Product Designer

📍 Job Overview

Job Title: Product Designer

Company: Sola Insurance

Location: Atlanta, Georgia, United States

Job Type: FULL_TIME

Category: Product Design / UX/UI

Date Posted: January 14, 2026

Experience Level: Mid-Level (2-5 Years)

Remote Status: On-site

🚀 Role Summary

• Spearhead product interface design across Sola's comprehensive ecosystem, encompassing agent tools, policyholder experiences, and internal platforms.

• Drive end-to-end user flows from initial concept development through to successful implementation, ensuring a seamless user journey.

• Foster close partnerships with product managers and engineers to achieve a strategic balance between user needs, business objectives, and technical feasibility.

• Leverage user research, usability testing, and product metrics to iteratively inform and enhance design solutions, ensuring a data-driven approach to product development.

• Actively contribute to the development and evolution of Sola's design system and shared UI patterns, promoting consistency and scalability across the product suite.

📝 Enhancement Note: This role is positioned as the first dedicated Product Designer hire, indicating a significant opportunity for the individual to shape the design function and influence the product's strategic direction. The emphasis on "owning" product surfaces and shaping evolution suggests a high level of autonomy and impact.

📈 Primary Responsibilities

• Design and deliver clear, intuitive, and user-friendly product interfaces for a diverse range of user types, including agents, policyholders, and internal teams.

• Take ownership of the complete user flow lifecycle, from ideation and wireframing to high-fidelity mockups and detailed interaction design, ensuring a cohesive and effective user experience.

• Collaborate intimately with product management and engineering teams to translate complex requirements into elegant design solutions, navigating trade-offs between user desires, business goals, and technical constraints.

• Integrate user research findings, A/B testing results, and key product metrics into the design process to validate hypotheses and drive continuous improvement in product usability and effectiveness.

• Develop, maintain, and evangelize Sola's design system, ensuring consistency in visual language, interaction patterns, and component libraries across all product touchpoints.

• Champion and uphold a rigorous standard for interface quality, encompassing visual design aesthetics, interaction design sophistication, and overall usability and accessibility.

• Proactively identify opportunities for design innovation and process improvement within the product development lifecycle.

📝 Enhancement Note: The responsibilities highlight a blend of strategic product thinking and hands-on execution. The emphasis on "shipping clear, intuitive product interfaces" and "end-to-end user flows" indicates a need for a designer who can not only conceptualize but also see designs through to production, working closely with engineering. The contribution to the design system suggests a role that will help build foundational design assets for scalability.

🎓 Skills & Qualifications

Education: While no specific degree is mandated, a strong foundation in design principles, user-centered design methodologies, and human-computer interaction is expected, often acquired through formal education or equivalent practical experience.

Experience: A minimum of 3 years of dedicated experience as an in-house Product Designer, with a proven track record of shipping products to market and demonstrating significant impact on user experience and business outcomes.

Required Skills:

• Demonstrated expertise in product thinking and interface design, with a portfolio showcasing the ability to simplify complex systems into intuitive user experiences.

• Proficiency in designing across multiple fidelity levels, from high-level user flows and wireframes to detailed micro-interactions and visual design specifications.

• A structured and analytical approach to design, grounded in user research, established design principles, and the ability to articulate clear rationale for design decisions.

• Proven experience collaborating effectively with product managers, engineers, and fellow designers in a cross-functional team environment.

• Deep understanding of how design strategies contribute to user adoption, long-term product quality, and the achievement of business objectives.

• Exceptional communication and presentation skills, with the ability to clearly articulate design concepts, rationale, and outcomes to diverse stakeholders.

Preferred Skills:

• Experience designing complex, data-driven products or interfaces catering to multiple distinct user types.

• Hands-on experience contributing to, or actively evolving, a design system across various product surfaces to ensure consistency and efficiency.

• Proven ability to collaborate closely with engineering teams to ensure designs are technically feasible, maintainable, and implemented accurately.

• Familiarity with accessibility standards (e.g., WCAG) and responsive design best practices for creating inclusive and adaptable user experiences.

• Proficiency with modern design and prototyping tools, specifically Figma or comparable industry-standard software.

