Sr Founding Product Designer

Syndesus•San Francisco, CA

1d•$180,000 - $230,000•Onsite

About The Position

Our client is a fast-growing Y Combinator-backed Voice AI startup reimagining the modern contact center from first principles. Backed by leading investors and scaling at an exceptional pace — $36M ARR with a team of just 20 people — they're building the infrastructure that powers real-time AI voice agents for thousands of companies across sales, support, and logistics. Recognized as a top 50 AI app and one of the fastest-growing software vendors of 2025, this is a team that moves fast and builds things that matter. As a Founding Senior Product Designer, you'll own the end-to-end product design experience for a platform where every interaction happens in real time, under pressure, with real users. You'll work directly with founders, engineers, and customers to shape features from first principles — not just polish UI after decisions are made. This is a high-ownership role with genuine influence over product direction, UX quality, and design standards.

Requirements

5+ years of product design experience on shipped products
Strong user-centered design background — HCI, design, or equivalent
Excellent product taste with a sharp sense of usability, visual hierarchy, and clarity
Detail-oriented with a high bar for polish and consistency
Comfortable operating in a fast-moving, ambiguous startup environment
Ownership mindset — you prefer end-to-end problem ownership over a narrow design scope

Nice To Haves

Experience designing developer-facing or technical products

Responsibilities

Own the full product design lifecycle — from early concepts and PRDs through to polished, shipped features used by customers in high-stakes, real-time environments
Shape how users interact with AI voice agents, translating complex technical workflows into clear, intuitive experiences
Partner directly with engineers and founders to define, refine, and ship features, ensuring design quality is preserved all the way to production
Conduct customer interviews and translate real user pain points into thoughtful, effective design solutions
Proactively identify friction, inconsistencies, and opportunities across the product and drive improvements from idea to launch
Build and evolve the company's design system, setting standards for consistency and scalability as the product and team grow
Influence product direction through strong opinions, clear rationale, and taste-driven decisions