Deel

Brand Designer 21’-23’ + Design Lead 23’-present

Since its start in 2018, Deel has focused on making hiring, onboarding, and payroll easier for businesses with global employees and contractors. This includes helping employers follow international labor and tax laws in different areas. Through these services, Deel seeks to make managing a global workforce simpler and more efficient for all businesses.

I joined in May 2021 as a Senior Brand Designer and the first in-house brand designer at Deel. In the beginning, I worked on many areas, including sales, web design, product, social media, ads, and outdoor campaigns. I was employee 150, and now we have over 4500 employees, have acquired 15 companies, and expanded our product to be a complete HR tech solution for global teams.

The company and brand have experienced many stages of development, each informed by our experiences during significant growth. What worked for a team of 400 became unmanageable as we expanded, requiring the brand to adapt as well. Going through rapid growth taught us key lessons: the need for a comprehensive approach to brand creativity, the value of diverse skills in our team, and the duty of designers to explore deeper to identify the real problems when solving design issues.

Today, I lead the Brand Foundations team; an executional and strategic group of seven diverse designers, illustrators, animators, and video producers. We focus on achieving long-term brand goals by understanding the reasons behind design requests and connecting them to business objectives. This involves asking the right questions to identify root challenges, using data and empathy to support effective design, and executing at speed while maintaining a high bar for quality.

Deel is still a startup at heart and designers are expected to pitch in where and when they are needed. This dynamic flow of skills and ideas keeps every day unique and most days full of the right kind of challenges.