Senior Brand Designer (12 month FTC)

📍 Job Overview

Job Title: Senior Brand Designer (12 month FTC)

Company: incident.io

Location: London, England, United Kingdom

Job Type: FULL_TIME

Category: Marketing & Brand Operations

Date Posted: 2026-09-14

Experience Level: 5-10 Years

Remote Status: Hybrid

🚀 Role Summary

• Own and execute brand design across all company touchpoints, ensuring visual consistency and high-quality output for marketing initiatives.

• Lead the creative design and rollout of product launch assets, including video animation and campaign collateral, in close partnership with Product Designers.

• Drive the design strategy and execution for incident.io's event program, including its flagship conference, SEV0, encompassing booth design, collateral, and event-specific systems.

• Act as a key advocate for brand integrity and design excellence as incident.io scales, contributing to the development and refinement of its visual identity.

• Collaborate strategically with the marketing team on both immediate campaigns and long-term brand development projects, bringing a proactive and innovative perspective.

📝 Enhancement Note: This role is a fixed-term contract (FTC) for approximately 12 months, covering maternity leave. While it's a temporary position, the description emphasizes that it is not a "holding-pattern role," indicating that the incumbent will have significant ownership and impact, particularly in extending an established brand rather than building from scratch. The hybrid work model suggests a need for strong self-management and communication skills.

📈 Primary Responsibilities

• Brand Design Ownership: Oversee and execute brand design elements across all channels, including website, social media, advertising, guides, reports, events, and merchandise, ensuring consistent quality and adherence to brand guidelines.

• Launch Creative Development: Design and produce creative assets for product launches, including motion graphics, animation for launch videos, and campaign materials, working collaboratively with Product Designers on screen-based product work.

• Event Design Leadership: Lead the design strategy and implementation for incident.io's events program, including its flagship conference SEV0, creating compelling booth designs, banners, printed collateral, promotional items (swag), and maintaining a cohesive event design system.

• Brand Consistency Advocate: Champion and enforce brand consistency and high design craft standards across all company outputs as the organization scales, contributing to the evolution of the incident.io brand.

• Marketing Collaboration: Partner closely with the marketing team on tactical campaigns and strategic, long-term brand development initiatives, contributing unique insights and perspectives to shape the brand's trajectory.

• Cross-Functional Design Partnership: Collaborate effectively with the broader Design team, recognizing the symbiotic relationship between product design and brand design, and contributing to a unified design vision.

📝 Enhancement Note: The responsibilities highlight a significant degree of autonomy and ownership, particularly in areas like event design and launch creative. The emphasis on "partnering with Product Designers on product-screen work" and "collaborating with the wider design team" suggests a need for strong interpersonal skills and the ability to integrate brand efforts with product development.

🎓 Skills & Qualifications

Education: While no specific degree is mandated, a strong educational foundation in Graphic Design, Visual Communications, Brand Design, or a related field is implicitly expected, demonstrated through a robust portfolio.

Experience: A minimum of 5-10 years of professional experience in brand design, with a significant portion focused on marketing and campaign execution within a fast-paced environment, ideally a startup or technology company. Experience in a fixed-term contract role is a bonus.

Required Skills:

• Exceptional Brand & Marketing Design Portfolio: A comprehensive portfolio showcasing high-impact, engaging work across websites, social media campaigns, guides, and presentations, with meticulous attention to detail.

• Digital Design Proficiency (Figma): Strong command of Figma for digital design creation, wireframing, and prototyping.

• Print Design Proficiency (Adobe Suite): Expertise in Adobe Creative Suite (e.g., Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign) for print collateral, event materials, and other physical assets.

• Frontend Engineering Collaboration: Proven experience working closely with frontend engineers to translate designs into functional web elements, with the ability to tweak HTML/CSS for precise implementation.

• Collaborative Mindset: Demonstrated ability to proactively share work-in-progress designs, provide constructive feedback, and effectively incorporate input from various stakeholders.

• Pragmatic & Organized Approach: Ability to thrive in a dynamic startup environment, manage multiple projects, and navigate ambiguity with a solutions-oriented mindset.

• Brand Extension Capability: Proven ability to effectively extend and build upon an established brand identity, rather than needing to create one from scratch.

Preferred Skills:

• Motion Design & Animation: Experience with motion graphics and animation software (e.g., After Effects) for creating dynamic visual content.

• Event & Booth Design: Specific experience designing physical event spaces, trade show booths, and large-scale installations.

• Contract/FTC Experience: Familiarity with the demands and pace of fixed-term contract roles, enabling rapid productivity.

• Understanding of Software/Tech Industry: Familiarity with the software industry, particularly SaaS or developer tools, and their associated branding and marketing needs.

📝 Enhancement Note: The "Comfort picking up an established brand" point is a critical differentiator for this role, shifting the focus from brand creation to brand stewardship and evolution. The mention of tweaking HTML/CSS indicates a "design technologist" inclination, where design and implementation overlap.

📊 Process & Systems Portfolio Requirements

Portfolio Essentials:

• Brand Identity Extension Case Studies: Showcase examples of how you've taken an existing visual identity and successfully applied it across diverse marketing channels and campaign initiatives, demonstrating strategic thinking and creative problem-solving.

• High-Impact Campaign Deliverables: Present tangible results from integrated marketing campaigns, detailing your role in designing assets that drove engagement, conversions, or brand awareness.

• Website Design & Optimization Examples: Include examples of web design projects, highlighting your process from concept to final implementation, and any measurable impact on user experience or conversion rates.

• Event Design System Showcase: If available, demonstrate experience in creating and applying design systems for events, including collateral examples and how consistency was maintained.

• Collaboration & Iteration Evidence: Include examples that illustrate your collaborative process, showing how you've incorporated feedback and iterated on designs with stakeholders and engineers.

Process Documentation:

• Workflow Design for Campaigns: Illustrate your process for managing the design lifecycle of marketing campaigns, from brief to final asset delivery, including timelines, approvals, and feedback loops.

• Design System Implementation: Detail your approach to implementing and maintaining design systems for brand assets and event collateral, ensuring scalability and consistency.

• Cross-Functional Handoff Protocols: Demonstrate clear processes for handing off design assets to engineering and marketing teams, ensuring all necessary specifications and assets are provided accurately.

• Quality Assurance for Brand Assets: Outline your methods for ensuring the quality, accuracy, and brand compliance of all design deliverables before public release.

📝 Enhancement Note: For a brand design role, the portfolio is paramount. The emphasis should be on demonstrating impact and process, not just aesthetics. For this specific role, showcasing how one can creatively and effectively extend an existing brand identity is crucial.

💵 Compensation & Benefits

Salary Range: £80,000 - £115,000 per annum.

Explanation of Range: This range is competitive for a Senior Brand Designer role in London, reflecting the required experience level (5-10 years), the fixed-term nature of the contract, and the high-growth tech environment of incident.io. The upper end of the range accounts for exceptional candidates with specialized skills like motion design or extensive event experience.

Benefits:

• Private Medical Insurance: Comprehensive coverage for employees and their loved ones.

• Competitive Annual Leave: Generous paid time off to ensure work-life balance and prevent burnout.

• First Friday of Every Month Off: A unique benefit providing an extended weekend every month.

• Enhanced Pension Scheme: Employer contributions to a pension plan designed for long-term financial security.

• Meaningful Equity: Opportunity to share in the company's success through stock options or similar equity programs, reflecting rapid scaling.

• Unlimited AI Spend: A forward-thinking benefit encouraging exploration and utilization of AI tools across all departments.

• Generous Parental Leave: Supportive leave policies for new parents to prioritize family.

• Personal Setup Budget: £1,000 allowance for optimizing home office or personal workspace setup.

• Personal Development Budget: £500 annual allowance for professional growth, training, or skill development.

Working Hours: Standard full-time hours, likely around 40 hours per week, with the expectation of flexibility to meet project deadlines, particularly during busy launch periods or event preparations. The hybrid model allows for a balance between in-office collaboration and remote work.

📝 Enhancement Note: The salary range is well within the expected band for a senior role in London's tech sector. The benefits package is notably generous, with unique perks like the "First Friday off" and "Unlimited AI Spend" that signal a progressive and employee-centric culture. The inclusion of setup and personal development budgets is also a strong indicator of investment in employee well-being and growth.

