Junior Product Designer

📍 Job Overview

Job Title: Junior Product Designer

Company: Mycroft

Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Job Type: FULL_TIME

Category: Product Design / User Experience (UX)

Date Posted: 2026-08-11

Experience Level: Junior (0-2 years)

Remote Status: Hybrid (2-3 days in office per week)

🚀 Role Summary

• Drive design execution by creating intuitive Figma flows and prototypes that engineering teams will build from, initially under direction and progressing to independent ownership.

• Develop a deep understanding of the product's AI-native security and compliance domain through hands-on customer work and collaboration with Forward Deployed Engineers (FDEs).

• Take ownership of features from initial problem identification through to end-to-end design solutions as your scope and expertise grow.

• Leverage your fresh perspective as a recent user to identify and flag areas of confusion or friction for new users, contributing to a more intuitive product experience.

• Integrate AI tools naturally into your design workflow to enhance learning and production speed, while ensuring all AI-generated work is understood and explainable.

📝 Enhancement Note: This role is explicitly positioned as a "Junior Product Designer" with a salary range reflecting 0-2 years of experience. The emphasis on "design execution that ships" and "your own ramp" highlights a hands-on, learn-by-doing approach common in early-stage startups. The requirement for physical presence in Toronto indicates a hybrid model, crucial for team collaboration and hands-on customer engagement.

📈 Primary Responsibilities

• Translate complex security and compliance requirements into clear, user-friendly designs using Figma, creating detailed flows, wireframes, and interactive prototypes.

• Collaborate closely with Engineering teams to ensure accurate implementation of designs, providing clear specifications and ongoing support throughout the development cycle.

• Engage in direct customer-facing activities, including shadowing FDEs and configuring the platform for actual customers, to build domain expertise and inform design decisions.

• Participate actively in design critiques and feedback sessions, both giving and receiving constructive input to elevate the overall design quality.

• Conduct user research and usability testing (even informally) to validate design concepts and identify opportunities for iterative improvements in information density, state clarity, and overall user trust.

• Contribute to the development and maintenance of design systems and style guides to ensure consistency and scalability across the platform.

• Proactively identify and articulate design challenges and opportunities based on user feedback, market trends, and internal product strategy.

📝 Enhancement Note: The responsibilities are framed around "owning" design execution and scope, which is typical for junior roles in fast-paced startups where individuals are expected to contribute significantly from the outset. The emphasis on hands-on customer work and understanding the compliance domain is a unique aspect that requires a proactive and curious mindset, moving beyond purely theoretical design.

🎓 Skills & Qualifications

Education:

• A Bachelor's degree in Design, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Computer Science, or a related field is preferred, though equivalent practical experience will be strongly considered. Experience:

• 0-2 years of professional experience in product design, UX/UI design, or a closely related role.

• Demonstrated experience in creating design deliverables such as user flows, wireframes, mockups, and interactive prototypes.

• Proven ability to work with and contribute to design systems. Required Skills:

• Foundational Design Craft: Solid understanding of design principles, typography, color theory, and layout.

• Figma Proficiency: Demonstrated ability to use Figma for creating complex design systems, user flows, and interactive prototypes.

• Clear Communication: Ability to articulate design decisions, rationale, and user needs effectively to technical and non-technical stakeholders.

• Problem-Solving: Aptitude for analyzing user problems and translating them into elegant and effective design solutions.

• Collaboration: Experience working effectively within a cross-functional team environment, actively participating in design reviews and providing/receiving feedback.

• Self-Propelled Learning: Demonstrated initiative in learning new skills, tools, or domains independently.

• English Fluency: Professional fluency in English, both written and verbal.

Preferred Skills:

• AI Tool Integration: Experience or a strong willingness to learn and integrate AI tools (e.g., Claude, ChatGPT) into the design process for research, ideation, and content generation.

• Security/Compliance Domain Interest: Genuine curiosity and a proactive approach to understanding complex technical domains like security and compliance.

• Technical Documentation Familiarity: Experience reading or contributing to technical documentation.

• Prototyping Tools: Familiarity with other prototyping or design tools beyond Figma.