• Experience creating interactive prototypes using code-adjacent tools (e.g., Framer, React) or code itself to validate complex interactions and user flows.

📝 Enhancement Note: The requirements emphasize a blend of strategic thinking ("strong product thinking") and practical execution ("design across levels of fidelity," "detailed interactions"). The preference for experience with complex, data-driven products and design systems aligns with Sola's insurance domain, which often involves intricate data and workflows. The mention of code-adjacent prototyping tools suggests a desire for a designer who can deeply understand and communicate technical possibilities.

📊 Process & Systems Portfolio Requirements

Portfolio Essentials:

• A curated portfolio showcasing end-to-end product design projects, with a strong emphasis on demonstrating product thinking and the ability to simplify complex systems.

• Clear articulation of the design process followed for each project, including research methodologies, ideation techniques, user flow mapping, wireframing, prototyping, and final visual design.

• Demonstration of how design decisions were informed by user needs, business goals, and technical constraints, supported by relevant data or research findings.

• Examples of high-fidelity interfaces and detailed interaction designs that highlight a strong sense of visual hierarchy, clarity, and consistency.

Process Documentation:

• Case studies that clearly outline the problem statement, the design challenges faced, the proposed solutions, and the measurable outcomes or impact of the design work.

• Documentation of contributions to or creation of design systems, including examples of reusable components, style guides, and pattern libraries.

• Examples of user research conducted, usability testing performed, and how insights from these activities directly influenced design iterations and improvements.

• Demonstrations of prototyping capabilities, showing how interactive prototypes were used to test concepts, validate user flows, and communicate design intent to stakeholders.

📝 Enhancement Note: Given this is the first dedicated Product Designer role, the portfolio is critical. It needs to go beyond just showcasing aesthetics to demonstrating a deep understanding of the product development lifecycle, problem-solving skills, and the ability to work within constraints. Emphasis on simplifying complex systems is key, given the insurance industry's inherent complexity.

💵 Compensation & Benefits

Salary Range: $100,000 - $135,000 USD per year. This range is competitive for a mid-level Product Designer in a major metropolitan area like Atlanta, especially within a high-growth startup environment.

Benefits:

• Competitive salary with potential for annual bonus.

• Stock options, offering an opportunity to share in the company's future success and growth.

• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision insurance plans to support employee health and well-being.

• Unlimited Paid Time Off (PTO), promoting work-life balance and employee autonomy.

• A dynamic work culture that encourages growth, fosters collaboration, and supports calculated risk-taking.

• Daily catering and snacks provided at the office, enhancing the on-site work experience.

Working Hours: Standard full-time hours are expected, likely around 40 hours per week. While the role is on-site, the company culture may offer some flexibility in daily scheduling, provided core collaboration needs are met.

📝 Enhancement Note: The salary range provided is specific and falls within industry standards for a Product Designer with 3+ years of experience in a high-cost-of-living area like Atlanta, particularly within a startup offering equity. The benefits package is typical for a growth-stage startup, emphasizing health, financial upside (stock options), and work-life balance (unlimited PTO).

🎯 Team & Company Context

🏢 Company Culture

Industry: Insurtech (Insurance Technology). Sola Insurance is disrupting the traditional insurance market by leveraging proprietary weather data to create innovative, affordable wind and hail policies. This positions them at the intersection of finance, technology, and data analytics.

Company Size: Small (14 employees). This indicates a highly collaborative, hands-on environment where individual contributions have a significant and visible impact. Roles are often broad, requiring adaptability and a willingness to wear multiple hats.

Founded: The company is a startup with a long-term vision, suggesting a culture focused on innovation, rapid iteration, and building for the future. The founder is directly involved in hiring, indicating a strong emphasis on cultural fit and shared vision.

Team Structure:

• The operations team is nascent, with this role being the first dedicated Product Designer. This implies a flat structure with direct access to leadership and cross-functional collaboration being essential.

• Reporting will likely be directly to the founder or a senior product lead, offering high visibility and direct mentorship opportunities.

Methodology:

• Sola emphasizes a data-driven approach, utilizing weather data to underwrite policies and reduce fraud. This suggests that design decisions will also be informed by data and product metrics.

