Narwhal is building the Palantir of maritime - an AI-powered operating system for shipping companies and ships that connects fragmented systems and automates workflows across procurement, logistics, maintenance, and compliance. We've launched our Beta, deployed our first AI agents, and are co-building with major shipping companies worldwide. Now we're looking for a Head of Design to join our founding team and craft the interfaces that make complex maritime operations intuitive.
Department:
Product & Design
What You'll Do
- Own the end-to-end design vision: from information architecture to interaction patterns to visual design language
- Design interfaces for AI-powered workflow automation: procurement tools, logistics tracking, inventory reconciliation, shipment management
- Work directly with operators through our Ambassador Program, watch them work in their environments, understand their constraints, design for their actual workflows (not idealized ones)
- Create design systems that work across desktop (shore offices), mobile (operators on the move), and tablet (vessel bridge environments)
- Translate complex, data-heavy workflows into clear, actionable interfaces that operators trust
- Design for harsh realities: low-bandwidth vessel connectivity, bright sunlight on bridge screens, gloved hands on tablets, operators working under time pressure
- Partner with product and engineering to balance user needs, technical constraints, and business goals
- Build design processes and standards that scale as the team grows
- Design AI interactions that feel reliable, not magical—operators need to understand what the system is doing and why
Who You Are
- 6+ years product design experience, ideally in enterprise B2B, logistics, supply chain, operations software, or other complex workflow tools
- Strong portfolio showing end-to-end design work: research, information architecture, interaction design, visual design
- Experience designing for operators and non-desk workers, not just knowledge workers in offices
- Comfortable with complexity: you can take messy, data-heavy workflows and make them clear without oversimplifying
- User research driven: you insist on watching people use software before designing it
- Customer-facing: Comfortable spending time embedded with operators in shipping company offices, asking questions, observing workflows, iterating based on real feedback
- Systems thinker: you build design systems and component libraries that enable consistency at scale
- Pragmatic about craft: you know when pixel-perfect matters and when shipping fast matters more
- Collaborative: you work well with engineers and product managers, not just other designers
- Experience designing AI/ML interfaces is valuable but not required, more important is willingness to learn
Nice to Have
- Experience in maritime, logistics, supply chain, freight forwarding, or industrial operations
- Background designing for field workers, vessel crews, or mobile-first operational environments
- Familiarity with data-heavy interfaces, dashboards, or workflow automation tools
- Understanding of design for low-bandwidth or offline-first environments
Why Join Narwhal
- First design hire—define the design language and user experience foundation from the ground up
- Embed directly with operators through our Ambassador Program—design based on real observation, not assumptions
- Build interfaces for an industry that moves 90% of global trade but has terrible software
- Founding team equity and the chance to shape how maritime operations software should work
How to Apply
Send your resume and a note about why you're interested to careers@narwhal.ai
Tell us:
- What excites you about building for maritime operations
- A hard problem you've solved that's relevant to this role
- Why you want to join at this stage
We'll respond within 48 hours.
