Principal Product Designer

Bankrate

2h • $120,000 - $180,000 • Hybrid

About The Position

This role is open to remote or hybrid candidates (East Coast preference), with hybrid being central to our New York, NY or Charlotte area offices. Must be able to work Eastern Standard Time hours. You make high-level decisions on how brand and consumer experiences are strategically implemented, and you lead large-scale projects, on your own or with other designers. You report to the Head of Design and work closely with Product leaders and our Lead Consumer Researcher. You'll also help shape how Bankrate's UX advocates for the consumer. You're technical. You understand code and how engineering works, you're grounded in research and design fundamentals, and agentic tools are a normal part of your work. You prototype in code when that answers the question faster than a meeting would, and you know which work needs polish and which doesn't. You move work through engineering systems and across teams without waiting for hand-offs.

Requirements

• Org-level impact: Your portfolio shows design work that changed product strategy or how teams operate, across teams and not only within one.
• Consumer strategy: You've set a long-range consumer vision and can show what shipped because of it.
• Fintech, startup, or advocacy background: You've worked in fintech, at a startup, or on consumer advocacy, and can help move our UX further toward the consumer's side.
• Research fluency: You've run or directed generative discovery and worked well with dedicated researchers. You can separate a finding from an opinion.
• Technical fluency: You work in codebases, agentic tools, and component systems (shadCN, Tailwind, Next.js). You prototype in code, contribute in GitHub, and have a tested view on how agentic tooling changes what designers can build.
• Craft judgment: You know where polish matters and where a rough answer is enough, accessibility included, and you can explain the tradeoff to others.
• Systems experience: You've built or rebuilt a design system or similar shared system in production, and you've thought about how agents use it.
• Multiplier: People around you get better. You give direct feedback and earn trust with PMs, engineers, and designers who don't report to you

Responsibilities

• Form a view of where the consumer experience should go, including how it advocates for the consumer, and argue for it. Make it concrete with concepts, principles, and prototypes teams can build toward.
• Make the high-level calls on how brand and consumer experiences are implemented, and lead large-scale projects solo or with other designers.
• Work with the Lead Consumer Researcher to decide what we research next, including generative discovery that looks past the current roadmap. Frame the questions, and make sure the findings change what gets built.
• Build the systems that let designers and agents work well together. That includes the design system and UX copy system, plus everything around them: how they're structured, documented, connected to code, and exposed to agentic tools. Design ownership is shared, so your job is the systems thinking: deciding where rules help and where they slow people down.
• Drive consumer innovation and strategic initiatives that span functions. Find opportunities no single team owns, make the case, and work with product and engineering to get them started.
• Mentor designers at every level through direct feedback, critique, and working next to them on hard problems. Raise what the whole team can do with workflows, tooling, standards, and skills others can adopt. Turn what works for you into something the team uses.

Benefits

• Health Insurance Coverage (medical, dental, and vision)
• Life Insurance
• Short and Long-Term Disability Insurance
• Flexible Spending Accounts
• Holiday Pay
• 401(k) with match
• Employee Assistance Program
• Paid Parental Bonding Benefit Program
• Flexible Paid Time Off (PTO): We believe time to rest and recharge is essential. That’s why we offer a generous and flexible PTO policy. Full-time employees accrue 20 days of PTO for a full calendar year annually, with an increase to 25 days after five years of service.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed