02.07.2024 –
UI/UX Designer (Data Visualization)

Datawrapper’s mission is to help the world create better visualizations. We provide an easy-to-use, free online tool to create charts, maps, and tables. It’s used by thousands of people every day, among them brands like The New York Times and The Washington Post.

We strive to make best-practice data visualization available to everybody, which is why:

We’re hiring a UI/UX designer with experience in data visualization to join our design team (4 or 5 days per week)

Full-time compensation will be €50,000 – €70,000, including 30 days of paid vacation and benefits. You can also choose to work a four-day week at 80% salary.

This role is available for candidates working from Berlin or nearby. You can choose to do most of your work remotely, but we’ll spend at least one day a week working together in our Prenzlauer Berg office.

What you’ll be working on

You’ll join David, Alex, and Gustav on the design team. As a team, we’re responsible for product and UI/UX design as well as all aspects of the Datawrapper brand and the company’s visual identity. We share those responsibilities on a project-by-project basis, which is why we’re looking for someone with a strong general UI/UX foundation as well as particular expertise in data visualization to strengthen our team’s knowledge.

You can expect your work to include:

• User interface design. You’ll improve our application’s UI and extend it to new features. This can include figuring out requirements; creating wireframes, prototypes, and high fidelity visual designs; presenting your ideas; incorporating feedback; and creating specifications for our developers.
• Data visualization. When working on our visualization editor, you’ll encounter many design questions that are data vis–specific. Designing good UI solutions requires experience within this domain. But you won’t stop there: Together with the development team, you’ll work on extending and refining our current visualization offerings and even creating new ones.
• Design system. We aim for a design system with reusable components and helpful guides on how to use them. Whatever problem is in front of you, you’ll look for solutions that can do double duty.
• User experience research. You’ll help to elaborate UX research to learn more about our users and their needs. This might include helping with user tests, analyzing the data, and making a plan to act on what we learn.
• All things design. In the design we share responsibilities and work on many small and big things at the same time. That means your role can include creating icons, design assets like feature images, slide templates, animations — everything that needs a design.

That’s a lot to ask for, we know. You don’t have to be an expert in all of it!

Who we’re looking for

Yes, we are looking for a unicorn: the generalist with additional experience in specific design areas. Your exact education or degree isn’t so important to us, and you don’t need years of experience if you learn quickly and are a good match for the role. Regardless of background, you’ll be a great fit if you’re comfortable with:

• Designing for complex applications. You like to break down tricky problems and design interfaces that make difficult jobs simple. You look for ways to foreground the user’s task and let the interface fade away.
• Data visualization. The heart of Datawrapper is data visualization and many of our team members have worked in data journalism. You share that that love and have experience in creating data vis. You know about the importance of getting details right and would always choose a simple chart over something fancy if it supports the message.
• Documentation and communication. Not all design work happens on the artboard. A big part is documenting your work and communicating in person, over chat, or in our project management system. This should be something you look forward to!
• Standards. It’s rarely necessary to reinvent the wheel. There’s value in existing solutions, whether that’s technical web standards or familiar UI patterns. You should be ready to make use of them in your work.
• Multitasking. We work on many projects at the same time. You should be able to handle switching between tasks and quickly familiarizing yourself with a given topic.
• Web development. We’re a web-based software company and you’ll be in touch with code, git, and lots of other things related to web development. It’s not required that you write code, but it’s important that you understand it as the medium for your designs.
• Bonus: Datawrapper’s working language is English, but it’s a plus if you speak German as well.

Who uses Datawrapper?

Visualizations created with Datawrapper reach over 200 million unique visitors every month and get viewed billions of times. Our chart editor is used by tens of thousands of users — writers, statisticians, data scientists, public servants, financial analysts, and many more. But our most prominent and visible customers are newsrooms. Datawrapper is used by data visualization teams at organizations like The New York Times, The Washington Post, Reuters, and many more.

We build and support Datawrapper with a team of 28 people, which gives everyone a critical and important role in shaping the future of our company.

What to expect from working at Datawrapper

A happy work life! We at Datawrapper appreciate a shared feeling of doing meaningful work, a high degree of freedom, helpful coworkers, and a friendly working environment.

• Growth, development, and personal initiative. We’re a small company, which means there are lots of opportunities to grow and learn. If you’ve got an idea and the drive to make it happen, we welcome it.
• Few meetings. We try to keep meetings infrequent and short. Instead, we believe in written discussions, good meeting preparation, and short 1:1 check-ins.
• Competitive compensation and benefits, including 30 days of paid vacation, a 2000 euro education budget, and the latest and greatest hardware of your choice.

How to apply

Does all of this sound like something you’d like to do? Great!

Send along your CV and tell us about your previous experience and how you think it makes you a good fit for this role.

→ Send it all to jobs@datawrapper.de with the subject line “Designer with experience in data visualization”

We hope you apply, especially if you’re from a group that’s underrepresented in our office.

We’re looking forward to hearing from you!

– David and the Datawrapper team