Founding Designer / Head of Design

Job description

Lead a full reinvention of an immersive language learning platform for Migaku, a fast-growing Japanese company, shaping product, brand, and experience from the ground up to redefine how people achieve real fluency. Reporting to Founder & CEO Location: UK or Europe Remote (APAC / EMEA with Asia overlap) or Hybrid in Tokyo (relocation available). [Migaku](https://migaku.com) is a radical new approach to language learning. It already has a devoted global community of 20,000+ serious learners. The next stage of growth requires rethinking, and redesigning, grounded in a deep understanding of how people actually acquire language. ## **The Role** We are looking for a Head of Design to define and execute the next version of Migaku. This is not about incremental improvement. It is a full reset of product, brand, and experience. You will define the product and brand at a true inflection point. Migaku has already grown revenue 10x in the past year and plans to do so again this year. You will work on a product with a deeply engaged global community (over 20k on Discord). You will help work on something meaningfully more effective than existing language learning tools – our mission is to make people actually fluent. You will work directly with the Founder and a highly technical team to shape not just how Migaku looks, but how it works, how it grows, and how it spreads. ## **What You’ll Do** - Own design end-to-end for Migaku across product, brand, and growth - Redesign the core product experience from the ground up - Translate complex language acquisition ideas into simple, intuitive interactions - Create a design system that supports both usability and speed of iteration - Shape a new brand identity that reflects the product’s ambition and effectiveness - Design for virality: how the product appears in social content, clips, and shared moments - Work closely with engineering to ship quickly and refine through use - Act as both a hands-on designer and a design leader ## **What We’re Looking For** - Experience as a founding designer - E2E design experience, having shipped work and seen the impact of your design decisions - 0 to 1 experience - Distinctive, evocative design sensibility. Migaku's brand is currently toylike and playful, and we want someone who can preserve and build on that uniqueness as the brand evolves, rather than defaulting to generic SaaS design patterns. **Please include samples reflecting this in your portfolio**, as it is a requirement for the role. - Brand experience, either having designed a brand yourself or having the taste and judgement to guide others in doing that work. ## **Especially Relevant Experience** - Designing learning tools, creator tools, or habit-forming products - Building products with strong community or viral loops - Creating design systems that scale quickly with small teams - Bridging product design and brand expression in a cohesive way ## **Working Style** **For Migaku**, one third of the current team is located in Tokyo so ideally we’d have the Head of Design there as well. However, there’s flexibility on location: remote APAC or EMEA can work, with a preference for regular overlap with Asia-based working hours. ## **Why Join** - You will define the product and brand at a true inflection point - You will work on a product with a deeply engaged global community - You will help build something meaningfully better than existing language learning tools - Migaku has already grown revenue 10x in the past year and plans to do so again this year