Product Designer

Tavus•San Francisco, CA

13d•Onsite

About The Position

Tavus is an AI research lab pioneering human computing. We’re building PALs: a new kind of application that closes the gap between people and machines, free from the friction of today’s systems. Our real-time human simulation models let machines see, hear, respond, and even look real—enabling meaningful, face-to-face conversations. PALs combine the emotional intelligence of humans with the reach and reliability of machines, making them capable, trusted agents available 24/7, in every language, on our terms. Imagine a therapist anyone can afford. A personal trainer that adapts to your schedule. A fleet of medical assistants that can give every patient the attention they need. With Tavus, individuals, enterprises, and developers can all build PALs to connect, understand, and act with empathy at scale. We’re a Series B company backed by world-class investors including Sequoia Capital, Y Combinator, and Scale Venture Partners. Be part of shaping a future where humans and machines truly understand each other. We are seeking a craft-obsessed, systems-minded Product Designer to evolve our product suite and own & grow the Tavus design systems – the components, tokens, and patterns that every surface we build on top of depends on. This is a Product Design role that demands exceptional VisD skills and experience. We need someone with exceptional eye and hand for typography, color, spacing, and detail, who can bring real motion craft to how our system feels in use. But the design system doesn't exist in a vacuum: It has to hold up under real product and UX problems, across a growing portfolio of products, so strong product design judgment is a must. This role has a deliberate arc. In the near term, your focus will be the design system: consolidating, architecting, and elevating it into something stable, distinct, and built to scale with us. As that foundation matures, we expect this role to evolve into ownership of a product area, where you'll carry the same craft and judgment forward into shipping product day to day. We're looking for someone genuinely excited by both halves. You will collaborate closely with product, engineering, and leadership in a fast-paced environment to make the system the clear, trusted foundation for how we design and build. Join our small, creative team of designers, engineers, and product enthusiasts dedicated to thoughtfully bridging the human-machine divide. We're doing it right, sweating the details, and we're in it together. This role is based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Requirements

An indefatigable visual designer, with an exceptional, well-trained eye for typography, color, layout, and detail, plus real motion design chops.
A genuinely capable product designer, with 6+ years of experience and solid UX judgment. You understand user flows, interaction patterns, and product tradeoffs well enough that your systems hold up with elegance under real product pressure.
Experienced building and governing design systems at scale. You can point to a system you've architected and evolved, not just contributed to, with bonus points for work both within an existing component framework as well as from-scratch builds.
Original, not just tasteful. We're not looking for someone who can recognize good design when they see it; we're looking for someone who can produce something distinct that hasn't been seen before. If your portfolio could pass for a dozen other SaaS products, this isn't the right fit. We'll ask you to walk us through specific decisions and the reasoning behind them, and the results those decisions yielded.
Principled and able to defend it. You’re especially adept at articulating why a decision is correct. You push back on your own instincts as readily as you push back on others'.
Decisive in ambiguity: You don't need permission to make a call. When a system decision has no clean answer, you weigh the tradeoffs, make a defensible choice, and move, while staying meticulous about the details within that decision.
Technically fluent: You're comfortable working close to code: reviewing implementation, catching and stopping drift between design and build, and speaking the language of the engineers who ship your system.
Built for startup pace: You can operate with minimal specs and shifting priorities, protecting the highest quality bar while moving fast.

Responsibilities

Architect for scale: Define the token architecture, component structure, and theming model (light, dark, and beyond) that let the system flex across products and surfaces without forking or drifting.
Own governance, not just files: Establish the standards, documentation, and contribution model that keep the system coherent as more designers and engineers touch it. Be the clear, decisive voice when tradeoffs get contentious.
Partner deeply with engineering: Work hand-in-hand with frontend engineers to ensure the system is implemented faithfully and effectively.
Elevate craft everywhere: Bring meticulous visual and interaction craft, including motion and micro-interaction detail, to every component and pattern so the system doesn't just function, it feels intentional and distinctly Tavus. “Good enough” isn’t.
Drive adoption: Make the system easier to use than not using it. Build the artifacts, documentation, and relationships that get other designers, engineers, and marketers to reach for the system first.