Sr Brand Designer - Brand Foundations

Payward is the parent company behind Kraken, NinjaTrader, Breakout, xStocks, Payward Services, and CF Benchmarks, building a modern and globally accessible financial infrastructure platform for an open, global financial system. Their Brand Foundations team creates coherent brand guidelines, architecture, AI-native brand operations, templates, assets, and systems used by product pods.

• Deep experience as a brand designer in agency, in-house, or both, with a track record of building and evolving systems.
• Systems thinking: ability to see patterns, spot structural problems, and solve holistically.
• Strong experience with motion or working alongside motion designers; comfortable with diverse digital brand touchpoints.
• Brand identity expertise focused on creating meaning, trust, and recognition at scale.
• Strategic affinity: comfortable defining brand strategy before execution.
• Strong communication skills to articulate brand decisions to designers, PMs, marketers, and leadership.
• Portfolio demonstrating clear visual systems, coherent brand thinking, and impact on others' work.
• Mastery of Figma and Adobe Creative Suite; understanding of how design tooling, including AI, changes brand practice.
• Genuine curiosity about crypto, technology, and financial ownership concepts.

• Own and evolve the core brand system: brand guidelines, component libraries, templates, and asset libraries.
• Raise brand quality across pods by providing resources and enabling best work.
• Develop and maintain visual identity standards across the portfolio of brands.
• Define and document brand behavior across emerging surfaces, AI-generated outputs, motion, and new product categories.
• Collaborate with pod designers, marketers, and product partners to identify and fix root causes of system issues.
• Translate complex concepts such as crypto rails, onchain finance, and institutional trading into clear brand guidance.
• Lead design reviews with a constructive and generative approach.
• Stay ahead of changes in design tools, including AI, and shape brand system adaptation.

Applications are accepted on an ongoing basis unless a specific deadline is stated. Applicants may redact personal date information on resumes. The employer considers qualified applicants with criminal histories consistent with the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance. Equal opportunity employer complying with protections against discrimination based on race, ethnicity, age, gender identity, citizenship, religion, sexual orientation, disability, pregnancy, veteran status, or other protected characteristics as per federal, state, or local laws.