• The company promotes a culture of innovation and risk-taking, encouraging experimentation and learning from both successes and failures.

• Focus on building "simple, high-quality software" indicates a commitment to user-centered design, iterative development, and maintaining a high bar for product quality.

Company Website: https://solainsurance.com/

📝 Enhancement Note: The company description highlights a disruptive approach to a traditionally complex industry. The small team size and direct founder involvement suggest a fast-paced, dynamic environment where the Product Designer will have substantial influence and autonomy. The focus on weather data and fraud reduction points to a data-centric product strategy.

📈 Career & Growth Analysis

Operations Career Level: This role represents a foundational, yet critical, mid-level position within the product development function. As the first dedicated Product Designer, the individual will be instrumental in establishing design standards, processes, and systems. Success in this role can lead to opportunities for leading design initiatives, mentoring future designers, and potentially building out a design team.

Reporting Structure: The Product Designer will report directly to senior leadership, likely the founder, Brayden. This close reporting line ensures high visibility for design contributions and direct access to strategic decision-making processes.

Operations Impact: The Product Designer's work will have a profound and direct impact on Sola's core business. By designing intuitive agent tools and policyholder experiences, the role directly influences user adoption, operational efficiency, customer satisfaction, and ultimately, the company's ability to scale and achieve its growth targets. The quality of the product's user interface is paramount in an industry where clarity and trust are essential.

Growth Opportunities:

• Design Leadership: As the company grows, there will be opportunities to build and lead a design team, defining the design vision and strategy for Sola.

• Product Strategy Influence: Close collaboration with leadership provides a platform to influence product roadmap decisions, leveraging design thinking to identify new opportunities and solve complex user problems.

• Skill Specialization: The role offers exposure to unique challenges in the Insurtech space, allowing for specialization in areas like data visualization, complex workflow design, or building scalable design systems.

• Industry Expertise: Deepening knowledge within the Insurtech sector, understanding its unique challenges and opportunities, can position the designer for future leadership roles in the industry.

📝 Enhancement Note: The "first dedicated hire" aspect is a significant growth opportunity. The candidate can define the design function and potentially grow into a lead or manager role. The direct access to leadership is a key factor for career acceleration and strategic influence.

🌐 Work Environment

Office Type: The company offers a "Nice Midtown Atlanta office with skyline views." This suggests a modern, professional workspace designed to attract and retain talent, likely featuring collaborative spaces and amenities.

Office Location(s): Midtown Atlanta, Georgia, United States. This is a prime business district, offering accessibility and a vibrant urban environment.

Workspace Context:

• The environment is described as a "startup environment" with a "flat structure." This implies an open, collaborative atmosphere where communication is fluid and direct.

• Expect a fast-paced, iterative work style common in startups, with opportunities for hands-on contribution and direct impact on the product.

• The office is equipped with "daily catering + snacks," indicating an investment in employee comfort and productivity, fostering a positive on-site experience.

• Close proximity to engineers and product managers will facilitate seamless collaboration and rapid feedback loops.

Work Schedule: The role is on-site, implying a standard work week within the office. While specific hours aren't detailed, the startup culture often values productivity and results over strict timekeeping, allowing for some flexibility as long as objectives are met and collaboration is maintained.

📝 Enhancement Note: The on-site requirement in a desirable Atlanta location, coupled with amenities like catering and snacks, points to a company that values in-person collaboration and employee experience. A flat structure suggests an environment where ideas can flow freely between all team members.

📄 Application & Portfolio Review Process

Interview Process:

• Initial Screening: A conversation with a member of the hiring team or founder to assess basic qualifications, cultural fit, and interest in the role and company.

• Portfolio Review: A dedicated session where the candidate presents their portfolio, walking through 1-2 key projects. This is a crucial stage to evaluate product thinking, design process, problem-solving skills, and communication abilities. Expect to discuss design rationale, user research, and collaboration.

• Design Challenge/Case Study: Potentially a take-home assignment or an in-person exercise focused on a specific design problem relevant to Sola's product. This assesses practical design skills, approach to complexity, and ability to deliver within constraints.

• Cross-functional Interviews: Meetings with product managers and engineers to assess collaboration style, technical understanding, and ability to work effectively within a product team.

