Brand Designer

<div class="content-intro"><p><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><strong>What We Do</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Insurance is a $10T industry still running on PDFs, email threads, and manual reconciliation. Ascend is changing that. We built the first and only complete financial operations platform purpose-built for insurance — combining accounting automation, payments, and premium financing in a single vertically integrated solution. In five years, we've become the market leader: over 4,000 businesses, including more than half of the 50 largest brokers in the country, trust Ascend to bring clarity to complex accounting operations from collection to close.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><strong>How We Do It</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Ascend automates the financial operations that insurers, MGAs, and agencies run every day and embeds directly into the transactions where money actually moves. Point solutions are easy to build and even easier to copy. The companies that win won't just sell tools — they'll capture value where the money actually moves. Ascend is built for exactly that moment. Our customers don't just adopt software, they unlock measurable efficiency with a proven 5-7x return on investment.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Our team is onsite in San Francisco. We bring deep expertise in insurance, fintech, and financial infrastructure to build what the industry has never had.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><strong>Why We Do It</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">The insurance industry intermediates trillions of dollars — and almost none of that infrastructure was built for the modern era. Legacy systems aren't just inefficient; they're a ceiling on what the industry can become.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Ascend's mission is to become the leading financial automation platform for insurance by 2030 — powering the financial operations of the entire industry and transforming the way trillions of dollars move. We're not building another point solution, we're building the financial backbone of insurance.</span></p></div><h3><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;">The Role</span></h3>
<p><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;">You’ll own Ascend’s brand: its expression, evolution, and architecture as we grow. You’ll report to the head of design and partner closely with product and marketing. We don’t treat brand and product as separate disciplines — the product is where the brand is proven, and the brand is how the product is understood. We want someone who treats brand as infrastructure as much as expression, with the instincts of an art director.</span></p>
<ul>
<li style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Give the brand fuller expression.</strong> Much of our brand lives in reputation. Evolve and codify it across every medium and touchpoint.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Own the brand’s architecture.</strong> Products, our AI agent, Altitude 2027, acquired brands: decide what’s shared, what’s distinct, and how the family grows.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Own the moments where customers meet us.</strong> Launches, email, onboarding, proposals, case studies — the surfaces that decide whether someone trusts us with their money.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Experiment with code and AI.</strong> Build tools and generative systems that produce form no template could, and put that range in everyone’s hands.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Make the brand a living system.</strong> Spot patterns, make them self-serve, and keep it responsive as the company changes.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Propose where the brand goes next.</strong> Bring a defensible point of view, and push the work further than the brief asked.</span></li>
</ul>
<h3><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Responsibilities Will Include</strong></span></h3>
<p><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Objective #1: In your first 30 days:</strong></span></p>
<ul>
<li style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;">Learn Ascend's products, our customers, and how money moves through insurance</span></li>
<li style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;">Audit every place the brand shows up today, from product and web to email, decks, events, and print, and map where it's strong, thin, or inconsistent</span></li>
<li style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;">Get fluent in our design system and how brand and product share it</span></li>
<li style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;">Ship real work early by taking over recurring brand and marketing requests</span></li>
<li style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;">Present an initial point of view: what the brand gets right, what's missing, and where you'd invest first</span></li>
</ul>
<p><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Objective #2: In your first 60 days:</strong></span></p>
<ul>
<li style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;">Take over Altitude 2027's visual system and carry it through to print: signage, wayfinding, program, merch, stage and screen</span></li>
<li style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;">Propose a direction for the brand's next chapter through references, texture, imagery, and type, and align design, marketing, and leadership around it</span></li>
<li style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;">Define the brand architecture: how our products, our AI agent, events, and acquired brands relate to Ascend</span></li>
<li style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;">Build the first templates and toolkits that let teams produce on-brand work without routing through you</span></li>
</ul>
<p><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Objective #3: In your first 90 days and beyond:</strong></span></p>
<ul>
<li style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;">Deliver Altitude 2027 in May, end to end</span></li>
<li style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;">Codify the evolved brand into a living system of guidelines and components that people actually use, across every medium</span></li>
<li style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;">Use code and AI to build visual tools and generative systems that expand what the brand can look like</span></li>
<li style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;">Own the visual layer of onboarding, lifecycle email, and product launches, alongside product design</span></li>
<li style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;">Track where the brand holds and where it drifts, and keep refining it as the company grows</span></li>
</ul>
<h3><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;">Must Have</span></h3>
<ul>
<li style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;">3+ years in brand or visual design, ideally in-house. We care more about the work than the number.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;">A portfolio that shows you built or meaningfully evolved a brand system, not only executed against someone else's.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;">Art direction ability: you can build a vision from references, imagery, texture, and type, and show the thinking behind it, not just the finished pieces.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;">Range across mediums: digital, print, environmental, and enough motion to bring things to life.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;">Systems instincts: you know when to build a template, a pattern, or a tool instead of another one-off asset.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;">Ownership: you run initiatives end to end, propose before you're asked, and can defend a decision or change your mind when the argument is better.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;">Clear communication, written and spoken. You can explain why something works and why it doesn't.</span></li>
</ul>
<h3><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;">Nice to Have</span></h3>
<ul>
<li style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;">Experience with B2B, fintech, or technical products</span></li>
<li style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;">Motion design or animation</span></li>
<li style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;">Comfort working near code or a headless CMS</span></li>
<li style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;">AI fluency: using AI to explore, experiment, and build internal tools</span></li>
</ul>
<h4><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;">Base Salary Range: $100,000-$150,000 </span></h4>
<div class="content-conclusion"><p><span style="font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><strong>Benefits </strong></span></p>
<ul>
<li style="font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Unlimited PTO 🌴</span></li>
<li style="font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Meaningful equity 🤑</span></li>
<li style="font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Dog friendly office 🐕</span></li>
<li style="font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Commuter benefits 🚌</span></li>
<li style="font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Free lunch in office everyday 🥡</span></li>
<li style="font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Health care for you and your dependents 🍎</span></li>
</ul>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><strong>Equal Opportunity</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">We are committed to equal opportunity employment and embrace diversity within our organization. We do not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">We encourage candidates to apply even if their experience doesn't precisely match this opportunity. We value diversity and are dedicated to equal opportunity employment.</span></p>
<p> </p></div>