Product Design Lead

ConductorAI • New York, NY

3d

About The Position

At ConductorAI, we are moving fast to build the future of our product, and we need a hybrid design-technical leader who can keep up, scale our output, and reinvent how product design interfaces with engineering. We are looking for a highly technical Product Designer to take ownership of our user experience, eliminate design bottlenecks, and build AI-native, code-ready design processes.
We value candidates who have significant experience with managing complexity, working independently, and are motivated by hard problems.

Requirements

• 3–5+ years of experience designing complex digital products, with a portfolio showing real shipped work, clear problem framing, and strong visual craft.
• Design & Technical Hybrid: You have a strong grasp of user experience principles and some frontend skills, specifically in React. You aren't afraid to open a PR, tweak TSX/CSS, or collaborate at a technical level with engineers.
• Interaction Design & IA Skills: You can untangle dense, stateful workflows and make them feel obvious and intuitive.
• Visual & Systems Design Instincts: You have a keen eye for typography, spacing, hierarchy, and motion that make a product feel cohesive.
• Cross-Functional Partner: You operate as a true partner to engineering and product, not a downstream service.
• Bias for Action & Autonomy: You spot design debt and fix it systematically without waiting for permission. You know how to unblock others by creating scalable systems rather than hoarding design knowledge.
• Design Tooling: Proficiency in Figma and comfort moving seamlessly between rapid exploration and high-fidelity, polished work.
• Clear Communicator: You can articulate design decisions clearly across audiences, including customers, engineers, and operational stakeholders alike.

Nice To Haves

• AI Tool Fluency: Experience with AI-enabled prototyping and using tools like Claude to multiply your output (e.g., translating code to canvas or setting up AI-friendly UI components).
• Complex Domains: Experience designing tools for logistics, operations, defense, healthcare, or other dense, operational sectors.
• Startup DNA: Experience working in fast-paced environments with evolving requirements and ambitious, mission-driven goals.

Responsibilities

• Build an AI-Native Design System: Build a scalable, React-based component-driven design system that engineers can and will use by default.
• Ensure the design system is directly consumable by AI tools (like Claude Code and Codex) rather than being siloed in Figma.
• Empower Engineering: Proactively educate the engineering team by showing them how to leverage the design system to make good, independent UI/UX choices.
• Introduce and lead rapid prototyping techniques, to quickly gather feedback on early feature ideas before heavy engineering begins.
• Help review meaningful frontend changes for design concerns.
• Own the Design Process: Establish a new, scalable design process that matches our fast pace and takes design out of the bottleneck.
• Position product design as a proactive product owner that iterates on the platform without requiring direct hand-holding.
• Establish tight feedback loops with customer strategists and end-users to inform product direction and usability improvements.

Benefits

• The ability to have real impact on mission-critical workflows
• The chance to use state-of-the-art tech to solve novel problems with mission partners
• The opportunity to define your role through time as we grow
• Competitive salary and equity upside with annual merit refreshes based on impact
• Full coverage of health care deductibles for you and your dependents, unlimited PTO, and the ability to contribute to a 401k
• Reimbursement for home internet and cell phone up to $150/month
• Four months parental leave for birthing parent, three months for non-birthing
• $100/month wellness stipend
• Quarterly in-person meetups

What This Job Offers

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