🎯 Team & Company Context

🏢 Company Culture

Industry: Software as a Service (SaaS), specializing in AI-powered Software Reliability Platforms.

Company Size: incident.io is a rapidly scaling startup, having raised significant funding ($96 million from Index Ventures, Insight Partners, and Point Nine). This indicates a dynamic, growth-oriented environment with a team that is likely between 50-200 employees, though this is an inference based on funding and growth stage.

Founded: 2019. The company has a relatively short but impactful history, rapidly establishing itself in the critical field of software reliability.

Team Structure:

• Marketing Team: The Senior Brand Designer will sit within the Marketing department, working closely with marketing specialists on campaigns and brand strategy.

• Design Team: The role is part of the wider Design team, which includes experienced Product Designers. This structure fosters collaboration between brand and product, ensuring a cohesive user experience.

• Reporting: The designer will likely report to a Head of Marketing or a Design Lead, depending on the internal structure.

• Cross-functional Collaboration: The role necessitates close collaboration with Product Designers, Frontend Engineers, and the broader Marketing team.

Methodology:

• AI-Centric: incident.io is "all-in on AI," suggesting an innovative and forward-thinking approach to product development and internal operations, encouraging employees to leverage AI.

• Data-Driven Insights: As a software reliability platform, the company likely emphasizes data analysis and metrics for performance measurement and decision-making, which extends to marketing and brand efforts.

• Agile & Iterative: In a startup environment, processes are often agile and iterative, with a focus on rapid development, testing, and refinement.

• Focus on Craft & Quality: The company values "magic" and "extra mile" efforts, indicating a commitment to high standards of work and attention to detail.

Company Website: https://incident.io/

📝 Enhancement Note: The company's focus on AI and its rapid growth trajectory suggest an environment where innovation, adaptability, and a strong technical understanding are highly valued. The emphasis on "fun" and not taking themselves "too seriously" hints at a culture that balances hard work with a positive, engaging atmosphere.

📈 Career & Growth Analysis

Operations Career Level: This role is positioned at a Senior level within the Brand Design function. It implies a high degree of autonomy, responsibility for strategic execution, and the ability to mentor or guide junior designers if the team expands. The focus is on taking established brand guidelines and creatively extending them across various touchpoints, rather than foundational brand strategy development.

Reporting Structure: The Senior Brand Designer will likely report into a Marketing leadership role (e.g., Head of Marketing, Director of Marketing) and will be an integral part of the broader Design team, collaborating closely with Product Designers. This structure provides exposure to both marketing strategy and product development processes.

Operations Impact: As a Senior Brand Designer, the impact is significant and multifaceted:

• Brand Perception: Directly shapes how incident.io is perceived by its target audience (engineering teams, potential customers, partners, and employees), influencing brand recognition, trust, and desirability.

• Marketing Effectiveness: High-quality, consistent brand assets are crucial for the success of marketing campaigns, product launches, and event presence, directly impacting lead generation, customer acquisition, and brand awareness.

• Product Cohesion: By collaborating with Product Designers, the Brand Designer ensures that the visual identity of the product is seamlessly integrated with the company's overall brand, creating a unified and professional user experience.

• Cultural Representation: The brand's visual expression reflects the company's culture, values, and aspirations, playing a role in attracting talent and fostering a strong internal identity.

Growth Opportunities:

• Deepening Brand Expertise: Opportunity to become a subject matter expert in brand extension and management within the tech/SaaS sector, particularly in the critical area of software reliability.

• Leadership Potential: While a 12-month FTC, strong performance could lead to opportunities for future leadership roles within brand or marketing design departments, either at incident.io or elsewhere.

• Skill Expansion: Potential to develop skills in motion design, event production, and deeper collaboration with engineering teams, enhancing overall design capabilities.

• Industry Exposure: Working with high-profile clients (Netflix, Etsy) and experiencing rapid startup growth provides invaluable industry exposure and networking opportunities.

• AI Tool Integration: Opportunity to pioneer the use of AI in creative workflows, becoming proficient in cutting-edge design technologies.

