Head of Design, Product Design

BitGo•New York, NY

2d•$210,000 - $250,000•Onsite

About The Position

BitGo is seeking a design leader who remains hands-on in product design while managing and mentoring the design team. This player-coach role begins with approximately 50% individual-contributor work, including ownership of the retail mobile experience and design system, with the hands-on share expected to decrease as the team grows but not disappear. The role is full-time onsite at BitGo’s New York, NY office. The Head of Design will own design surfaces and ship work from discovery through specification, while setting a high craft standard. The role includes coaching designers, strengthening design’s visibility and strategic influence, participating in product and engineering discovery, and shaping long-term roadmaps with product managers. The leader will own the design system and component library—including tokens, patterns, governance, contribution processes, and adoption—and develop systems-based experiences across BitGo’s seven product areas. The role will establish UX and systems thinking across the organization, define processes for critique, documentation, design review, and engineering handoffs, and uphold quality standards including for AI-assisted work. It also requires technical collaboration: understanding design constraints, APIs, and data models, and working with engineering on trade-offs and complex edge cases. The Head of Design will represent the discipline internally and externally with clients, partners, and candidates. Within six months, success means the design system has a clear owner, a versioned component library, and measurable adoption; the leader has shipped work that serves as a quality standard; and each designer understands their development path. Within 12 months, design is involved early in strategy, product and engineering partners frame problems in client terms, the team has grown in size and capability, and at least one flagship surface has shipped with a coherent, systemized experience.

Requirements

Experience leading design in financial services.
Experience building and owning a design system at scale.
Hands-on proficiency in Figma and current experience shipping design work.
Strong UX and product thinking, logical reasoning, and data-grounded decision-making.
Experience managing designers and helping them develop.
Technical literacy and comfort with APIs, data models, and engineering trade-offs.
Ability to communicate directly and hold or revise a position with executives, engineering leaders, and clients.
Willingness to lead the transformation of a technical, compliance-heavy platform into a design-led organization.

Nice To Haves

Experience in digital assets or another domain involving genuinely complex technical flows.
Experience in regulated environments such as a broker-dealer, trust company, bank, or qualified custodian.
Experience with complex permissioning, approval workflows, or multi-entity account structures.
Design leadership experience at a company that underwent a similar shift toward becoming design-led.

Responsibilities

Personally own design surfaces and ship work from discovery through specification, including the retail mobile experience.
Manage, mentor, and develop designers through candid, specific craft feedback, clear expectations, and growth-oriented assignments.
Represent design in strategy, roadmap, and architecture discussions and advocate for client experience.
Partner with product and engineering during discovery and shape long-term roadmaps with product managers.
Own the design system and component library end to end, including tokens, patterns, governance, contribution model, and adoption across product teams.
Design shared systems and primitives across BitGo’s seven product areas, including accounts, wallets, assets, entitlements, and approvals.
Establish UX and systems thinking as an organization-wide practice grounded in client needs.
Create processes for critique, documentation, design review, and effective engineering handoffs while maintaining quality standards, including for AI-assisted work.
Work with engineering to understand technical designs and constraints, assess trade-offs, and address complex edge cases.
Represent BitGo design internally and externally with clients, partners, and candidates.