Founding Product Designer
Location: Madrid (Hybrid) · Full-time · Competitive compensation + equity
Bring elegance to the edge of the map
Orca is redefining how people explore the sea. We’re building the next-generation navigation platform for recreational boating—blending hardware, software, marine-grade sensors, and a beautifully designed app that boaters actually love to use.
This isn’t a facelift for old-school chartplotters. It’s a complete reimagining of what marine tools should feel like in a world of touchscreens, real-time data, and AI-driven insight. Our product is already trusted by thousands of boaters around the world, and we’re just getting started.
We’re looking for a Founding Product Designer to help shape the future of Orca. This is a full-stack design role: part product thinker, part interaction designer, part researcher. You’ll work across the entire journey—from user insights and concept sketches to polished UI and on-water testing. You’ll define how our users plan voyages, monitor weather, race across bays, and cross oceans—with tools that are elegant, intuitive, and built for the real world.
Why This Role Is So Exciting
You’re reinventing a stuck industry. Marine navigation has barely changed in decades. Orca is flipping the script—designing from first principles for modern sailors, with tech that feels more like the future than a manual from 1998.
You’re designing for the real world—not just the screen. This is interface design that gets tested under 30-knot winds and blazing sun, with gloved hands and choppy waves. Your work will guide boats through tight harbors and across vast oceans.
You’ll have full-stack impact. You won’t just design screens—you’ll shape the product. This role spans design, product thinking, and research. You’ll work closely with engineers, firmware developers, marine experts, and users to bring ideas to life end-to-end.
You’ll explore new use cases. From competitive sailing to deep-sea fishing to voyage planning, Orca’s platform is expanding fast. Every feature we’ve shipped is a foundation for something more—tools, modes, and services we haven’t even dreamed up yet.
You’ll work with a world-class crew. Our team includes full-stack React Native engineers, a seasoned firmware group, marine and cartography experts, and passionate boaters who love building what they wish existed.
What You’ll Do
Own the experience. Drive end-to-end design across the Orca app and connected devices. From rough sketches to polished UI, you’ll bring clarity to complexity.
Turn chaos into clarity. Frame problems, explore solutions, and define interaction patterns that feel obvious—in hindsight.
Prototype fast and often. Use Figma, working code, or whatever helps the team learn quickly. You’ll test ideas early and evolve them with real users.
Design with real-world conditions in mind. Sun glare, offline mode, rough seas, long passages—you’ll craft interfaces that hold up under pressure.
Build with a tight, senior team. Collaborate with engineers, firmware specialists, PMs, and domain experts to make sure great design ships.
Stay close to the water. Interview users, observe behavior, and run usability tests with boaters around the world.
Shape our design culture. Help define how design is done at Orca—process, critique, design system, voice. You won’t just follow a playbook; you’ll help write it.
What You Bring
Design Craft & Product Thinking
6–10 years of product design experience, ideally in consumer tech or tools with depth and complexity.
A strong portfolio showing thoughtful flows, crisp UI, and evidence of system thinking.
Fluency in Figma and bonus points for experience building and maintaining design systems.
A builder’s mindset—quick to prototype, eager to test, and committed to finding truth through iteration.
Experience with UX research and usability testing—you know how to ask good questions, spot real insights, and apply them.
Mindset & Fit
Curious, hands-on, and proactive. You don’t wait for perfect specs or pixel-ready designs.
Comfortable with ambiguity. You’re energized by open-ended problems and know how to navigate toward clarity.
Collaborative and product-minded. You think like a product owner and act like a teammate.
Drawn to real-world, physical challenges. You’re excited to design tools that get used in motion, in weather, in real life.
Eager to understand the user deeply. You don’t need to be a sailor, but you’re ready to learn the ropes.
Bonus Points
Experience with hardware-integrated products or tools used in demanding environments
Background in product management, research, or design leadership
Interest in marine navigation, cartography, or adventure sports
Compensation & Benefits
Competitive salary and meaningful equity. We’re building something big and want you to share in the upside.
Hybrid setup in Madrid. Enjoy the best of both worlds: in-person collaboration and flexible remote days.
Sailing time and sea trials. Take the tools you design out into the wild—test features onboard, join field trips, and experience real-world use firsthand.
Access to Orca hardware. We’ll equip you with Orca gear, sensors, and tools so you can design with full context (and maybe geek out a little, too).
Learn to sail. Curious about boating but not a sailor (yet)? We’ll cover sailing lessons so you can better understand our users—and have some fun along the way.
Annual team offsites. We gather each year to reconnect, reflect, and go sailing together.
Apply Now
Send your portfolio and CV to careers@getorca.com.
Tell us a little about why this caught your eye—what you’d love to work on, or why this mission speaks to you.
Not quite ready to apply? Reach out anyway. We’re always happy to talk to great designers—whether now or later.
