UX/UI designer

UX/UI designer at Meetup (part of Bending Spoons)

Meetup is a community-building platform used by millions to discover events, meet like-minded individuals, and cultivate real-world connections. Now a key part of Bending Spoons’ portfolio of outstanding digital businesses, Meetup operates with a shared focus on innovation and operational excellence. By applying through the Meetup brand, you will join the wider Bending Spoons team, potentially working directly on Meetup or contributing to other leading products within the portfolio. This role offers a high-performing, collaborative environment where your contributions will make a significant impact.

At Bending Spoons, our ambition is to build one of the all-time great companies. We aim to serve a vast customer base, enable team members to reach their full potential, operate with unparalleled effectiveness and efficiency, create extraordinary value for shareowners, and adhere to high ethical standards. Our strategy involves acquiring digital businesses with untapped potential, maximizing their success using our robust platform (expertise, technologies, data, brand, talent, and culture), and reinvesting proceeds to strengthen our platform and acquire new businesses. This approach combines an investor's focus on capital allocation with a hands-on operator's approach.

For talented, driven, and collaborative individuals, working at Bending Spoons presents an exceptional opportunity for rapid learning, significant impact, and accelerated career progression.

Your Responsibilities as a UX/UI designer

• Help shape outstanding user experiences and impact product success by creating flawless UI and UX designs, from conceptualization to delivery.
• Adopt a human-first approach to designing products, ensuring they delight users through effectiveness and aesthetic appeal.
• Utilize prototyping tools to create intuitive designs and explore innovative interaction methods.
• Collaborate closely with product managers and software engineers to propose new features and enhance mobile and desktop app quality.
• Prioritize user testing and research to keep customers at the core of all product designs.
• Work with engineers to find efficient trade-offs between high-value user solutions and implementation complexity.
• Leverage usage data to evaluate design impact and apply learnings to subsequent iterations.

What We Look For

We value individuals with strong reasoning ability who can solve complex problems from first principles, structure ideas sharply, resist biases, and pay attention to critical details. Drive is essential; we seek ambitious individuals with initiative, effort, and tenacity, who feel deep responsibility for their work and consistently raise their own bar. Team spirit is also crucial: candidates should be generous, support the best ideas (not just their own), be willing to help their team, and demonstrate reliability, honesty, and transparency. Proficiency in English—reading, writing, and speaking—is also required.

What We Offer

You'll join incredibly talented, entrepreneurial teams, working in small, result-oriented, autonomous groups alongside some of the brightest people in your field. This role offers an exceptional opportunity for growth, with a priority on placing individuals of outstanding potential in ideal positions to thrive. Many Spooners in their 20s lead products worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and you could quickly play an essential role in major projects. We offer competitive pay and access to company equity. Typical annual salaries for early career individuals range from £85,797 in London to €66,065 elsewhere in Europe. For experienced candidates, salaries tend to be between £112,189 and £250,512 in London, and €107,837 and €188,848 elsewhere in Europe, varying by location and expected impact. Compensation grows rapidly, and exceptional capability may lead to offers beyond usual ranges. Permanent contract holders can receive pay in company equity at a discounted price, participating in value creation. Relocating to Italy may offer a 50% tax cut.

Our comprehensive benefits include flexible hours, remote working options, unlimited backing for learning and training, top-of-the-market health insurance, a rich relocation package, generous parental support, and a yearly retreat to a stunning location. We ensure each Spooner has the conditions to do their best work.

Commitment & Contract

This is a permanent or fixed-term, full-time position.

Location

The role can be based in Milan (Italy), London (UK), Madrid (Spain), Warsaw (Poland), or remote in selected countries. We recommend spending your first few months working from our Milan office to quickly absorb company culture and build trust, with generous travel and accommodation assistance provided. After this initial period, you are welcome to work from our offices in Milan or London, or remotely from approved countries, as agreed at the offer stage.

The Selection Process

Our screening prioritizes verifiable signals of excellence, irrespective of seniority. We encourage all who believe they can excel to apply, even if they feel they lack experience or have an “imperfect” CV. If you pass screening, you will complete challenging tests that may involve unfamiliar problems and take several hours. We maintain a high bar and extend offers only when confident in finding the right candidate, which is why positions may remain open or be reposted. We consider all applicants and provide reasonable accommodations for disabilities; please use our form for requests. If you’ve applied before and didn't receive an offer, we recommend waiting at least one year before reapplying.

Before You Apply

Bending Spoons is a demanding, ambitious environment with high standards, leading to extraordinary learning, achievement, and career growth, but also requiring significant commitment. The initial recommendation to work from the Milan office for a few months, with support, is designed to help you ramp up quickly and succeed by building team trust and absorbing culture.

If this role excites you and you're ready to give your best, we encourage you to apply now.

Key skills/competency

• UX Design
• UI Design
• Prototyping
• User Research
• User Testing
• Mobile App Design
• Desktop App Design
• Information Architecture
• Interaction Design
• Data-driven Design