Head of Design

Allocate•Palo Alto, CA

10d•Hybrid

About The Position

Allocate is seeking a Head of Design to own and build the design function at the company. This role reports directly to the CEO and collaborates closely with product and engineering leadership. The position is hands-on, involving shaping complex flows, prototyping, and focusing on the details that matter. The core philosophy is to start from the client's perspective and work backward, understanding the nuances of private markets to create a great product experience for advisors and fund managers. The role requires fluency with the current design workflow, including Figma, Magic Patterns, and AI-assisted tools like Anthropic, for rapid prototyping and validation. Design is crucial for translating Allocate's complex offerings into clarity and building trust with clients. The Head of Design will be responsible for product design across the advisor and GP experience, applying private markets knowledge, setting quality standards, leading research and prototyping, building and coaching the design team, contributing to the roadmap and product strategy, evolving the design system, shaping brand expression, establishing validation habits, and defining how design collaborates with the rest of the company.

Requirements

10+ years in product design, several of them leading and managing designers
Have built or substantially grown a design function — hiring, leveling, coaching, setting practice, not just running a queue
Led distributed designers and held craft and cohesion high without needing to be in the same room
Still hands-on, and want to stay that way — looking for a role where leading and making are the same job
Strong systems thinker, with a design system carried through real growth
Comfortable across product and brand — may lean one way, but can hold both and know when each is the lever
Direct experience designing for private markets, or an adjacent institutional finance domain dense enough to demand real mastery — fund structures, capital calls, distributions, and portfolio reporting are already familiar ground
Prototype-first: fluent in Figma and Magic Patterns, ready to build in Claude when code is the fastest path — not an engineer, but rarely blocked by code
Pragmatic and experiment-friendly — multiple options, early validation, evidence over opinion
Strong collaborator with engineers, PMs, and stakeholders — clear and flexible
A strong communicator and storyteller — in a 1:1, an exec room, or in front of clients
Based in the Bay Area, or ready to be — this role is in the Palo Alto office
3 days/week in Palo Alto office required
Broadband internet connection required

Nice To Haves

AI-assisted tools into your daily workflow and staying current as the landscape evolves

Responsibilities

Product design across Allocate — the advisor and GP experience, unified and end-to-end
Private markets knowledge, applied directly and deepened continuously, so decisions are grounded in understanding rather than assumption
The quality bar, held with real mechanisms, not vibes: a clear definition of done, pre-launch usability gates, a standing view of friction in the live product
The hardest problems, end to end — research, framing, prototyping, handoff
The team — hire, define levels and growth paths, coach through feedback, reviews, and 1:1s
The roadmap, alongside product and engineering leadership — defining problems well, forcing tradeoffs early rather than at handoff
A seat in product strategy, not just product execution — design's voice in executive conversations, framed around client value and business outcomes
The design system — consistency as the default, speed as the byproduct
Brand expression across the marketing site, campaigns, launch moments, and client-facing collateral
A validation habit built for this size: fast, evidence-led, prototype-first, actually used
AI-assisted tools for research synthesis, exploration, and prototyping — freeing the team for the judgment, taste, and craft only people bring
How design works with the rest of the company — rituals, tooling, process, added only where they earn their keep