Please note: Applications without a portfolio won’t be accepted
About us
Here at The Plum Guide we’re building a marketplace of the world’s best holiday homes. For real. We are taking a systematic approach to testing every single home on the planet, and accepting only the ones that will make for an unforgettable experience.
We are backed by an all-star VC cast including LocalGlobe with Octopus Ventures – who have also funded the likes of Secret Escapes, Trouva, depop, Moo, TransferWise, Zoopla and CityMapper. We are in London, Paris, Rome, Milan, New York and LA, and will be opening 20+ cities in 2019.
The role
You’ll be joining the new Product Design team on a 3 month freelance basis. Our mission is to create amazing user experience, and transform Plum into a design-led startup (and I’m not just using buzzwords here!).
Our team is dedicated to understanding our users, their needs and behaviours. We’re looking for someone passionate about shaping our product through great user experience and design.
What you’ll do
- Help implement design practices that focus on our users, and shape product strategy together with product managers
- Build empathy for our customers, understand their wants and needs and build a strong vision for what we could do to help them
- Work with the team to define, design and iterate on product features, and to design and build our future design system
- Evangelise design within the business and externally (e.g. events, conferences)
- Define our design standards, documentation, and processes with the team to further our design practice
- Be a champion for quality and attention to detail, and help your product team understand and appreciate the impact of great design and how to make it happen
What you’ll work on
Your job will be split into different buckets, and you’ll be supported by researchers, product managers, data analysts, developers and other stakeholders on all of them.
1. Our guest and host experiences
You’ll focus on our main products, learning about user needs and making sure we’re always iterating key features as well as predicting what we should build next. This is both about innovating and improving what we already do well. Examples:
- How might we educate hosts on why they should use Instant Book?
- How might we help guests find homes based on the type of trip they want to have?
2. Our landing pages
You’ll also work with our Marketing team on improving our conversion and advocacy, making sure we’re constantly learning and iterating on many aspects of our marketing funnels. Examples:
- How might we convert more guests into booking longer bookings without phone assistance?
- How might we convert more qualified hosts into applying to be on Plum?
3. Internal tools and localisation
You’ll also dip into our localisation and globalisation efforts, learning the different cultural aspects and user needs of different countries, and how best to shape our entire product so we’re equally successful wherever we go. And lastly, you’ll also help us refine our internal tools. Examples:
- How might we convey to our users that we’re global, but a local company at the same time?
- How might we improve our CMS to decrease time spent internally working on a booking?
Benefits
- Transparent, diverse and open culture
- Friendly and fun atmosphere with a drive to learn
- Autonomy and ownership from the start
- Social outings, including our monthly ‘Plum Jam’
- Friday@5 company updates with snacks and drinks
Requirements
Who you are
- You are immediately available
- You have demonstrable experience in shipping digital products
- You’re a strategic thinker, and an expert in translating user behaviours into great user experience and design
- You are proactive, organised, curious, humble and empathetic, so you don’t need someone over your shoulder, and you can multi-task across multiple workstreams
- You can facilitate a human-focused design approach within the team
- You try to understand others people’s perspective and clarify meaning before reacting, and you’re quick (and happy) to adapt to business priorities changing
- You are great at communicating complex concepts clearly and persuasively, and you love to present your work (or at least you’re not mortally afraid of doing it!)
- You have a well-trained eye for great visual design execution, and you care about getting things right
- You have a strong portfolio of case studies showing your skills
Bonus points
- You are fluent/native in a second language
- You have an interest in scaling Design & UX teams within organisations
- You are great at writing UX copy
- You have brand design experience
- You’re talented in illustration, animation and designing iconography