Founding Designer PM (Product / UI / UX)

A fast-moving, pre-seed Applied AI startup in San Francisco is hiring a Founding Designer PM to own the entire product design practice - from discovery through delivery. This is a rare hybrid role: you’ll be the central product brain, sitting at the intersection of users, founders, engineers, and data, shaping a calm, cinematic design experience that reaches a massive audience. You’ll establish the design system, influence what ships every week, and carry meaningful PM responsibilities alongside your craft., * Design the full end-to-end product experience: content creation interview/input publish.

• Build a clean, scalable design system and reusable component library from scratch.
• Talk to users constantly and translate qualitative and quantitative insights into concrete product decisions.
• Work hand-in-hand with engineering and founders to define scope, flows, and requirements - and ship weekly.
• Take on PM responsibilities: write specs, define requirements, prioritize ruthlessly, and keep the team aligned.

Must-haves (dealbreakers):

• End-to-end product design experience for software products - from user research all the way to final UI handoff.
• A strong, demonstrable portfolio of product UI/UX design for software products.

Required skills:

• Proven experience designing and maintaining a design system with reusable components.
• Familiarity with modern frontend tech stacks (e.g., Next.js, React Native) sufficient to inform design decisions and collaborate tightly with engineers.

Strong nice-to-haves:

• Strong user research and discovery skills - comfortable interviewing users and synthesizing findings into flows and requirements.
• Excellent communication and storytelling skills for presenting design decisions to stakeholders.
• Cross-functional collaborator who works effectively with engineers, data scientists, and leadership.
• Ownership mindset with a high tolerance for ambiguity - you thrive in early-stage environments where the playbook doesn’t exist yet.

You’ll be a great fit if you:

• Move fast with prototypes, mocks, and iterations - daily.
• Think commercially: you design what people will actually pay for, not just what looks cool.
• Are organized, opinionated, and comfortable owning the entire design practice solo.
• Can communicate clearly and work in-person with a high-velocity team.

• Salary: Up to $300,000 USD annually (exact floor DOE).
• Early-stage equity in a pre-seed Applied AI company.
• Visa sponsorship: Not available.