions that challenge your design choices, and be prepared to defend them with strong rationale.

📝 Enhancement Note: Interview preparation should focus on demonstrating strategic thinking, process orientation, and an understanding of how design directly impacts business objectives and operational efficiency, especially in a B2B AI context.

📌 Application Steps

To apply for this operations position:

• Submit your application through the provided link on Ashby.

• Portfolio Customization: Curate your portfolio to prominently feature brand system development, B2B design examples, and case studies that demonstrate strategic thinking and process optimization. Specifically, highlight any work that translated complex technical concepts into accessible visual language or involved building scalable design frameworks.

• Resume Optimization: Tailor your resume to emphasize experience in brand identity creation, visual design leadership, cross-functional collaboration, and any experience with AI-driven creative workflows or B2B technical products. Use keywords like "brand system," "visual identity," "creative direction," "design systems," and "B2B."

• Interview Preparation: Practice articulating your design process, strategic rationale, and the business impact of your work. Prepare to discuss how you would build and scale a design function and its operational processes at Basis AI. Be ready to present your portfolio and discuss your approach to challenges unique to the AI industry.

• Company Research: Thoroughly research Basis AI, their product, investors, and the competitive landscape. Understand their mission to build "real agents that do real work" and how the brand should reflect this. Consider their emphasis on "production scale" and "long-horizon agents" when formulating your approach to their brand identity.

⚠️ Important Notice: This enhanced job description includes AI-generated insights and operations industry-standard assumptions. All details should be verified directly with the hiring organization before making application decisions.

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