📝 Enhancement Note: The FTC nature means long-term growth discussions might be more speculative, but the seniority of the role and the company's growth stage offer substantial opportunities for skill development and impact that can be leveraged for future career advancement.

🌐 Work Environment

Office Type: The role is described as Hybrid, indicating a mix of remote work and in-office presence. incident.io likely has a physical office space in London designed to foster collaboration and company culture.

Office Location(s): London, England, United Kingdom. Specific office details (e.g., address, amenities) would be provided during the interview process. The hybrid model typically involves a set number of days in the office per week, allowing for in-person team interactions, brainstorming sessions, and client/stakeholder meetings.

Workspace Context:

• Collaborative Hub: The office space is expected to be a hub for collaboration, with areas designed for team meetings, workshops, and informal interactions among designers, marketers, and engineers.

• Tool & Technology Access: Employees will have access to necessary design software (Figma, Adobe Suite), potentially high-performance workstations, and reliable internet connectivity. The "Unlimited AI Spend" benefit suggests a commitment to providing cutting-edge tools.

• Team Interaction: The hybrid model allows for structured in-person interaction with the Marketing and Design teams, facilitating knowledge sharing, mentorship, and the building of strong working relationships. This is crucial for design reviews and cross-functional project alignment.

• Remote Work Support: The provision of a £1000 setup budget acknowledges the importance of a comfortable and productive remote workspace.

Work Schedule: While typically aligned with standard business hours (e.g., 9 AM to 5 PM), the hybrid nature and the demands of a fast-paced tech company suggest a degree of flexibility is expected. The focus is likely on achieving outcomes and meeting project deadlines rather than strict adherence to hours, especially during critical launch or event periods.

📝 Enhancement Note: The hybrid model is common in the tech industry, balancing the benefits of remote flexibility with the advantages of in-person collaboration. For a brand designer, regular office days are likely essential for design reviews, team alignment, and creative brainstorming.

📄 Application & Portfolio Review Process

Interview Process:

• Initial Application & Portfolio Review: Candidates will submit their resume and portfolio. The hiring team will meticulously review portfolios for creativity, technical skill, brand understanding, and alignment with incident.io’s aesthetic and marketing needs.

• Screening Call: A brief introductory call with a recruiter or hiring manager to discuss experience, motivation for the role, and initial fit for the FTC.

• Design Challenge/Task: Candidates may be asked to complete a take-home design challenge or a live, timed exercise focused on brand extension, campaign asset creation, or event collateral design. This assesses practical skills and problem-solving under pressure.

• Stakeholder Interviews: Interviews with key team members, including the Head of Marketing, Product Designers, and potentially Frontend Engineers, to assess collaborative abilities, technical understanding, and cultural fit.

• Final Interview: A discussion with senior leadership to confirm overall fit, discuss strategic vision, and finalize terms.

Portfolio Review Tips:

• Curate for Relevance: Prioritize projects that directly align with the responsibilities outlined: brand identity extension, marketing campaigns, website design, and event collateral.

• Showcase Process: For each project, clearly articulate your role, the problem you were solving, your design process (ideation, iteration, feedback incorporation), and the final outcome/impact. Use mockups to show how designs would appear in real-world applications.

• Highlight Brand Consistency: Demonstrate your ability to maintain a consistent visual language across different platforms and materials. If possible, show examples of how you've applied an established brand identity.

• Quantify Impact: Where possible, include metrics or qualitative feedback that demonstrate the success of your designs (e.g., increased engagement, positive client feedback, successful event turnout).

• Detail Collaboration: Include examples that show how you've worked with engineers, marketers, and other designers, highlighting your communication and feedback incorporation skills.

• Address FTC Nature: If you have previous FTC experience, highlight how you quickly onboard and deliver value.

Challenge Preparation:

• Understand the Brand: Thoroughly research incident.io's current brand identity, messaging, target audience, and market position.

• Focus on Extension, Not Reinvention: Given the role's emphasis, prepare to demonstrate how you would creatively extend their existing brand, rather than proposing a complete overhaul.

• Consider Event & Launch Contexts: Anticipate scenarios involving creating assets for product launches or event activations. Think about how to make these engaging and on-brand.