📝 Enhancement Note: The "foundational design craft" and "clear thinking, not just polish" requirement in the source material suggests a focus on the strategic and problem-solving aspects of design over purely aesthetic execution, which is a key differentiator for junior roles in product-focused companies. The emphasis on AI tools and domain curiosity points to a specific type of candidate who thrives in a rapidly evolving, technically complex environment.

📊 Process & Systems Portfolio Requirements

Portfolio Essentials:

• Demonstrate Clear Thinking: Showcase your thought process behind design decisions, including problem definition, user research insights, and iterative design explorations.

• Problem-Solution Alignment: Clearly articulate the problem you were solving and how your design effectively addressed it, highlighting user impact.

• Process Documentation: Include examples of your design process, from initial research and ideation to wireframing, prototyping, and final UI design.

• Figma Work Samples: Provide examples of your work within Figma, demonstrating proficiency in creating user flows, wireframes, and interactive prototypes.

• Iterative Design: If possible, include case studies that show how you iterated on a design based on feedback or testing.

Process Documentation:

• While not a formal requirement for submission, be prepared to discuss how you document your design process and decisions, especially when collaborating with engineers.

• Understand how design inputs influence development workflows and how to provide clear, actionable specifications.

📝 Enhancement Note: The prompt specifically mentions "clear thinking, not just polish" for the portfolio. This implies a need for case studies that delve into the why behind design choices, rather than just presenting final mockups. For a junior role, demonstrating a structured approach to problem-solving and the ability to articulate that process is crucial.

💵 Compensation & Benefits

Salary Range: $60,000 - $70,000 CAD per year, commensurate with experience and qualifications.

Benefits:

• Health and Dental Coverage: Comprehensive medical and dental insurance plans to support employee well-being.

• Equity: Opportunity to receive company stock options, aligning employee success with company growth.

• Tooling Stipend: A monthly stipend provided to cover essential productivity tools, including AI subscriptions, design software, and other work-related expenses.

• Hybrid Work Model: Flexibility to split workdays between the downtown Toronto office and remote settings, fostering work-life balance.

• Professional Development: Opportunities to learn and grow within a fast-paced startup environment, with exposure to AI, security, and compliance domains.

Working Hours: Standard full-time hours, approximately 40 hours per week, with flexibility inherent in the hybrid work model.

📝 Enhancement Note: The salary range provided ($60,000 - $70,000 CAD) is typical for a Junior Product Designer in Toronto, Canada, considering the 0-2 years of experience specified. The inclusion of equity and a tooling stipend are attractive benefits for early-career professionals in the tech industry, especially in startups. The hybrid model with 2-3 days in office is also a common arrangement in the Toronto tech scene.

🎯 Team & Company Context

🏢 Company Culture

Industry: AI-native Security and Compliance Platform. Mycroft operates in the rapidly growing RegTech (Regulatory Technology) and Cybersecurity sectors, leveraging artificial intelligence to automate and streamline complex compliance processes for businesses.

Company Size: Small (Likely <50 employees, based on startup trajectory and "small team" description). This means a flat hierarchy, direct impact, and the need for individuals to be highly adaptable and self-sufficient.

Founded: Early-stage startup (Implied by rapid revenue growth and "still early" description). This suggests a dynamic, fast-paced environment with opportunities for significant personal and professional growth.

Team Structure:

• The product team is small, led by a co-founder who is actively involved in design.

• You will work closely with Engineering and Forward-Deployed Engineers (FDEs), who are essential for understanding customer needs and use cases firsthand.

• The culture emphasizes speed, rigor, and ownership, with a preference for individuals who can be both fast and meticulous. Methodology:

• AI as a Force Multiplier: AI tools are embraced and encouraged as part of the standard toolkit, not a hidden advantage. Emphasis is placed on understanding and explaining AI-assisted work.

• Hands-on Learning: A significant part of the onboarding and ongoing learning involves direct engagement with customer problems and platform configuration.

• Autonomy and Accountability: Day-one accountability is expected, with independence growing as individuals demonstrate capability and initiative.

