Staff Product Designer
About us
Our mission is to reinvent the way people learn, starting with language.
Learning a language can change a life by opening doors to new cultures, careers, and communities. Two billion people around the world are actively trying to learn a language, but the best way to learn (one-on-one tutoring) is hard to access at scale and hasn’t been meaningfully improved in decades. Speak is building a human-level, AI-powered tutor in your pocket: a conversation-first experience that lets learners actually speak, get instant feedback, and progress through carefully designed lessons. The result is a complete path from beginner to confident speaker across multiple languages.
Speak first launched in South Korea in 2019, where Speak has now become the number one language learning app, and we now serve learners across many markets and 15+ languages. Speak is one of the world’s leading AI companies, with over $150m raised in venture investment from OpenAI, Accel, Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, and more, with a distributed team across San Francisco, Seoul, Tokyo, Taipei, and Ljubljana.
About this role
Speak is seeking an experienced Product Designer to join our growing team of 3!
This is a unique opportunity to help shape the future of language learning. This IC role will help designing innovative AI-driven conversational experiences that redefine how language is taught and learned. Partnering closely with our CEO, CTO, and cross-functional teams, you’ll play a key role in developing product strategy, creating new interactions, and evolving our core product experience.
In this high-impact position, you’ll have the chance to design novel experiences across voice, audio, and video interactions, putting your stamp on features and product direction for an app that is already beloved by users.
What you’ll be doing
Work with teams across product, design, and engineering to prioritize and spec out new features to build
Work directly with engineering to ensure a feature gets built, balancing your vision, technical feasibility, and user value
Design new features all the way from concept to finalized pixels
Design the UX and UI of new features across platforms, developing and implementing a consistent design language
Take focused ownership of designing our AI tutoring product, rethinking the way our users learn language from the ground up
Help support miscellaneous design work across the company as needed
What we’re looking for?
6+ years of experience as a Product Designer in consumer-facing products.
Extensive experience leading design projects for web and mobile products.
Experience working on a small design team and "doing it all"
You enjoy going deep on both UX and UI work
You're a clear communicator and enjoy working closely with partners across teams, particularly in engineering
You've invested in your craft and have experience with prototyping, micro-interactions, utilizing motion, and creating design palettes
An ideal candidate will additionally have experience designing a consumer/content-forward app, audio and speaking experiences, as well as have a personal interest in language learning
Office
San Francisco, CA
Why work at Speak
Join a fantastic, tight-knit team at the right time: we're growing very quickly, we've most recently raised our Series C from some of the top investors in the valley, and we've achieved product-market fit in our initial markets. You'd join at a magical time when a single person could significantly change the course of the company.
Do your life's work with people you’ll love working with: we care strongly about our craft and want every person at Speak to feel like they're growing every day. We believe in the idea that working with people you both enjoy and have respect for makes everything better. We hire thoughtfully and only work with people we admire deeply.
Global in nature: We're live in over 40 countries and launching in a number of new markets soon. We have dedicated offices in San Francisco, Ljubljana, Seoul, and Tokyo, and you’ll have the opportunity to talk to users in each of these regions on a regular basis as well as travel.
Impact people's lives in a major way: Learning a language is one of the single most life-changing skills one can learn, and right now 99% of people never achieve their goal because the process is broken. We’re helping millions of people achieve their goals and improve their lives.
Speak does not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.