Meet the team - Charlie

Charlie Dowd

Product Designer

At the heart of our mission at Decently lies the need to grow and nurture a talented team who can bring their expertise to help create innovative solutions that will improve lives.

In this interview-style blog post, we tasked ChatGPT with ‘interviewing’ one of our team - our Product Designer, Charlie - to delve into their day-to-day experience of working at Decently.

Hi. Could you please introduce yourself and share a bit about your role at Decently?

I’m Charlie and I’m the Product designer, which means officially I do most product things from design research through to engineering handoff (although with it being a start-up it’s common to be involved with project management, marketing, and even the occasional bit of no-coding!)

That sounds fascinating! What initially attracted you to join?

I knew the founders previously, and with them setting out to have a positive impact on the world and do business decently, I was extra keen to get involved.

Besides that, other reasons included: taking a product from 0 to 1, more control over designOps; and getting more involved with users. At Decently we’re working towards continuous discovery where you automate recruitment and scheduling of weekly interviews, and then simply join the session each week and use it for whatever suits.

As a startup we can do stuff like this more easily than at bigger companies.

That's great to hear! Speaking of culture, can you describe your day-to-day experience?

We have daily morning standups to say hi and share priorities, which is nice as a remote-first team. Each month we meet up in person and do a team day which might include: updates, ideation sessions, discussions, lunch, darts - it depends! For me personally I could be Zooming with a user in the morning, then in Figma for a bit, then tweaking the website, then experimenting with AI.

There’s always the opportunity to say you want to do more or less of something too; it’s great.

It sounds like an ideal work environment for creative & ambitious people. Could you elaborate on the growth and learning opportunities available?

Flexibility to attempt and experience new approaches in your own work, we also often learn from each other’s growth. One month the founders will see that business decision X worked well (or not) which I see and take onboard, the next month the same happens in reverse.

We do retros after phases and milestones to learn what worked; the culture here celebrates learning, whether it be through courses, books, events, etc.

That's impressive! Are there any specific benefits or perks that you find particularly valuable?

The founders place a high value on mental health and work-life balance which is great for me as a new dad. Besides that, fun team-days that build camaraderie and synergy, and the offer of ownership over my ‘department’.

Before we wrap up, do you have any advice for people considering joining the company?

I’d say life at a start-up brings a lot of variety and experimentation which can be exciting and educational, but that this can lack structure. If you’re OK with juggling priorities and getting it wrong every now again then I’d highly recommend working at Decently to broaden your work experience.

If you are interested in exploring a role with Decently, please check out our current positions, or drop us a line!