Principal Product Designer
About The Position
PermitFlow is redefining how America builds by serving the nation’s builders with an applied AI company that tackles the complex information challenges in construction. Our AI agent workforce assists with permitting, licensing, inspections, and project closeouts, accelerating development across the country. Despite construction being a $1.6T industry, it faces significant delays and inefficiencies. PermitFlow has already improved speed, accuracy, and visibility for over $20B in development. Joining PermitFlow means building the AI infrastructure for the next wave of reindustrialization, supported by over $90M in funding from top-tier investors and industry leaders. Our HQ is in New York City with a hybrid schedule, and we prefer candidates based in or willing to relocate to NYC. As a Principal Product Designer, you will be the most senior individual contributor on the design team. You will set the vision and quality standards for our most complex product areas, significantly influencing the future of design at PermitFlow. This is a hands-on role where you will deeply engage with the challenges of construction permitting, impacting both product quality and the growth of other designers. Permitting is a historically manual, high-stakes industry that we are transforming with intelligent products. You will define how automation and AI are integrated into strategic initiatives and core product offerings, ensuring users understand, trust, and control the AI's output in critical decisions.
Requirements
- All applications must link to or include a portfolio. We want to see a track record of leading high-craft, complex products from concept through launch, with clear evidence of design decisions you drove and their impact.
- 10+ years designing dense B2B software, with deep experience in workflow-heavy products and real complexity.
- A demonstrated ability to operate as a force multiplier: elevating the work of other designers, defining what great looks like, and bringing structure to problem spaces that do not yet have any.
- Strong systems thinking paired with exceptional interaction and visual craft. You sweat the details just as well as you guide strategy.
- Experience designing AI-powered or highly technical products, or a clear point of view on how to make AI legible, trustworthy, and controllable for users.
- High tolerance for ambiguity. We are moving fast, and our design, product, and engineering processes are constantly in flux. We want someone who thrives in that and helps improve it.
- Excellent communication and storytelling. You can articulate design rationale and win alignment across designers, engineers, executives, and customers.
- Technical fluency. We value designers who understand the realities of implementation and can partner deeply with engineers. Hands-on comfort with code is a plus.
- Comfort with Figma, Notion, and Linear, or similar tooling, with comfort making tooling recommendations to leadership as new horizon models & solutions become available.
Responsibilities
- Own the design vision for our highest-impact product areas, from framing the problem through pixel-perfect execution.
- Set the strategic direction for how permitting workflows, automation, and AI-assisted decisions are designed, ensuring users can read, trust, and guide the product's output.
- Partner with the Head of Design, product, and engineering leadership to shape the roadmap, not just execute against it, bringing a strong and well-reasoned point of view on where the product should go.
- Raise the craft bar across the whole design team by modeling exceptional work, strengthening our critique culture, and mentoring designers without managing them.
- Evolve the design language and systems thinking that let a small team ship cohesive, scalable experiences as our surface area grows.
- Move fluidly between deep detail and big-picture direction while holding a high quality bar and a high pace of execution.
- Become a functional expert on construction permitting, licensing, and inspections, leading with curiosity even if this is your first time in the pre-construction industry.
- Collaborate with sales and marketing on collateral and branding as needed, and help us build a permitting product that is beautiful, that works, and that scales.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
Education Level
No Education Listed
