Founding Product Designer

About Solace

Solace is a Stockholm insurtech building life insurance that does more than pay out. When someone dies, the family is left with 50+ practical tasks and roughly 370 hours of admin, alone, while grieving. We guide them through it: a personal checklist, tools for closing accounts, an AI assistant, and a digital vault for the things that matter.

We sell through life insurers (white-label) and direct to families. Live in Sweden, Norway and Finland with 25,000+ policyholders covered. Backed by Plug & Play, Wave Ventures and a handful of people who know Nordic insurance very well. Founded by Mindler alumni.

We're well funded and hiring. The team is 5 people today and we're growing to 8 over the fall, so you'd be one of a few key hires shaping how this company works. Small team, ships fast, prompts a lot.

The role

You'd be the designer at Solace. You own how the product looks, feels and works.

The product is a web app, and most people reach it on their phone in the middle of everything else that's happening. You'll work directly with the founders on a short loop. Rough conversation, prototype, shipped, often in the same week. The patterns you set now will still be there at Series A.

One thing to be upfront about: we build with AI. We prototype in Lovable and Cursor, we prompt frontends into existence, and we want a designer who works closer to that way rather than handing off Figma files and waiting.

This is a founding role with room to grow. As Solace scales, it can become Head of Design or Head of Product depending on where you want to take it.

What you'll own

• End-to-end product design: research, flows, UI craft, shipped
• Product decisions alongside the CTO. You shape what we build.
• Design for people in grief: calm, accessible, trustworthy. The emotional bar is high, and that's the whole point.
• The design system, ideally structured so AI tools can generate on-brand UI from it
• Evolving our visual identity. We have brand guidelines, so you're sharpening rather than starting from zero.
• Optional if it appeals to you: branding and marketing surfaces, site, launch assets, social. No brand experience required. The door is open if you want it.

What we're looking for

• 3 to 7 years of product design, ideally at a startup where you owned the whole design surface with no design manager above you.
• Strong UI and UX. Your portfolio should show interaction thinking and visual polish.
• Interest and a curiosity to us AI in your workflow.
• Comfort with sensitive subject matter. Our users are grieving, so this takes research instincts and emotional judgment on top of craft.
• Stockholm-based, We usually work 3-4 days a week in the office but with flexibility to be remote for longer periods.
• Swedish or another Nordic language is a strong plus. The product ships in SV/NO/FI/EN.

What you'll get

• Real ownership. You are the design function and your decisions ship.
• A path to Head of Design or Head of Product as the team grows
• Founding equity, a meaningful option grant
• Market salary, backed by a funded runway
• A seat at the table while we grow from 5 to 8. You'll help pick who comes next.
• Work that reaches families on their worst days and actually helps.