Company Website: https://mycroft.io

📝 Enhancement Note: The company's focus on "AI-native security and compliance" positions it at the intersection of two high-growth, complex fields. The description of the team as "small" and "early" indicates a startup environment where individual contributions have a disproportionately large impact, and where learning agility is paramount. The explicit mention of AI tools as a standard part of the workflow is a key cultural differentiator.

📈 Career & Growth Analysis

Operations Career Level: Junior Product Designer. This role is an entry point into product design within a specialized industry. It offers a steep learning curve, focusing on foundational craft, execution, and domain understanding. The path involves growing from supporting senior designers and engineers to independently owning larger feature sets.

Reporting Structure: Likely reports to a Product Lead or a co-founder who oversees product and design. Direct collaboration with engineering leads and FDEs is expected. The structure is flat, encouraging direct communication and feedback across functions.

Operations Impact: As a Product Designer, your impact is directly tied to the usability, clarity, and trustworthiness of the Mycroft platform. By making complex security and compliance information accessible and actionable, you directly enable customers to achieve their compliance goals, thereby driving customer adoption, retention, and ultimately, revenue growth. Your designs translate the company's AI capabilities into tangible value for users.

Growth Opportunities:

• Design Specialization: Develop deep expertise in designing for complex, regulated industries (security, compliance) and AI-driven products.

• Scope Expansion: Progress from designing specific features to owning entire product areas from problem definition to launch and iteration.

• Mentorship & Leadership: As the team grows, opportunities may arise to mentor future junior designers or take on lead roles for specific product initiatives.

• Domain Expertise: Gain significant knowledge in cybersecurity frameworks (SOC 2, FedRAMP, CMMC, PCI-DSS) and AI applications, becoming a valuable asset in a niche market.

• Cross-Functional Skills: Enhance skills in collaborating with engineering, product management, and customer-facing roles, understanding the full product lifecycle.

📝 Enhancement Note: The "Junior" title and emphasis on "your own ramp" and "growing slice of scope" clearly define the entry-level nature of this role. The growth path is framed around gaining domain expertise in a highly specialized area (AI, security, compliance) and expanding design ownership, which is typical for junior roles in product-led companies.

🌐 Work Environment

Office Type: Hybrid model with a physical office in downtown Toronto. This suggests a collaborative environment where in-person interaction is valued for brainstorming, feedback, and team building, balanced with the flexibility of remote work.

Office Location(s): Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. This location is a major tech hub, offering accessibility and a vibrant professional ecosystem.

Workspace Context:

• Collaborative Atmosphere: The hybrid model encourages team members to come into the office 2-3 days a week, facilitating face-to-face collaboration, design critiques, and spontaneous problem-solving sessions.

• Tooling & Technology: Access to standard design tools (Figma) and a monthly stipend for additional productivity tools, including AI subscriptions, ensuring you have the resources needed to excel.

• Cross-Functional Interaction: The small team size and integrated workflow mean frequent interaction with engineers, FDEs, and product leadership, fostering a holistic understanding of the product development process.

Work Schedule: The role is full-time, with approximately 40 working hours per week. The hybrid arrangement offers flexibility in managing workdays, allowing for focused individual work at home and collaborative sessions in the office.

📝 Enhancement Note: The description of a "downtown Toronto office" and a "hybrid" model implies a professional, accessible workspace. The emphasis on "2-3 days a week" suggests a structured approach to hybrid work, balancing in-person collaboration with remote flexibility. This environment is conducive to the hands-on learning and close collaboration highlighted in the role's responsibilities.

📄 Application & Portfolio Review Process

Interview Process:

• Initial Screening: A review of your resume and portfolio to assess foundational design skills and alignment with the role's requirements.

• Portfolio Presentation & Discussion: A session where you present your portfolio, discussing your design process, problem-solving approach, and how you've used tools like Figma. Be prepared to articulate the "why" behind your design choices.

• Hands-on Exercise/Case Study: You may be asked to complete a small design challenge or discuss a hypothetical problem related to the Mycroft platform, demonstrating your ability to think critically and apply design principles.

