About Alva

Alva supports women through menopause with evidence-based information, assessment and treatment. Our mission is to reduce menopause suffering and help all women live longer in good health.

By 2025, over 1 billion will be in menopause. 80% have symptoms, of which 36% experience severe and sometimes debilitating symptoms. These can last up to 15 years (7 years on average).

In the UK 13 million women are in menopause, and 58% can't access menopause services locally. The average waiting time for these NHS menopause services? 6 months.

Beyond the numbers, a tremendous amount of women are suffering and there are significant barriers to them accessing the treatments they need. The consequences at home, at work and for the long term of menopause are severe.

We're building a comprehensive digital healthcare service from the ground up to make excellent menopause care accessible to all. By all we mean women of every age, ethnicity, sociodemographic background, sexual orientation and disability. Although the platform’s health services are for women - we're passionate about including men and families in our menopause conversation to really break the stigma. What we're building is inclusive to all.

Our product has 3 key areas: education, assessment and treatment. So far we've launched our content library and our menopause assessment which over 10,000 women have completed since launching in January. Now we're building our first treatment products.

We're hiring our first designer to come in an own Alva's design. They'll be a core part of our tight-knit product team and will work across all areas of the business. We're looking for someone who is excited by designing complex digital products and physical packaging / product experiences! User research will also sit with this person - though they'll be able to pull on resources within the team for support. So we need someone who wants to figure out the complex problem that is menopause - and try to simplify it with beautiful design.

We believe the stereotype that "old people are bad at tech" is fundamentally wrong. Rather, we believe that most tech isn't designed for older people to use. For example, many apps and services targeting this demographic use tiny fonts, despite the fact that eyesight gets worse with age. If most of your users have to go and grab their reading glasses to use your app, that's UX friction. We're building a design system for the ageing population from the ground up, and the designer we hire will lead this effort. We're proud that 90% of the 10,000 women who've completed our assessment did so on their mobile phones.

About this role

What you'll be doing

• Leading product design of our consumer-facing and internal products (software & physical products).
• Developing and maintaining our accessibility-first design system from the ground up.
• Leading our user research efforts and periodically presenting the findings to the wider team.
• Reporting to Phil (CTO) and working closely with our engineers as part of the product team. For example, ensuring the technical feasibility of designs and reviewing the implementations of your designs.
• Collaborating on the development of our design / engineering / product team processes.
• Managing external design resources (e.g. agencies, freelancers) if we use them.
• We're a small team and sometimes it's "all hands on deck". We want a real team player, who is flexible to support things beyond their role.

What we're looking for

A designer who has some or all of the following:

• Significant experience working on consumer-facing products.
• Great communication skills; the ability to breakdown problems, explain work, and relay information in ways that help everyone move forward with a shared understanding.
• Familiarity with accessibility best practices, and an accessibility-first mindset.
• Empathy for all stakeholders in challenging design problems.
• A sustainable design mindset - design decisions made with the long-term in mind.
• A real passion for the craft. Attention to detail. A desire to raise the bar.
• An eagerness to be actively involved in the whole product development process, not just your domain. We need everyone to think and problem solve like product managers.
• A passion for company culture and the conviction to contribute to it.
• An interest in changing women's health - though we don't expect any prior knowledge of menopause.
• Someone who is comfortable being the only designer on the team, and is excited about the opportunities that brings.
• Passion for or experience with web technology.
• At this time we can only offer roles to people who have the right to live and work in the UK.

Benefits

• A competitive salary with twice yearly salary reviews.
• Own a part of Alva - we have a generous employee share option scheme.
• 28 days of holiday per year, plus bank holidays. We also have an extra "birthday bank holiday" policy (take your birthday off, or the Monday after if it's on the weekend. 
• At this time, we're unable to sponsor VISAs
• Post COVID, we will not be accepting remote applications