About Etain

We're building a fully customizable AI native workspace platform that allows organizations, or individuals, to work the way they think. Think of it as a workspace that adapts to how you actually work.

We're not just building another chatbot or document viewer. We're solving real problems around workspace customization, intelligent document understanding, workflow automation, and knowledge extraction in high-stakes environments where correctness matters.

The Role

We're looking for a UX Designer who wants to shape how people interact with an AI-powered workspace. You'll own, along with our existing design team, the end-to-end design process – from user research and conceptual exploration to high-fidelity prototypes and production-ready design systems.

This is a product design role at heart. You'll work closely with engineers and product to make complex AI capabilities feel intuitive, trustworthy, and genuinely useful. You'll design for real workflows – not demos.

What You'll Work On

Workspace & Interaction Design

Expand the core workspace experience – how users create, organize, and navigate their customizable environments. The level of customization, features and AI integration makes UX insanely important to us and our users.

AI-Powered UX

Design interfaces for AI features like intelligent document understanding, auto-generated workflows, and knowledge graph exploration. Make AI outputs transparent, controllable, and trustworthy.

User Research & Validation

Conduct user interviews, usability testing, and design reviews with real users. Use data and qualitative insights to iterate on designs and validate product decisions.

Prototyping & Handoff

Create interactive prototypes to communicate complex interactions. Work closely with frontend engineers to ensure pixel-perfect implementation and smooth developer handoff.

What We're Looking For

Required

Product Design Craft

• Strong portfolio demonstrating end-to-end product design work (not just visual polish)
• Expertise in interaction design, information architecture, and responsive layouts
• Proficiency in Figma (components, auto-layout, variables, prototyping)
• Ability to design for complex, data-rich interfaces without making them feel overwhelming

User-Centered Thinking

• Experience conducting user research, usability testing, and synthesizing findings into design decisions
• Ability to map user journeys and identify pain points across multi-step workflows
• Comfort designing for diverse user groups and use cases

Systems Thinking

• Experience building or contributing to a design system at scale
• Understanding of design tokens, component APIs, and how design systems connect to code
• Ability to balance consistency with flexibility in a customizable product

Collaboration & Communication

• Experience working closely with engineers and translating designs into clear specifications
• Ability to articulate design rationale and defend decisions with evidence
• Comfortable giving and receiving design critique constructively

Pragmatism

• You ship designs that solve real problems, not just look good in a portfolio
• You balance polish with velocity
• You're comfortable with "good enough" when the situation calls for it
• You can explain design tradeoffs to engineers and stakeholders

Nice to Have

What Makes This Role Different

You'll Design for Real Complexity

• Not just landing pages – real workflows with messy documents, complex forms, and diverse data types
• Production interfaces where usability, performance, and information density all matter
• Multi-tenant product serving diverse industries and use cases

You'll Shape the Product, Not Just the Pixels

• Design isn't a service function here – it's foundational to how the workspace works
• You'll define how AI capabilities surface in the UI (smart suggestions, workflow automation, knowledge exploration)
• Your work directly impacts whether users can replace 3–4 different tools with one intelligent platform

Our Workplace Rocks

• We are a product team of 8 devs, 2 UX/UI designers
• We are established, we aren't struggling month to month
• Great office space with; lunch, a fridge that magically keeps filling itself, and top tier work equipment

You'll Solve Diverse Design Problems

• Not just forms and dashboards: document generation UX, graph exploration, workflow builders, template systems
• Work across the full design spectrum – from high-level service design to detailed component specs
• Balance research (user interviews, competitive analysis) with execution (shipping production designs)

You'll Have Autonomy

• We hire smart people and trust them to make good decisions
• You'll propose and drive design initiatives based on user needs and product vision
• Flexible about tools and approaches – use what works for the problem at hand

Our Design & Engineering Culture

Quality Matters

• We have a 5-layer backend architecture with clear separation of concerns
• Strong typing throughout. Comprehensive test coverage
• Pre-commit hooks and CI/CD to catch issues early
• Designers and engineers share the same bar for quality

Documentation is First-Class

• We maintain extensive docs (architecture, conventions, examples)
• Code reviews focus on clarity and maintainability
• Design decisions are documented and accessible to the whole team

We Delete What Doesn't Work

• "No code is the best code" – and the same goes for design
• We're not precious about our work. We refactor aggressively when patterns emerge
• We remove unused features rather than letting them rot

We Ship

• Blue-green deployments with zero downtime
• Comprehensive monitoring and error tracking
• Fast iteration cycles – changes go live in days, not months

Interview Process

• Initial Call (30 min) – Culture fit, role expectations, your background
• In-depth Portfolio Review (60 min) – Walk us through your design process on 2–3 projects. We care more about how you think than how things look
• Meet the Team (60 min) – Meet the team, ask questions, discuss day-to-day work
• Meet Management (30 min) – If you made it this far, then you have one foot in the door

We work closely together in our Oslo office and aren't set up for remote hiring. Please only apply if you're currently based in Oslo.

We're looking forward to hearing from you!