• Team/Culture Fit Interviews: Conversations with team members (Engineering, FDEs, Product Lead) to assess your communication style, collaboration abilities, curiosity, and cultural alignment with Mycroft's fast-paced, rigorous environment.

• Final Interview: Potentially with a co-founder to discuss overall fit, career aspirations, and answer any final questions.

Portfolio Review Tips:

• Focus on Process, Not Just Polish: Showcase your thinking, problem-solving steps, and iterations. Explain the context, the challenge, and your rationale.

• Highlight Figma Proficiency: Include examples that clearly demonstrate your skills in Figma for user flows, wireframes, and interactive prototypes.

• Quantify Impact (If Possible): Even for junior roles, if you can show how your design contributed to a positive outcome (e.g., improved user feedback, faster task completion), it's a strong asset.

• Tailor to Mycroft: Briefly explain why you're interested in Mycroft and the security/compliance/AI space. Show that you've researched the company.

• Be Ready to Discuss AI Tools: Explain how you use or would use AI tools in your design process and how you ensure the work remains your own and is well-understood.

Challenge Preparation:

• Understand the Domain: Familiarize yourself with the basics of security and compliance, and Mycroft's mission. Understand what "information density," "state clarity," and "trust" mean in this context.

• Practice Articulating Design Rationale: Be ready to explain your design decisions clearly and concisely, justifying them with user needs, business goals, or design principles.

• Think About User Experience for Complex Information: Consider how you would design interfaces for users who need to understand dense, technical, or regulated information.

📝 Enhancement Note: The emphasis on "hands-on customer work" in the role description suggests that interviewers will probe your ability to translate real-world user needs into design. The portfolio should reflect this by showing how you've tackled user problems and iterated based on feedback, even if it's from personal projects or academic work.

🛠 Tools & Technology Stack

Primary Tools:

• Figma: The core design tool for creating user flows, wireframes, mockups, and interactive prototypes. Expect to use its advanced features for design systems and collaboration.

• AI Tooling (e.g., Claude): Integrated into the workflow for research, ideation, content generation, and learning about complex domains. The company encourages picking what works best for you.

Analytics & Reporting:

• While not directly a designer's tool, understanding how design impacts user behavior tracked by analytics will be important. Familiarity with how product usage data is collected and analyzed can be beneficial. CRM & Automation:

• Not directly applicable to the designer role, but understanding that the product itself automates compliance processes is key context.

📝 Enhancement Note: The explicit mention of Figma and AI tools like Claude is critical. Candidates should be comfortable with Figma's comprehensive feature set. For AI tools, the emphasis is on natural integration and understanding, not just using them as a black box.

👥 Team Culture & Values

Operations Values:

• Speed and Rigor: The company values individuals who can move quickly while maintaining high standards of quality and accuracy.

• Ownership and Autonomy: Employees are expected to take ownership of their work and operate with a high degree of independence, with independence growing over time.

• Curiosity and Learning: A strong emphasis on continuous learning, especially regarding the technical domain (security, compliance) and AI technologies.

• Clarity and Trust: Designs must convey complex information clearly, fostering trust with customers who rely on the platform for critical security and compliance functions.

• Practicality and Execution: A focus on shipping tangible work that engineers can build from, rather than theoretical designs.

Collaboration Style:

• Cross-Functional Integration: Close collaboration between Design, Engineering, and Forward-Deployed Engineers (FDEs) is fundamental.

• Direct Feedback: An open culture where feedback is actively sought and given, facilitating rapid iteration and improvement.

• Hands-on Engagement: Team members are encouraged to get hands-on with customer problems and the product itself to build a shared understanding and drive effective solutions.

📝 Enhancement Note: The company culture is clearly defined by "fast and rigorous," "real autonomy," and "small-company reality." This means a dynamic, entrepreneurial spirit is highly valued. The emphasis on AI tools being a "force multiplier" and not a "crutch" indicates a pragmatic and results-oriented approach to technology adoption.