• Founder Interview: A final discussion with Brayden, the founder, to assess strategic alignment, long-term vision, cultural fit, and overall potential contribution to the company.

Portfolio Review Tips:

• Focus on Process: Clearly articulate your design process for each project, emphasizing how you moved from problem definition to solution.

• Showcase Product Thinking: Highlight how you approached the problem, considered user needs and business goals, and made strategic design decisions.

• Simplify Complexity: Given Sola's domain, demonstrate your ability to design for complex systems and make them user-friendly. Use examples that showcase this skill.

• Quantify Impact: Whenever possible, use metrics or qualitative feedback to demonstrate the impact of your design work on users and the business.

• Present Clearly: Practice your presentation, ensuring you can articulate your thoughts concisely and engage your audience. Be prepared for in-depth questions about your design choices.

• Tailor to Sola: If possible, subtly tailor your project selection or presentation emphasis to align with Sola's mission and challenges (e.g., complex data, user onboarding, agent tools).

Challenge Preparation:

• Understand Sola's business model and target users (agents, homeowners).

• Be prepared to dissect a problem statement, identify key user needs, and outline potential design solutions.

• Focus on demonstrating a structured approach, even if you don't have time to fully flesh out every detail.

• Practice communicating your thought process clearly and justifying your design decisions.

📝 Enhancement Note: The interview process is structured to evaluate a candidate's design skills, problem-solving capabilities, collaboration aptitude, and alignment with the company's culture and mission. The portfolio review and potential design challenge are key evaluation points for this role, given it's the first dedicated designer.

🛠 Tools & Technology Stack

Primary Tools:

• Figma: Explicitly mentioned as a preferred tool for design and prototyping. Proficiency in Figma is essential for creating user interfaces, interactive prototypes, and collaborating within design teams.

• Prototyping Tools (Code-Adjacent): Experience with tools like Framer, React, or similar code-based prototyping solutions is highly valued. This indicates a need for a designer who can go beyond static mockups to create more realistic and technically informed interactive prototypes, facilitating clearer communication with engineers and validating complex interactions.

Analytics & Reporting:

• While not explicitly listed, expect to utilize product analytics tools (e.g., Amplitude, Mixpanel, Google Analytics) to gather data on user behavior, feature adoption, and conversion rates to inform design decisions.

CRM & Automation:

• While not a direct design tool, understanding how the product interfaces with CRM systems or other business automation tools used by agents or internal teams could be beneficial for designing integrated experiences.

📝 Enhancement Note: The explicit mention of Figma and the preference for code-adjacent prototyping tools signal a forward-thinking design team that values both efficiency in design tools and a deep understanding of interactive possibilities. This suggests the designer will be expected to contribute to a high-fidelity design process.

👥 Team Culture & Values

Operations Values:

• Simplicity & Clarity: A core value, reflected in the desire to build "simple, high-quality software" that makes a complex process (insurance) easier for users.

• Innovation & Risk-Taking: Encouraged by the startup environment, fostering a culture where new ideas are welcomed and experimentation is part of the process.

• Collaboration: Essential in a flat structure, emphasizing teamwork, open communication, and direct interaction between leadership, product, and engineering.

• Long-Term Vision: Building for "decades," indicating a commitment to sustainability, quality, and creating lasting value, rather than short-term fixes.

• User-Centricity: Designing products that "real people depend on," highlighting a focus on user needs, usability, and creating positive experiences.

Collaboration Style:

• Direct & Agile: Expect frequent, informal communication and quick feedback loops due to the small team size and flat structure.

• Cross-Functional Integration: The Product Designer will work hand-in-hand with product managers and engineers throughout the entire product development lifecycle, from discovery to implementation.

• Open Communication: A culture that encourages direct feedback and open discussion is likely, enabling rapid iteration and problem-solving.

• Shared Ownership: Team members are expected to contribute actively and take ownership of their work, fostering a sense of shared responsibility for product success.

📝 Enhancement Note: The company values are aligned with a typical high-growth startup: innovation, user focus, and collaboration. The emphasis on "building simple, high-quality software" is a key directive for the Product Designer, implying a need for clean, intuitive, and robust design solutions.