• Prepare for Technical Discussions: Be ready to discuss how your designs would be implemented technically, particularly concerning web assets and potential HTML/CSS considerations.

• Structure Your Presentation: If presenting your challenge work, have a clear, concise narrative that walks through your process, rationale, and proposed solutions.

📝 Enhancement Note: The emphasis on a "portfolio showcasing exceptional brand and marketing design work" and the specific requirement to "pick up an established brand" means candidates must tailor their portfolios and interview responses to these key areas. The design challenge will be a critical assessment point.

🛠 Tools & Technology Stack

Primary Tools:

• Figma: The core tool for digital design, prototyping, and collaboration. Proficiency is essential for creating UI elements, campaign assets, and website designs.

• Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign): Critical for detailed image editing, vector graphics creation, and layout design for print collateral, event materials, and high-fidelity mockups.

• Adobe After Effects (Preferred): For motion design and animation, particularly for launch videos and dynamic social media content.

Analytics & Reporting:

• While not a direct responsibility of the Brand Designer, understanding how design impacts metrics will be key. Familiarity with tools like Google Analytics, Hotjar, or similar platforms might be beneficial for understanding user behavior on web assets. CRM & Automation:

• Marketing Automation Platforms (e.g., HubSpot, Marketo): Understanding how brand assets are deployed within these platforms for campaign execution.

• Project Management Tools (e.g., Asana, Jira, Trello): Essential for managing workflows, tracking tasks, and collaborating with marketing and design teams.

Web Technologies:

• HTML/CSS: Practical understanding for collaborating with frontend engineers and potentially making minor adjustments to ensure design fidelity on the web.

• Content Management Systems (CMS): Familiarity with platforms like WordPress or similar, if used for website content updates.

📝 Enhancement Note: The technology stack emphasizes core design tools with a practical bent towards web implementation and marketing campaign execution. The "Unlimited AI Spend" suggests an openness to exploring and integrating AI-powered design tools and workflows.

👥 Team Culture & Values

Operations Values:

• Craft & Quality: A deep commitment to high standards in all design outputs, ensuring meticulous attention to detail and aesthetic excellence. This is evident in the expectation for "well crafted" materials.

• Collaboration & Transparency: A culture that encourages open sharing of work-in-progress, constructive feedback, and proactive teamwork across departments.

• Innovation & AI Integration: Embracing new technologies, particularly AI, to enhance creativity, efficiency, and product offerings. "All-in on AI" is a core tenet.

• Impact & Ownership: Taking responsibility for outcomes and driving projects to completion with a sense of ownership, especially in a startup environment where individual contributions are highly visible.

• Pragmatism & Adaptability: The ability to navigate ambiguity, solve problems efficiently, and adapt to the fast-paced, sometimes chaotic nature of a growing startup.

• Balance & Well-being: While working hard, the company values life outside work, reflected in generous benefits and a focus on employee support.

Collaboration Style:

• Cross-functional Integration: Designs are not created in a vacuum; they are integrated with product development and marketing strategies. The designer acts as a bridge between these functions.

• Feedback-Driven Iteration: A culture where feedback is actively sought, given, and incorporated, leading to iterative improvements in designs.

• Knowledge Sharing: Encouraging the sharing of best practices, design trends, and insights, both within the design team and across the wider organization.

• Proactive Communication: Maintaining open lines of communication to ensure alignment on project goals, timelines, and potential challenges.

📝 Enhancement Note: The company culture appears to be a blend of high performance, innovation, and employee well-being. The emphasis on AI is a significant differentiator, suggesting a forward-looking and experimental mindset.

⚡ Challenges & Growth Opportunities

Challenges:

• Balancing Brand Consistency with Rapid Growth: Maintaining a cohesive brand identity while incident.io is rapidly scaling and launching new features/products requires strategic thinking and disciplined execution.

• FTC Time Constraints: Delivering significant impact within a 12-month timeframe demands efficient project management, rapid onboarding, and a focus on high-priority initiatives.

• Integrating Brand with Product: Ensuring seamless visual alignment between marketing collateral and the product interface, especially when collaborating with product designers who have their own priorities.

