Staff Product Designer

Understood•New York, NY

7d•$170,000 - $190,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Understood is a nonprofit focused on shaping the world for difference. We raise awareness of the challenges and strengths of people who learn and think differently. Our resources help people navigate challenges, gain confidence, and find support and community so they can thrive. Having a shared commitment to our values is a key factor in any hire we make. We have five core values: Continuously learn. Act with intention. Champion difference. Inspire change. Grow together. Come be part of an organization with an entrepreneurial spirit that’s helping to shape the world for difference. Together, we can build a world where everyone can reach their full potential. To learn more about Understood, please visit: www.understood.org. To advance Understood’s mission and further our impact, we’re hiring a Staff Product Designer, reporting to the Director, Product Design. The ideal candidate is a systems thinker and experienced product designer who can turn complex customer needs and subject matter expertise into clear, useful digital experiences. You’re deeply curious about people and how they understand, learn, decide, and act. You can design experiences for different users and needs while identifying the patterns and systems that allow those experiences to scale. You’re energized by ambiguity, committed to inclusive and accessible design, and actively exploring how AI is changing the practice of product design. This is a hybrid role that requires a minimum of three (3) days a week in our NYC office, with a focus on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. We are a Mac-based environment, and team members are provided a Mac laptop for their work.

Requirements

In this role, you bring deep product design expertise and the ability to own projects and workstreams end-to-end. We don't expect a perfect match across every category. What matters is relevant experience, genuine interest in the work, and a mindset for growth.
Experience: 7+ years of experience in product design or similar roles, with experience owning complex projects or workstreams end-to-end.
Stakeholder and cross-functional partnership: You serve as a subject-matter expert for the team, and you mentor junior designers. You partner with other teams and functions where the work overlaps, navigating tradeoffs and building trust with senior stakeholders.
Domain expertise: Deep product design expertise, with strong systems thinking to connect individual product experiences to broader patterns and opportunities to scale.
Strategic thinking and execution: You own specific projects and workstreams within a team. You translate team priorities into plans for your owned work. You solve operational and tactical problems within your projects.
Project management: You plan and run projects and workstreams end to end. You set milestones, manage risk, and coordinate the work of contributors.
Data and analytics: You use research and data to develop insights and make decisions within owned projects and workstreams.
Communication: You communicate clearly with teammates, your manager, senior leaders, and cross-functional partners, and you lead working sessions and present work to leadership.
Collaboration and ways of working: You take ownership and deliver high-quality work. You proactively identify improvements to processes or workflows. You respond to challenges with adaptability. You share knowledge to help others succeed.
AI fluency: You apply AI to improve the quality, velocity, and ambition of your product design work, and share effective approaches with other designers.
Mission alignment: You are committed to Understood’s mission and to creating accessible, trustworthy products for people who learn and think differently.

Nice To Haves

Experience applying Universal Design, accessibility, or inclusive design principles to create experiences that work for a wide range of cognitive needs and abilities.
Experience applying principles from behavioral science, learning design, coaching, or related fields to product design.
Experience designing across different interaction models, such as guides, tools, conversational experiences, immersive experiences, or AI-powered products.

Responsibilities

Make sense of complexity: Synthesize research, user behavior, subject matter expertise, and business needs into clear product opportunities and use those insights to make decisions within your projects and workstreams.
Design the right UX: Design digital experiences that respond to different users, needs, subject areas, and content types.
Design for cognitive diversity: Consider the different ways people notice, understand, decide, act, and recover, and create experiences that reduce unnecessary cognitive demands while preserving user agency.
Think in systems: See connections across different experiences and determine what should be unique, reused, standardized, or systematized to create consistent, scalable experiences.
Explore and build: Move from early concepts through detailed interaction design to launch, using prototypes to learn, test ideas, and create clarity.
Use AI to expand the practice: Apply AI throughout your product design process to increase quality, speed, and the range of solutions you can explore, and share what you learn with other designers and partners.
Drive clarity and alignment: Use facilitation, systems, and storytelling to move your projects and cross-functional partners from ambiguity to decisions.
Raise the bar: Strengthen design quality. Bring strong product judgment and craft to your work, identify reusable patterns and approaches, and share your expertise with other designers and partners.
Lead through influence: Partner across teams to frame complex problems and navigate tradeoffs, while owning design decisions within your projects and workstreams.