Job Description

Founding Design Role At Navi

Navi is building the future of aviation intelligence — the software, the hardware, and the brand. The way our platform looks, the way our Wave 2.0 device looks, the way it all communicates to a student pilot and a squadron commander and an Airline executive — that's on you.

About The Role

This is a founding design role — and founding means everything. Product UI. Brand identity. Website. Marketing pages. Social media. Pitch decks. Merch. Swag. The investor deck, the fighter pilot interface at Mach 1.6, and the industrial design of the hardware that goes in the aircraft. You own every pixel — and every physical surface — that leaves this company.

If you're unsure how one person does all of that at the same time, this role isn't for you.

You wield Midjourney, Cursor, Figma like a pro — fast, instinctive, and devastating.

You're not joining a design team. You are the design team.

Navi is deployed at flight schools and the U.S. Air Force. Your work ships to real operators in real aircraft.

What You'll Do

• Own end-to-end product design — information architecture, interaction design, and final UI across web and mobile
• Own the industrial and product design of Navi's Wave hardware — the device that lives in the cockpit, captures flight data, and has to look and feel like it belongs in an aircraft
• Design complex data-rich interfaces — sortie timelines, maneuver analysis, fleet safety dashboards, instructor performance views
• Build and maintain Navi's design system — components, patterns, and standards that scale across products and platforms
• Own Navi's brand — the website, pitch materials, marketing, social, merch, event presence, and everything the outside world sees
• Use AI design tools aggressively — image generation, layout prototyping, copywriting, asset creation — to move at a pace that would be impossible without them
• Work directly with pilots, instructors, and military operators to understand real workflows and design for operational environments
• Collaborate with engineering to ship — not hand off comps, but build alongside the team and iterate in production

About You

• 10+ years of professional design experience spanning product UI, brand, and visual design — you've done it all and the portfolio proves it

• You are fluent in AI design tools and already use them daily to multiply your output — not as a novelty, but as core infrastructure in your workflow

• You can design a dense, data-heavy operational dashboard and a clean marketing landing page — and both feel like they came from the same hand

• Deep proficiency in Figma and modern design tooling

• Strong information design instincts — you know how to make complex data legible, scannable, and actionable

• You think in systems, not screens. You build components and patterns, not one-off layouts

• High bar for craft. Typography, spacing, hierarchy, motion — the details matter and it shows

• You've shipped real products and know what it takes to go from concept to production

• You're comfortable being the only designer in the room, owning every decision, and moving fast without a committee or a creative director

Nice To Have

• Experience designing for aviation, defense, or other safety-critical operational environments

• Industrial or hardware product design experience — you've shaped a physical product, not just screens

• Motion design or prototyping skills — animation, interaction prototypes, micro-interactions

• Front-end fluency — you can read and occasionally write HTML/CSS/React, enough to build and not just design

Why This Role Matters

Aviation is an industry where design has life-or-death consequences — cockpit interfaces, instrument layouts, warning systems. Navi is bringing that same rigor to the intelligence layer. The way a debrief is presented changes whether a student learns from it. The way a safety dashboard surfaces risk changes whether a fleet operator catches it in time. The way a device looks in a cockpit changes whether a pilot trusts it. You're not making things pretty. You're making critical information clear — and you're doing it faster than anyone thinks is possible.

What You'll Get

• Flight training — earn your pilot's license and design with true domain expertise

• Impact you can see — your work will be used by pilots, flight schools, airlines, and the U.S. Air Force

• A role that scales into design leadership as we grow

How We Work

• Find a way. We don't wait for permission or perfect information. Ideas come from anywhere regardless of title. Figure it out, ship it, iterate.

• Creativity over control. First principles over process. We'd rather have a creative solution that's 80% right today than a perfect one next quarter.

• Update fast. Come in with a hypothesis, throw it away when the data says otherwise. Ego has no place here.

• Intensity with focus. We work hard because the mission demands it. Clarity on what matters is how we make that sustainable.

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