Product Designer (UI/UX)

Urban Ridge Supplies•New York, NY

18h•$90,000 - $210,000•Onsite

About The Position

Ajaia is hiring a hands-on Product Designer to lead discovery and design for client engagements and Ajaia’s own product suite. The role involves speaking with and observing people doing the work, identifying their actual needs, and translating findings into user journeys, wireframes, and prototypes that engineers can build from. The designer tests work with real users before production code is written and maintains design standards across Ajaia’s products. The position combines research and design rather than separating them across handoffs. Daily use of AI tools is a core expectation, including moving from interview notes to synthesis, wireframes, and clickable prototypes. The designer is expected to assess AI-generated work critically, stay current with design and prototyping tools, and apply manual refinement where needed. The role is on-site in New York and includes client-site travel for discovery work. Compensation is $90,000 to $210,000 base, depending on experience, plus a performance bonus of up to 100% of base salary.

Requirements

Independently conduct discovery, including interviews, usability testing, and analysis of behavioral data.
Move quickly from research synthesis to a working prototype.
Design human checkpoints into workflows rather than adding them later.
Be comfortable advocating for evidence-based findings when stakeholders may not expect them.
Use AI daily for research, synthesis, and prototyping, and assess the quality of AI output.
Work directly alongside engineers during development.
Work on-site in New York and travel to client sites for discovery work.
No minimum years of experience required; candidates are evaluated on their work.

Nice To Haves

A public portfolio or case studies available for review.
Experience designing AI-native workflows, including deciding where human checkpoints belong.
Consulting, agency, or professional services experience with concurrent clients.
Comfort with lightweight front-end implementation.
A bachelor’s degree is preferred but not required.

Responsibilities

Lead discovery on client engagements through interviews and observation of people performing their work.
Conduct research with users of Ajaia’s own products, applying the same rigor as to client work.
Synthesize research findings into evidence-backed user needs, distinguished from users’ stated requests.
Create user journeys, wireframes, and prototypes that engineers can build from without guessing.
Identify where human sign-off is needed in a workflow and design those checkpoints into the product.
Test designs with real users before production code is written.
Challenge stakeholder feature lists when research evidence points elsewhere and explain the reasoning in actionable terms.
Maintain design standards across Ajaia’s product suite.
Use AI tools by default for prototyping and determine when AI-native workflows save time versus when outputs require manual rebuilding.
Hand off design work in a build-ready state and remain involved during implementation to identify deviations from design intent.