• Navigating Startup Ambiguity: Adapting to evolving priorities and occasional chaos inherent in a fast-growing startup environment requires resilience and strong problem-solving skills.

• Leveraging AI Effectively: Exploring and implementing AI tools in creative workflows can be challenging but offers significant opportunities for innovation and efficiency gains.

Learning & Development Opportunities:

• Advanced Brand Strategy: Gaining hands-on experience in extending and evolving a successful SaaS brand in a high-growth tech company.

• Motion Design & Animation Skills: Opportunity to develop or hone skills in motion graphics and video animation, expanding the designer's creative toolkit.

• Event Production Design: Acquiring specialized experience in designing for large-scale events and conferences, including physical installations.

• AI in Creative Workflows: Becoming proficient in using AI tools for ideation, asset generation, and workflow optimization, positioning oneself at the forefront of design technology.

• Cross-functional Collaboration Mastery: Deepening expertise in collaborating with engineering and product teams, understanding their needs and constraints to create more effective designs.

📝 Enhancement Note: The challenges are typical for a senior role in a growth-stage startup, particularly an FTC. The growth opportunities are substantial, focusing on skill expansion and high-impact project experience.

💡 Interview Preparation

Strategy Questions:

• "Describe your process for taking an established brand identity and extending it across multiple marketing touchpoints, such as a website, social media campaign, and event collateral. How do you ensure consistency while allowing for creative expression?" (Focus on process, brand extension, and consistency).

• "Walk us through a product launch campaign you designed. What were the key objectives, what assets did you create, and how did you collaborate with product and engineering teams to ensure a cohesive launch experience?" (Highlight collaboration, product integration, and launch execution).

• "How would you approach designing for our flagship conference, SEV0? What are the key considerations for event branding, and how would you ensure a memorable attendee experience through design?" (Demonstrate event design thinking and understanding of user experience). Company & Culture Questions:

• "Based on your research, what do you see as the core values of incident.io's brand? How would your design approach reinforce these values?" (Showcase brand understanding and cultural alignment).

• "How do you envision integrating AI tools into your brand design workflow to enhance efficiency and creativity at incident.io?" (Assess enthusiasm for AI and innovative thinking).

• "Describe a time you had to work with ambiguous requirements or in a rapidly changing environment. How did you adapt and ensure successful delivery?" (Test problem-solving and adaptability). Portfolio Presentation Strategy:

• Storytelling is Key: For each project, frame it as a narrative: the challenge, your approach, your role, the solutions you implemented, and the results achieved.

• Highlight Brand Extension Examples: Dedicate a significant portion of your presentation to projects where you've effectively worked with and expanded existing brand guidelines.

• Demonstrate Technical Collaboration: If you have examples of working with engineers or tweaking HTML/CSS, be prepared to discuss this in detail.

• Showcase AI Tool Usage (if applicable): If you've used AI in your design process, be ready to explain how and the impact it had.

• Prepare for Q&A: Anticipate questions about your design choices, your collaboration process, and how you handle feedback. Be concise and confident in your answers.

📝 Enhancement Note: The interview process will heavily scrutinize the candidate's portfolio and their ability to articulate their process and impact, particularly concerning brand extension and collaborative abilities within a fast-paced tech environment.

📌 Application Steps

To apply for this Senior Brand Designer (12 month FTC) position:

• Submit your application through the provided link on Ashby HQ.

• Tailor Your Portfolio: Ensure your portfolio prominently features case studies demonstrating exceptional brand and marketing design work, with a strong emphasis on extending established brand identities across various touchpoints (website, social, events). Highlight your process, collaboration, and any quantifiable results.

• Optimize Your Resume: Clearly articulate your experience in brand design, marketing campaigns, and collaboration with engineering/marketing teams. Quantify achievements where possible and use keywords relevant to Figma, Adobe Suite, motion design, and event design.

• Prepare for the Design Challenge: Research incident.io thoroughly. Anticipate a challenge that tests your ability to creatively extend their existing brand. Practice articulating your design rationale and process clearly and concisely.

• Research incident.io's Brand: Understand their current visual identity, messaging, target audience, and market positioning. Be prepared to discuss how your work would align with and enhance their brand.

⚠️ 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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