UX Design Intern (Summer 2027)

What An Internship at Bound includes

At Bound, internships are a structured experience designed to give you real ownership, real mentorship, and a real project to point to when you're done.

Here's what to expect:

• A Capstone Project — You will own a meaningful project from day one through the final presentation, giving you something substantial to show for your summer.
• Real Team Experience — Beyond your project, you will be embedded in your team's day-to-day work, gaining hands-on exposure to how Bound operates.
• Mentorship & Support — regular 1:1s with your supervisor and a buddy to help you navigate your summer.
• Connection — Intern events and opportunities to connect with the broader Bound team.
• Program dates — Summer 2027 internships run May 17 – August 6, 2027 (approximately 12 weeks).

A note on timing: We're recruiting for our Summer 2027 cohort. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis, with interviews and offers extending into winter/spring 2027. This role is open to students who will be enrolled in or have completed a relevant degree program as of Summer 2027 (e.g., rising juniors/seniors).

About the Role

As a UX Design Intern at Bound, you'll spend the summer contributing to real product work that helps athletic directors, coaches, and families spend less time on logistics and more time on what matters. You'll partner closely with our UX Design team to research, design, and prototype features across the platform, from our native app, to our responsive website, to our admin tool, gaining hands-on experience with the full design process, not just the visual layer. This role exists to bring a fresh, research-minded perspective to our design team while giving you real ownership over shippable work, not just busywork. Success in this role looks like contributing meaningfully to at least one feature from early research through final design, and leaving with a clearer sense of how research, data, and design work together on a fast-moving product team.

Key Responsibilities

• Design user flows, wireframes, and high-fidelity mockups in Figma for features across Bound’s app, public website, and admin tool
• Collaborate with product managers and engineers to translate requirements into clear, intuitive interfaces
• Support user research efforts, including planning and conducting interviews or usability tests with athletic directors, coaches, parents, and student-athletes
• Synthesize research findings into insights, personas, or journey maps that inform design decisions
• Contribute to and help maintain Bound’s Figma component library, keeping designs consistent and reusable
• Build prototypes to communicate design intent and test concepts before development
• Participate in design critiques and iterate on work based on team feedback
• Help evaluate designs post-launch by gathering user feedback and identifying areas to improve
• Explore how AI tools like Claude can support and speed up design and research workflows
• Document design decisions to support clean handoff to engineering
• Present work to cross-functional teams

Required Qualifications

• Currently pursuing a degree or a recent graduate, majoring in UX Design, Graphic Design with an emphasis in UX design, or a closely related field
• Hands-on experience designing in Figma
• Working knowledge of core UX principles and the design process; research, ideation, prototyping, testing
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to explain design decisions clearly
• Portfolio link showcasing your UX design process and work, submitted along with your resume

Preferred Qualifications (Nice to Have)

• Genuine interest in the research side of UX and using data to make informed UX decisions; performing user interviews, usability testing, synthesis
• Experience using Claude or other AI tools as part of a design or research workflow
• Experience working within Figma component libraries or design systems (variants, auto layout, shared styles)

Who You Are

• Curious and detail-oriented, equally energized by understanding a problem and designing the solution
• A collaborative communicator who shares work-in-progress comfortably and takes feedback well
• Comfortable with ambiguity and excited to learn in a fast-moving startup environment
• Someone who sees research and design as two halves of the same process, not separate tracks

Work Hours & Flexibility

Bound does not operate on a traditional “routine” workweek. When work needs to be done, we collaborate to get it done — whether that’s in the morning, afternoon, evening, or occasionally on weekends.

At the same time, Bound supports flexibility for personal needs, family events, appointments, and time to recharge. Employees are trusted to manage their schedules while meeting deadlines and delivering high‑quality work.

Work Location

Bound supports in-office, remote and hybrid work. Some roles may require on‑site presence depending on team needs and responsibilities. Location expectations for this role: Ames, IA office, hybrid flexibility

Why Join Bound?

Bound Core Values:

• Moments Matter – We work for moment creators.
• Hands On. Hands In. – We live these problems and live to solve them.
• You Are Unusual – Everyone was given remarkable gifts. We want to see those in action.
• We Figure It Out – We don’t dwell on a problem or issue, we work together and figure it out.
• Learn It Alls – We are learn it alls, not know it alls

Bound is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, or any other protected status.  Bound is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities. If you need an accommodation during the application or interview process, please contact us.