Hi! We're looking for our next Product Designer at Decoda Health, and we do design a little differently here. If that excites you, read on.
We want a versatile, intrinsically motivated designer who's excited to help rethink how modern healthcare software is built. At Decoda, you'll be part designer, part product manager, part consultant, and part design-system owner (or some combination of the four!). What matters is solving the customer's problem — the tools and process you use to get there are up to you.
We're a YC-backed team building the operating system for medical practices: software that automates the high-friction work — scheduling, payments, communications, and charting — so providers can focus on patients.
How We Work
On most product teams, design runs like an assembly line: a product manager writes a brief, hands it to a designer, the designer produces mocks, and the mocks get handed to engineers. You've probably lived this before.
We take a more principled approach. Once you've designed software long enough, you realize design is needed in different degrees on every project. Sometimes a settings page just needs an engineer to reuse existing components and follow some documentation you wrote. Other times, a designer should effectively be the product manager and own a project from beginning to end. We don't force every project through the same pipeline.
Design at Decoda isn't owned solely by the people with "designer" in their title — it's owned by the whole product team. The design function's job isn't to make every decision; it's to equip the whole team to make better decisions themselves, while we take on the biggest design challenges ourselves. We don't settle for the status quo.
You'll get a high-ownership, fast-moving environment with as much autonomy as you can handle, working on-site in Toronto alongside a high-talent, zero-ego team.
What We're Building
Clinics want to deliver great care while running a smooth, profitable practice. To get there, front-desk staff and providers perform thousands of small tasks every day — booking and rebooking appointments, chasing down forms, collecting payments, answering messages, and keeping charts up to date. Teams are constantly underwater.
Take something as ordinary as getting a patient in the door. A coordinator has to find an opening that fits both the patient and the right provider, confirm insurance or collect payment, send reminders, and reshuffle the whole day when a single cancellation cascades through the schedule.
Decoda automates and simplifies this work. We put a lot of effort into designing products that are approachable for newcomers but can be mastered and extended by power users — in many ways, spreadsheets set the bar here (and are often what we replace!). The surface area is enormous, and there's a lot of room to raise the bar.
Why you should or shouldn't apply
Your qualifications:
3+ years of product design experience in desktop or web SaaS.
Able to think from first principles instead of simply applying the "standard" UX process.
Can break down complex user problems by asking the questions that narrow the solution space.
Enough experience that your intuition can solve many usability problems without relying solely on data, metrics, or research.
Curious and resourceful enough to come up with creative solutions and de-risk them appropriately.
Strong skills in layout, navigation, information architecture, UI, and interaction design.
Strong visual design skills and an obsession with craft and detail.
As a bonus, experience at an early-stage startup, time as a solo designer, or work in health tech or another complex, regulated domain.
You may want to apply if you're excited about:
Creating leverage and impact far above what you'd see in a typical product-team structure. You won't be a cog in the wheel — the wheel isn't very big!
Working across a massive product surface area — many user types, jobs-to-be-done, and usability challenges — instead of one narrow problem for years.
Helping reinvent the design model for modern healthcare software. What matters is solving the customer's problem; the artifacts you produce to get there are up to you.
Covering all parts of the design process with a focus on craft — information architecture, navigation, interactions, and UI patterns.
Helping build our design system from (almost) the ground up.
Conversely, you may not want to apply if:
You feel uncomfortable designing independently without much guidance from a PM or design management.
You're uncomfortable having your decisions and process challenged constantly by engineering and product.
You prefer the assembly line: a PM gives you a brief, you do wireframes, then mocks, then pass off to engineers. Rinse and repeat.
You dislike written documentation.
You'd prefer a fully remote role (we work together on-site in Toronto).
You want a set structure and rhythm to your projects, or a narrow scope — interaction design only, design system only, and so on.
On a weekly basis you'll find yourself
Consulting for engineers who need help structuring layout, typography, and flows.
Digging into problems by talking to customers, partnering with go-to-market, and requesting data so you can present confident, well-supported proposals.
Using Figma to draw out your ideas and create the visual artifacts that get stakeholders aligned.
Writing specs that detail your design proposals — a core part of how we work and how we align on the biggest decisions.
Taking ownership of larger features and thinking through jobs-to-be-done, navigation, information architecture, layout, and interaction.
Taking in customer feedback and using heuristics to build your own usability backlog and propose projects for engineers to pick up.
Consolidating and refining our design system to be functional, aesthetic, and best-in-class.
Interview Process
Our process is designed to help you show your best self. We favor practical interviews that simulate what it's like to work together — we'll dig into past projects, talk through how you make decisions, and work through a design exercise. Expect a first conversation, a portfolio review, a design exercise, and time to meet the team. We'll walk you through the whole process and what to expect up front.
Why join Decoda
Compensation: CA$140,000 – CA$180,000, plus equity.
High Impact: a high-ownership role at a YC-backed company where your work directly improves patient care.
Craft & Ownership: you'll shape a huge product surface and help build our design system from close to the ground up.
Team Culture: a fast-moving, on-site team in Toronto that values high talent and zero ego.
Equal Opportunity
Decoda Health is an equal opportunity employer. We're committed to building a diverse and inclusive team and welcome applicants of all backgrounds, experiences, perspectives, and abilities.