Building the Future of Open Finance
Payward - the parent company behind Kraken, NinjaTrader, Breakout, xStocks, Payward Services and CF Benchmarks - has spent the last 15 years building one of the most modern and globally accessible financial infrastructure platforms in the industry, built to advance an open, global financial system.
Before you apply, we encourage you to explore our culture page to understand what drives us and how we work.
The team
Kraken's Consumer Creative & Design team owns end-to-end creative execution for Kraken Consumer and Krak. Our disciplines cover performance ad creative, 2D and 3D design, motion design, AI video creative and web design. We turn growth strategy into creative that converts across paid, owned and organic surfaces. We work closely with Product Marketing, Performance Marketing, Content & Social, Lifecycle and our regional leads, and we hold the line on brand and messaging quality on everything that ships.
The opportunity
As our Staff Brand Designer, you come to the table with a strong design vision and set the visual standard for Kraken. You design static and 3D work for launches, campaigns and always-on activity, and you make sure it looks like one brand wherever someone meets it. You can take a brief or proactive idea to a finished, approved asset set, and you're equally comfortable building a clean, systemized layout in Figma and modeling and rendering a hero 3D asset in Cinema 4D.
You report to the Creative Lead, Consumer Creative & Design, who gives you direction, feedback and cover in reviews. This is a senior individual contributor role with no direct reports. Senior here means craft and ownership: you set the bar for brand and 3D quality on the team, you build systems others can work from, and you're the person colleagues come to with design questions.
What you'll do
Design static 2D and 3D creative for Kraken Consumer and Krak across product launches, campaigns, promotions and always-on activity.
Concept, model, light, texture and render 3D assets in Cinema 4D, from hero visuals to reusable asset libraries and templates.
Apply and extend the Kraken Consumer brand across surfaces, from organic social, lifecycle and web to illustration and foundational projects like key visual updates, keeping everything cohesive and recognizable without making it repetitive.
Design initiative-specific work, including a distinct look and partner-branded assets for launches such as IPOs, and purpose-built illustration for go-to-market and product moments.
Build scalable systems: Figma component libraries, marketing templates and modular campaign kits with localization-ready layouts, so other designers, other teams and our automated workflows can produce on-brand work quickly.
Use AI-assisted production as a core part of how the brand gets made, and know when it speeds the work up and when it doesn't.
Bring ideas to briefs rather than executing them literally. Push back with a point of view when a brief is unclear or the idea can be stronger.
Version and localize work across markets, languages and formats, with layouts that hold up under translation and market-specific requirements.
Partner with Product Marketing, compliance and regional teams to get work approved without losing the idea.
Collaborate closely with our motion, web, performance and AI video designers so 3D and static work travels well across formats.
Hold a high craft bar on your own work and give clear, constructive feedback on others'.
What you'll bring
7+ years of brand, static and 3D design experience at a high-volume in-house team or agency, ideally in fintech, crypto or another regulated category (a competitor or similar company is a big plus).
A portfolio that proves it, submitted with your application. Include the brief or objective alongside the work and the result where you're able to share it. We'd like to see brand and static work, at least one 3D piece with a short note on your process, an example of work you adapted for multiple formats or markets, and an example of a system or template set that other people built from.
Command of Cinema 4D and the surrounding 3D workflow (modeling, lighting, materials, rendering), with shipped work to show for it.
Expert-level Figma: components, auto layout, variables, and files that are easy to hand off and build on.
Strong layout, hierarchy, type and composition that hold up at small sizes and in multiple languages.
Hands-on experience with AI-assisted production tools, and good judgment about where they belong in a workflow.
Comfort working inside regulatory constraints, including layouts that accommodate risk warnings, disclaimers and market-specific requirements without compromising the design.
Working fluency in Adobe CC (Photoshop, Illustrator, and After Effects for light motion).
Speed without sloppiness. You're comfortable with fast turnarounds, several review rounds and late changes.
A solid instinct for plain language and clear communication: value first, no hype, no jargon.
Curious about investing and crypto at a minimum, and able to make the space legible to others.
Unless a specific application deadline is stated in the job posting, applications are accepted on an ongoing basis.
Please note, applicants are permitted to redact or remove information on their resume that identifies age, date of birth, or dates of attendance at or graduation from an educational institution.
We consider qualified applicants with criminal histories for employment on our team, assessing candidates in a manner consistent with the requirements of the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance.
Our commitment
Payward is powered by people from around the world and we celebrate the diverse talents, backgrounds, contributions, and unique perspectives that everyone brings to the table. We hire based on merit, seeking out people with the right abilities, knowledge, and skills for the job. We encourage you to apply for roles where you don't fully meet the listed requirements, especially if you're passionate or knowledgeable about crypto.
We may ask candidates to complete job-related skills or work-style assessments as part of our hiring process. These assessments evaluate competencies relevant to the role and are applied consistently across candidates for similar positions. Results are considered alongside experience and interviews, and are not the sole basis for any employment decision.
As an equal opportunity employer, we don't tolerate discrimination or harassment of any kind, whether based on race, ethnicity, age, gender identity, citizenship, religion, sexual orientation, disability, pregnancy, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic as outlined by federal, state, or local laws.
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