Summary of Nori

Nori is a startup founded in October 2017 with the mission to enable global engagement for mitigating and reversing climate change via carbon removal. By providing a marketplace where anyone in the world can pay for and get paid for removing and storing atmospheric carbon dioxide, Nori acts as a financial mechanism that will create new opportunities for climate innovation and carbon removal. 

We’re iterating on the carbon offset space. Historically carbon offsets have been mired with opacity which then leads to a lack of confidence and trust in what projects are supported. Additionally, most carbon offsets (95%) represent paying someone to do less of a bad thing, i.e. mitigating emissions.

Nori is different in three key ways. First, Nori only supports carbon removal, or carbon sequestration, which is the only method that can actually reverse/negate carbon emissions. Second, Nori is the only platform with end-to-end marketplace of credits. Because we work directly with project owners who “supply carbon removal”, maintain the retirement of carbon removal credits, and track this all on the blockchain, Nori is providing a transparent and credible way to pay for carbon removal directly from project developers with no price markups. Lastly, with Nori’s API, businesses can offer environmental action and engagement directly to their customers at check-out or in-app, and immediate provide information on the project they supported, with immediate create of certificates with the customers name on it. 

We highly recommend that you review the information about Nori and its team before applying to this position at https://nori.com/careers.

Knowing us better will save you time, allowing you to assess whether or not we are a good fit each other, and will also give you better context for completing the job application below. 

 The role of a UX Designer at Nori

Why we need you

Our biggest challenge right now is that we have more interest on the supply side and more potential demand than we can possibly meet! That’s a good problem to have as a business, and it means that we need more hands on deck. Our customers are ready and waiting, and we need your help to  design a software platform that will help our farmers enroll their carbon removal projects more easily so they can get paid for removing carbon from the atmosphere as quickly as possible.

Who You’ll Work with

You’ll be working within the Product Team that is responsible for designing the software for Nori’s supplier enrollment and maintenance platform and its related marketplace. 

Five key aspects of a UX designer at Nori

• Designing a beautiful UX experience for all users of Nori’s product. You will work closely with the product owner to translate product requirements  into designs and mocks. You will be responsible for the handoff of those design artifacts with Nori’s engineers to ensure a smooth and tight loop between the design and engineering of new and existing services and features. We need someone who can not just gather requirements from customers and internal stakeholders, but also escalate issues that are related to gathering these requirements as they relate to company strategy. 
• Crafting a design system. You will work closely with the engineers on Nori’s product team to design and maintain a library of components and design patterns that ensure a consistent experience for customers across different services as well as a consistent look and feel for Nori’s various product offerings. You are able to think about design from a systemic point of view and prioritize consistency in experience over unique design patterns and components for every problem. 
• User/customer centered design to meet company goals. You will be responsible  for conducting user research, gathering insights, and turning these into actionable work items. This could include activities like writing interview scripts and conducting customer interviews, conducting usability testing on the latest product designs, etc. You should be able to represent the customer perspective in all aspects of work including company meetings. You will work with the Nori Sales & Customer Development team to identify customer groups and align on the motivations and expectations of these customer groups.
• Cross-functional collaboration. While you will be a member of the product team and working primarily within that framework, you will be expected to work with other internal teams.  Nori is a two-sided marketplace with many stakeholders: external partners for carbon quantification (COMET-Farm), third party verifiers, farmers who supply data and carbon removal services to Nori’s marketplace, and buyers of the digital carbon removal certificates. Because we are building a platform to meet the needs of these different stakeholders, you will be expected to work with and foster alignment across the various teams in Nori that work with these external stakeholders. This collaboration will also include QA; as part of the product team, you will be expected to assist in QA testing of built features. 
• Concept validation and testing. It’s often too expensive to explore multiple ideas with engineering resources so unless the velocity of engineering far surpasses design, concept testing in the form of rapid prototyping will most likely fall to the design role. You should have the ability to quickly visualize potential solution sets for any given problem, and rapidly test those concepts. You should have an iterative approach to solving problems. 

Skills of a successful UX designer at Nori

• Know how to put together a research proposal and run a research session / round and present findings to internal stakeholders
• Know how to design prototypes that can be used for user research / engineering handoff / documentation
• Know enough about how the product is being coded to integrate design workflows with engineering workflows, e.g leveraging a design system.
• Ability to define and push for a quality bar in a reasonable and respectful way
• Has at least some experience working with engineers and communicating design solutions and decisions to roles that are responsible for implementing those ideas in code.
• Knows how to leverage a design system, e.g. Google Material Design, when crafting solutions. 

What we’re looking for in you

• Demonstrated experience designing software from rough concepts to fully envisioned and scalable design solutions. 
• Ability to identify gaps in the team and know how to request support from team lead and leadership team for additional roles at the company

Characteristics of a successful UX Designer at Nori

• Agile-minded
• Team player
• Excellent communication skills 
• Passion for designing product
• Determination to get it done
• Desire to cut scope wherever possible
• Genuine enthusiasm for Nori’s mission
• Strong listening skills (a key part of communication)
• Empathy
• Eagerness to learn
•  

How success will be measured

• Team and company progress is measured in monthly OKRs
• Customer satisfaction metrics as it relates to product design

Nice to haves

• Experience with agriculture and farming practices

 What’s in it for you

• Four weeks paid time off, increases to five weeks after your first year. Plus holidays. Taking time off is essential, and we want you to recharge in whatever ways you see fit.
• Full medical, dental, vision benefits covered for you and dependents. It’s a great plan with a very low deductible. With an insurance company called Premera that is beloved in the Seattle region.
• Stock options.
• NORI tokens, proportional to the stock options.

Additional requirements for this position

This position will be located in Seattle, WA. But relocation is not necessary until Spring 2021 at the earliest—dependent on safety from the pandemic. We are working remotely today, but plan to be back in our Seattle office once it is safe to do so. This role will require some travel in the future, but it is expected that most work will happen in the office.

 How to apply to join our team as a UX Designer

On average, this form takes people between 30 min. to 60 min. to complete. How much time you invest is 100% up to you. However, please note that the more context and detail you provide, the more you'll get out of the exercise, and the easier it'll be for us to determine whether or not you'd be a fit for this role!

We strongly advise you to use your desktop computer (vs. your mobile device). Doing so will inspire you to produce a better writing sample.

Once you’ve submitted your form, you can expect to hear back from our team in the coming weeks.

Thank you in advance for your time!