⚡ Challenges & Growth Opportunities

Challenges:

• Domain Complexity: Navigating the intricacies of security and compliance frameworks (SOC 2, FedRAMP, CMMC, PCI-DSS) can be challenging, requiring dedicated learning and a curious mindset.

• Balancing Speed and Detail: The need to ship quickly while maintaining high design fidelity and accuracy for critical security functions.

• Translating AI Concepts: Designing intuitive user experiences for complex AI-driven processes and outputs.

• Onboarding into a Niche Industry: Gaining sufficient understanding of the security and compliance landscape to design effectively.

Learning & Development Opportunities:

• Domain Expertise: Become an expert in the security and compliance industry, a highly valuable niche.

• AI in Design: Deepen skills in leveraging AI tools for design productivity and innovation.

• Product Ownership: Grow from executing designs to owning features and product areas end-to-end.

• Startup Environment: Gain invaluable experience in a fast-growing startup, understanding product development from early stages to scaling.

• Cross-Functional Exposure: Develop a holistic understanding of product development by working closely with engineering and customer-facing teams.

📝 Enhancement Note: The challenges are directly linked to the company's niche industry and rapid growth. The growth opportunities are framed around developing specialized domain knowledge and expanding design responsibilities within a startup context, offering a clear path for career advancement.

💡 Interview Preparation

Strategy Questions:

• Design Process & Problem Solving: "Walk me through a project in your portfolio where you faced a significant design challenge. How did you approach it, what was your process, and what was the outcome?" Focus on articulating your thinking, iterations, and the rationale behind your decisions.

• Collaboration & Feedback: "Describe a time you received difficult feedback on a design. How did you handle it, and how did it influence your final design?" Prepare to discuss how you work with engineers and other stakeholders.

• AI Integration: "How do you see AI tools being used to enhance the product design process? How would you ensure the quality and explainability of AI-assisted design work?" Be ready to discuss your practical approach to using AI.

Company & Culture Questions:

• Motivation: "Why are you interested in Mycroft and the security/compliance industry?" Show genuine curiosity and understanding of the company's mission.

• Team Dynamics: "How do you prefer to collaborate with engineers and product managers? What's your approach to design critiques?"

• Learning Agility: "Describe a time you had to quickly learn a new skill or domain. What was your strategy?" This probes your ability to adapt to the company's learning-intensive environment.

Portfolio Presentation Strategy:

• Structure is Key: Organize your presentation logically. Start with the problem, your approach, your process (research, ideation, wireframing, prototyping, testing), and the final solution/impact.

• Tell a Story: Frame each project as a narrative. What was the user's pain point? How did your design solve it? What was the journey?

• Showcase Figma Skills: Be ready to demonstrate specific Figma features you used, especially for interactive prototypes or design system elements.

• Explain the "Why": For every design decision, be prepared to explain the rationale. Why this layout? Why this color? Why this interaction?

• Address the "Junior" Aspect: Be humble and eager to learn, but also confident in your foundational skills and your ability to contribute. Highlight your potential and your drive.

📝 Enhancement Note: The interview preparation advice is tailored to the specific requirements of the Junior Product Designer role at Mycroft, emphasizing domain curiosity, AI tool integration, and a strong portfolio that showcases process and clear thinking over just polished aesthetics.

📌 Application Steps

To apply for this Junior Product Designer position:

• Submit Your Application: Apply through the provided link on Ashby.

• Craft a Targeted Resume: Highlight relevant design experience, proficiency in Figma, and any projects demonstrating problem-solving, clear thinking, and a strong design process. Quantify achievements where possible.

• Curate Your Portfolio: Select 2-3 strong projects that best showcase your foundational design craft, your thought process, and your ability to create clear and functional designs. Ensure it demonstrates your Figma skills and your approach to problem-solving. Be ready to discuss each project in detail.

• Prepare for a Design Discussion: Anticipate presenting your portfolio and discussing your design rationale, collaboration experience, and how you would approach designing for complex information.

• Research Mycroft: Understand the company's mission, its AI-native approach, and the security/compliance industry. This will help you articulate your interest and ask insightful questions during the interview.

⚠️ 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.