Design Lead
Confidential
Posted: January 30, 2026
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Quick Summary
Design Lead is responsible for leading the design team to deliver high-quality designs that meet customer expectations and drive business growth.
Required Skills
Job Description
Location: NYC or LA preferred (remote considered for exceptional candidates)
Reports to: Head of Product and Engineering
About Sun Day
Sun Day is a tech-driven consumer carwash chain reimagining a legacy category. Founded by leaders from Blue Bottle Coffee, Modern Animal, and Square, we’re building premium, experience-first locations across California with ambitious growth ahead. We currently operate 6 locations, with our 7th launching soon, and are at an inflection point where design quality directly impacts customer trust, conversion, and long-term retention.
The Role
We’re looking for a Design Lead to own design across Sun Day’s digital and on-site experiences, operating at the intersection of product design, brand expression, and customer experience.
You’ll work closely with a small, senior engineering team and company leadership to shape how customers, members, and operators interact with Sun Day every day, from first impression to repeat visits.
This role starts product-heavy and expands into broader brand and marketing ownership as we grow.
What You’ll Own
Product Design: Own end-to-end design for our POS, member web app, admin tools, and marketing site
Brand Expression: Maintain and evolve our visual language across digital products, on-site screens, and all other customer touchpoints
Design Systems: Build and scale a shared component library across multiple products and platforms
Customer Experience: Identify UX friction, experiment with solutions, and ship improvements that drive conversion, retention, and clarity
Marketing & Growth Assets: Support new location launches, promotions, referrals, loyalty, and lifecycle initiatives
What You’ll Work On
Reimagining our POS and core product surfaces used across every Sun Day location
Designing intelligent on-site screens and customer-facing experiences that adapt in real time
Creating seamless, AI-assisted member onboarding, management, and recovery flows
Building internal tools and workflows that help teams run smarter, more efficient locations
Designing systems for offers, loyalty, referrals, and promotions that drive long-term membership growth Requirements
Experience & Skills
4+ years of product design experience, ideally on consumer-facing products
Strong portfolio showing product thinking and visual taste
Deep proficiency in Figma
Experience designing for mobile screens
Familiarity with design systems and scalable components
Ability to clearly articulate design decisions and tradeoffs
Mindset
Thrives in small, fast-moving teams with real ownership
Comfortable with ambiguity and setting direction where none exists
Has strong opinions, but iterates quickly and pragmatically
Excited to modernize a traditional, physical-world business through software and design
Bonus Points
Experience with retail, hospitality, or location-based businesses
Familiarity with POS or operational software
Adobe Creative Suite experience
Early-stage startup background
What We Offer
Competitive salary and equity
Health, dental, and vision insurance
Flexible PTO
Real ownership and influence over product and brand direction
Free car washes at any Sun Day location
Next Steps
You’ll work directly with the CEO and Head of Product and Engineering to establish design foundations, ship meaningful improvements quickly, and help define what great design looks like at Sun Day.
If you’re excited about building thoughtful, high-impact design in a physical + digital business, we’d love to see your work.