Strategic Designer

About us

Vow is a food company - a very different one. We’re creating real meat products from animal cells instead of the animal itself.

We’re bringing together cutting-edge innovations in science, engineering, culinary and design to make sustainable food that’s both irresistible and available to billions of people worldwide.

The role:

Vow is looking for an experienced Strategic Designer to join our future products team in Sydney.  

You'll use human-centered-design principles to develop a pipeline of exciting innovative food products and experiences that will eventually be released to customers in Singapore, Australia, US and beyond, across a number of different customer facing brands.

This role would ideally suit someone who is comfortable not only guiding and conducting design strategy, in-field research and synthesising insights, but also someone who has a desire to roll up their sleeves, and use their insights to develop real food prototypes in a fast paced environment alongside scientists, chefs, engineers and inventors.

This is a role that will require comfort with leaning into ambiguity, a desire to learn extremely fast and a passion for food, technology and the power they both have to create change.  

The experience you will bring:

• Significant experience with ethnographic research (quantitative and qualitative), divergent exploration, concept development and workshop facilitation.
• Ability to turn Customer Insights into Ideas and then prototypes that can be tested with consumers diligently.
• We are open to the experience level that the right candidate brings, from 3+ years for mid level, 6-7+ years for Senior or 10+ for Lead/Principal.
• Research and design experience with a business focused on FMCG and/or Technology.
• An outstanding portfolio of work demonstrating strong human-centred design capabilities across a diverse range of projects.
• A sense of autonomy and an ability to look at the critical path in a fast-moving business and prioritise accordingly.
• Have a passion for food, technology, the future of humanity and design thinking know-how to put you at the innovation intersection of food science and design.
• An insatiable intellectual curiosity and the ability to learn quickly in a complex space.
• You are proactive, get to work quickly and purposefully, and are biassed towards action.
• A knack for translating insights into a cohesive story and communicating them effectively. People find you engaging in person, assured and respectful in group discussions, and clear in writing. You are deeply satisfied by elegantly reflecting complexity in concise ways that captivate and inspire.

You will:

• Use knowledge of design research methodologies to discover opportunity spaces for food product innovation, develop research approaches from a human-centred perspective and then deliver insights that let us iterate on product prototypes.
• Develop creative ethnographic studies, ideate the right research materials (stimuli, interviews, kits, surveys, forms, etc.) and then execute either remotely or in-person (must be willing to travel internationally).
• Test our food prototypes with real people, ensuring we’re inching ever closer to irresistible products.
• Analyse qualitative and quantitative data to extract findings, and guide product prototyping.
• Work side-by-side with engineers, scientists, inventors, chefs and manufacturing teams to make incredibly compelling products.
• Evangelise design-thinking in an organisation that is super hungry to embody design principles.
• Work to build out the right team of designers.

What success looks like after 1 year:

• You have built empathy for customers throughout the organisation with a clear insight and understanding of needs and opportunities amongst key audiences.
• You have led the development of various product concepts and are leading the charge on how we consistently test these with consumers.
• Informed by data from your research and 3rd party research, you can confidently inform where our future-products team should allocate technological and manufacturing resources, based on where you believe to be the strongest product marketing fit.
• After guiding the future-products team in research to uncover a number of attractive new food markets, you have worked iteratively with our engineers, scientists and food inventors to prototype new-generation food products that we’re sure once released will blow people's minds.
• You have been able to help the team say ‘no’ to many different prototypes that aren’t good enough, based on the research you have led and the data you have gathered.

Vow, more than just a job.  

Who we are and why join:

• We are building a diverse, mission-led dream team of “Vowzers.” Our mission is to make food products for everyone. To do that well we need a workforce that’s representative of the people we serve. We celebrate multiple approaches and points of view - so we’re building a culture to match. Be yourself and come as you are.
• Work on cutting-edge technology. We’re bringing together cutting-edge innovations in science, engineering, and food, to recreate the world’s most tantalising and unique culinary experiences. All without compromising on ethics or our planet along the way. Since our inception in 2019, we have held the title of being the first startup to cultivate meat from the cells of an undomesticated animal, and have served up our exotic meats ranging from kangaroo dumplings to alpaca sliders in tastings with world-renowned chefs.
• Work with and learn from the best. Our team includes some of the world’s top scientists, innovators, operators, and creatives with decades of industry experience. Despite our experiences though, we all strive to build, break, learn, and repeat. We see the impossible as temporary and strive to learn and support our company and fellow Vowzers' growth as much as possible.
• We’re fully funded and ready to go. We are a growing Aussie biotech start-up backed by Blackbird Ventures, Square Peg Capital, Grok Ventures, Tenacious Ventures, P7 Ventures, Toyota Ventures, and PeakBridge VC.