UI/UX Designer - Contract

Overview

Unraid 8 is the largest release in our twenty-year history and a ground-up rebuild of the product and its interface. The functionality is built and working. What we're looking for is a designer to give it a cohesive visual and interaction language.

This is a design foundation role. You'll start with the screens our users spend the most time in, then turn that work into a component and pattern library our team can apply across the entire product. It's a rare setup: the product is real and running, so you can use it on day one, and the patterns you design get applied everywhere immediately.

We'd like someone to start as soon as possible. The first 2-3 months will be busy, with the goal of getting the core screens and the underlying design system in place. From there we expect an ongoing engagement as Unraid 8 continues to develop and expand, and there's a real chance this turns into a full-time role for the right person.

Learn more about what's coming for Unraid in our 2-part series:

Part 1 with the Unraid CEO

Part 2 with the Unraid Founder and Product Director

What you'll do

• Design the core screens first. The dashboard, storage and array management, shares, file management, and settings and customization. We'll bring you a prioritized list based on where users actually spend their time.
• Build the system behind it. The primary deliverable is a component and pattern library. Our interface repeats a handful of layouts and content types, so solving each one well means it can be applied product-wide.
• Work across UI and UX. Some flows work well and need to be designed. Others need the flow itself rethought. We'll be clear about which is which, and you'll partner closely with our Product Director, who owns the product's functional requirements.
• Extend the system over time. As we ship new features and hit content types the library doesn't cover yet, we'll come back to you to design them.
  
  

What we're looking for

• A strong product design point of view. We want someone who brings a vision for how the product should look and feel, not just execution against a spec.
• Real experience designing technical products. Unraid's storage and array management have a lot of moving parts, and designing them well requires understanding how the product actually works. We're looking for someone who has shipped design work for developer tools, infrastructure, storage, networking, or similarly technical software, and can point to it.
• Familiarity with the space. Homelab, self-hosting, DIY servers, or NAS. Ideally you're already an Unraid user.
• A workflow compatible with AI-assisted development. Our engineers use AI tooling to translate designs into code, so whatever you design in needs to work well in that pipeline. Training will be available.
• A build-on-what-exists mindset. We have a theming system with light and dark modes and a design system already underway. We're looking to make the product cohesive and intentional, not to necessarily replace what's there.
• A portfolio of shipped work. We'll want to see it and talk through your process.