Senior Product Design Specialist

About the Role:

This is primarily a product design position, not a design-systems role. Expect roughly 60% product design and 40% design systems, though this split is not fixed and will shift based on what the business needs. You will simplify complex operational problems into polished, intuitive experiences, and strengthen the design foundations that keep nine products feeling like one. We think of a design system as a product, not a collection of components.

What will be your responsibilities?

Product design (~60%)
• Lead design from problem definition and exploration through prototyping, validation and final delivery, working with product managers and engineers from scoping through QA.
• Design workflows for owners, operators, managers, staff and guests across touch hardware, mobile and desktop, including rush-hour, one-handed and low-training scenarios.
• Turn operationally complex requirements into experiences that feel simple, predictable, fast and easy to learn.
• Design the complete experience: edge cases, permissions, empty, error and loading states, system feedback and recovery paths.
• Design AI-assisted experiences (recommendations, automation, assistants) that are explainable, controllable and trustworthy to non-technical users.
• Balance user needs, business requirements, accessibility, platform constraints and consistency; challenge weak requirements and document key decisions.
• Validate with usability tests, interviews, in-context observation, heuristics and product data; present rationale clearly and facilitate critique.

Design systems (~40%)
• Create, extend, document, audit and govern the system across surfaces using Atomic Design or a comparable methodology: foundations, primitives, components, patterns and templates.
• Define component anatomy, variants, properties, states, responsive behavior, accessibility rules and usage guidance; maintain tokens for color, type, spacing, radius, elevation and sizing.
• Judge when components should be shared, adapted or intentionally separated across very different products and screen types.
• Improve the existing library: find inconsistencies and design debt, retire redundant components, and set contribution, versioning and deprecation rules.
• Keep Figma and production in sync with engineering (code-connected components, token pipelines, design-to-code workflows).

What are we looking for, and what does it require to be the right fit for this role?
• 6+ years of professional product design experience, including 2+ years building or maintaining a design system used by multiple teams or products, ideally in complex SaaS, enterprise, operational or platform products.
• A strong portfolio of shipped work showing your individual ownership, the problem and constraints, alternatives explored, evidence behind decisions, iteration and outcomes.
• Experience designing across multiple device categories (web, desktop, tablet, mobile, kiosk, POS or other touch interfaces) and a strong grasp of touch design: target sizing, ergonomics, glanceability, viewing distance, information density and error tolerance.
• Expert Figma: components, nested components, variants, properties, variables and modes, Auto Layout, libraries, advanced prototyping and scalable file architecture.
• Expert UX and UI: information architecture, interaction design, user flows, research, usability testing, WCAG accessibility, plus excellent visual judgment (typography, layout, hierarchy, color, iconography, forms, data-heavy interfaces).
• Demonstrated use of AI tools that materially improved your productivity and quality.
• Excellent written and spoken English, presentation skills, attention to detail, and comfort with ambiguity in a fast-moving environment.

Nice to Haves
• Prior restaurant tech or food tech experience i.e. POS, kiosks, kitchen display systems, payments, online ordering, workforce, inventory or back-office software; multi-location or franchise software; data-heavy dashboards; Code Connect, Storybook, Style Dictionary or Tokens Studio; sophisticated AI-assisted prototyping.

Why Join AIO?

Our mission is to revolutionize the US restaurant industry by providing a comprehensive and fully integrated solution that empowers restaurant owners to efficiently manage all aspects of their business. Our platform combines our patented AI technology with unparalleled customer support to help owners increase revenue, reduce costs, and improve their overall profit margins.

We believe that restaurants should be able to focus on delivering exceptional dining experiences to their customers, without the added stress of managing complex and disparate systems. That's why we offer an All-In-One super app platform for all their needs, from front-of-the-house operations like ordering, payment, marketing and rewards, to back-of-the-house management like inventory, staff, and financials.

We are laser focused on becoming a significant player in the $55 billion restaurant tech SaaS market. You will be a part of a world class, up-and-coming Silicon Valley funded startup.