Meet the team: Caitlin Rich, Principal Product Designer

We speak to the person responsible for making Freetrade look cool

You joined Freetrade in March of this year. What made you want to work here?

I had been following Freetrade’s progress since the first round of crowdfunding (as an old colleague of mine had invested) and eventually signed up for an account about a year ago. It became an app that I checked constantly and I loved the simplicity. I always wanted to work for a company where I was a user of the product, so when I started searching for my next opportunity, the perfect role opened at up Freetrade and everything fell into place.

What were you doing before you worked at Freetrade?

I was contracting for over a year at various companies, including a couple of fintechs, and prior to that I headed up design at Tide Banking. It’s nice to be back permanently with a company to plan longer-term and have more of an impact on how the app evolves over time.

What do you do at Freetrade?

Principal Product Designer — so I work on how the app looks and feels for our customers.

Can you give a (cool) example of what that means in practice?

It means I get to spend time talking to our customers and learning what makes them tick. I’ll often test out prototypes for new features or upgrades to the app to find what makes for the most frictionless user experience and then work with our brilliant engineers to bring them to life.

What’s been the biggest challenge since joining Freetrade?

Thanks to a certain virus, it is figuring out how to work completely remotely. It’s so easy to get quick feedback from people in the office and to also just learn how our different teams operate (as I only had a week in the office before we decided to work from home). It’s been a bit of an adjustment learning how to effectively use video calls and design tools.

What’s the most interesting thing you’ve worked on?

I’ve been working on how we can introduce limit orders into the app. I also got to “meet” (over zoom) some of our users to understand how they use Freetrade and how they would use this feature.

You are from Australia originally, how did you end up in London?

To be honest, I was about to hit that age where all holiday working visas dry up, and I didn’t want to miss out on the opportunity to live and work overseas. Four years later and I’m still here! I fell in love with the startup and fintech scene as well as with London, which I now see as home.

If you had a magic wand, what is the one feature on the app that you wish you could get done instantly?

Limit orders would be amazing, though there are so many other small features that would make such a big difference to the overall user experience, such as viewing 1-day performance for the portfolio and watchlist.

Lastly, and most importantly, what was the first thing you invested in when you got Freetrade?

I wish it was something a lot cooler, though the first thing I bought was a share of the FTSE 100

When you invest, your capital is at risk. The value of your portfolio can go down as well as up and you may get back less than you invest.

This should not be read as personal investment advice and individual investors should make their own decisions or seek independent advice. This article has not been prepared in accordance with legal requirements designed to promote the independence of investment research and is considered a marketing communication.

Freetrade is a trading name of Freetrade Limited, which is a member firm of the London Stock Exchange and is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Registered in England and Wales (no. 09797821).