Senior Brand & Web Designer — Fintech Launch (4-Week Sprint + Retainer)

Salary: $10–15/hr (USD), depending on portfolio strength
Hours per week: 30 hrs/week for 4 weeks, then 5 hrs/week ongoing
Schedule: Flexible, but 2-hour overlap with US Eastern Time (9pm–11pm PHT) required for daily sync

We're Kwalifai — a US-based fintech launching an AI-powered mortgage platform that helps consumers track rates, run scenarios, and get pre-qualified without sales calls or credit pulls. We're getting ready for public launch and need a senior brand & web designer to lead a 4-week brand refresh sprint.

This is not a flyer or social-template job. We need someone who can lead the visual identity of a fintech brand from logo through to the full website. If you've shipped real fintech, SaaS, or financial-product brand work, we want to talk.

The 4-week sprint deliverables:

Week 1 — Brand audit of our current site (we'll provide access), 3 logo direction explorations, refined color palette + typography
Week 2 — Finalized logo (mark + wordmark + variants), complete brand system (design tokens, component library, photography/illustration direction)
Week 3 — Apply the new system across 5 priority web pages in Figma
Week 4 — Remaining pages + reusable templates for social posts, email headers, and ad creatives
After Week 4, we'll offer a 5 hr/week retainer for ongoing polish and new pages as we grow.

Tech context: Our site is built in Next.js + Tailwind. You'll work in Figma — you don't need to write code, but Tailwind familiarity is a strong plus. If you can hand off design tokens that map cleanly to CSS variables, that's a huge bonus.

Required Skills
5+ years of senior-level brand and web design experience
Portfolio with at least 2 fintech, SaaS, or financial-product brand identities — this is non-negotiable
Strong logo design experience (mark + wordmark, not just text logos)
Figma fluency as your primary tool (not Photoshop)
Has shipped a complete design system before (tokens, components, documentation — not just one-off pages)
Strong typography and visual hierarchy skills
Excellent written English for daily async communication
Nice-to-haves (will pay more for these)
Tailwind CSS / Next.js familiarity
Motion design experience (Lottie, After Effects) for animated rate charts
Editorial illustration capability
Has launched a brand from scratch (not just refresh)
Tools we use
Figma, Notion, Slack, Loom (for async walkthroughs)

To apply, follow these instructions exactly. Applications that don't follow this format will not be reviewed.

Subject line of your application must be: Kwalifai Designer Application — [Your Name]
In your application message, include:
A link to your portfolio (web link only, no PDFs)
A note pointing us to your single best fintech or SaaS brand identity project in the portfolio
Answer this question in your own words (3–5 sentences max): "What were the 2–3 hardest design decisions you had to make on that project, and how did you resolve them?"
Your hourly rate in USD
Your timezone and what hours you can overlap with US Eastern Time
Whether you can commit to 30 hours/week for 4 weeks starting immediately
Do not use a generic cover letter. We'll know.
We'll respond to qualified applicants within 48 hours.