⚡ Challenges & Growth Opportunities

Challenges:

• Establishing Design Foundations: As the first dedicated designer, a key challenge will be defining and implementing design processes, standards, and a design system from the ground up for a rapidly scaling company.

• Balancing Speed and Quality: The "hyper-growth" environment necessitates rapid product iteration, which can sometimes conflict with maintaining a high bar for design quality and thoroughness.

• Simplifying Insurance Complexity: The insurance industry is inherently complex. Translating intricate policies, regulations, and data into simple, user-friendly interfaces for diverse user groups (agents and policyholders) will be a significant ongoing challenge.

• Cross-Functional Alignment: Ensuring consistent understanding and buy-in for design decisions across product, engineering, and leadership, especially in a fast-paced startup setting.

Learning & Development Opportunities:

• Building a Design Function: Opportunity to shape the future of design at Sola, potentially leading to future team growth and strategic influence.

• Insurtech Expertise: Gaining deep domain knowledge in a growing and impactful industry, becoming a specialist in designing for financial services and data-intensive products.

• Product Strategy Involvement: Close proximity to leadership provides a unique chance to influence product direction and strategy, moving beyond pure execution to strategic input.

• System Design: Developing and scaling a design system offers valuable experience in creating foundational assets for a growing product suite.

📝 Enhancement Note: The challenges are framed around the opportunities inherent in a "first hire" role within a fast-growing startup in a complex industry. The growth opportunities directly stem from these challenges, offering significant professional development.

💡 Interview Preparation

Strategy Questions:

• "Describe a time you had to simplify a complex system or process through design. What was the problem, your approach, and the outcome?" (Assesses product thinking, problem-solving, and ability to simplify complexity.)

• "How do you approach collaborating with engineers and product managers to ensure designs are both user-centric and technically feasible?" (Evaluates collaboration skills and understanding of the product development lifecycle.)

• "Walk me through a project where you significantly improved a product's usability or user adoption through design. What metrics did you use?" (Tests design impact, data-driven approach, and ability to articulate results.)

Company & Culture Questions:

• "What interests you about Sola Insurance and our mission to change the insurance industry?" (Gauges genuine interest and alignment with company vision.)

• "How do you see your role as the first Product Designer contributing to our startup culture and long-term vision?" (Evaluates understanding of the role's impact and cultural fit.)

Portfolio Presentation Strategy:

• Storytelling: Frame your portfolio projects as narratives: the challenge, your role, the process, the solution, and the impact.

• Focus on Process & Rationale: Be prepared to deep-dive into your decision-making process for each project. Why did you choose this solution? What research informed it? How did you iterate?

• Highlight Complexity Simplification: Select projects that best showcase your ability to design for complex domains or systems.

• Demonstrate Collaboration: Explicitly mention how you worked with product managers and engineers, and how their input shaped your designs.

• Quantify Impact: Whenever possible, present data or user feedback that validates the success of your designs.

📝 Enhancement Note: Interview preparation should focus on demonstrating a strong understanding of the design process, problem-solving skills, collaborative abilities, and a clear vision for how design can drive business value, especially within the context of a growing startup in the Insurtech space.

📌 Application Steps

To apply for this Product Designer position:

• Submit your application through the provided link on Ashby. Ensure your resume is up-to-date and highlights relevant experience.

• Portfolio Customization: Prepare your portfolio to prominently feature projects that demonstrate your ability to simplify complex systems, your end-to-end design process, and your collaboration with product and engineering teams. Tailor your project selection to align with Sola's mission in the Insurtech space.

• Resume Optimization: Review your resume to ensure it clearly articulates your experience with modern design tools (Figma), prototyping techniques, user research, and design system contributions. Use keywords from the job description naturally.

• Interview Preparation: Practice articulating your design process, decision-making rationale, and project outcomes. Prepare to discuss your approach to collaboration and how you handle design challenges in a startup environment.

• Company Research: Thoroughly research Sola Insurance, its mission, its product, and the Insurtech industry. Understand the challenges homeowners and agents face with insurance and how Sola aims to solve them. This will be crucial for demonstrating genuine interest and cultural fit.

⚠️ 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.

---