Product Design Lead
Posted Updated
Summary
First designer hire at a lean B2B SaaS startup in Ponsonby, Auckland, serving high-growth businesses with storytelling/marketing tech. The role owns design end-to-end: customer research, UX flows, rapid prototyping (including in code), and AI-native product design, working closely with product and engineering.
About our Client
We're helping them hire their first designer.
Our client's customers are high-growth businesses who come to them wanting one thing: to get their story out. When the product makes that harder (or not quite as aesthetic as it could be) or has a step too many, a flow that doesn't quite land - the story stalls.
A small, sharp team keeps those frictions out today, but nobody there is a designer. That's the gap this role exists to close.
Each team member is encouraged to have opinions on what gets built, to talk to customers and validate ideas, to add their own taste and judgement, and to ship the ideas they believe will move the needle. As the technology evolves, so will the team. You won't be pigeonholed into your title, but you will have the final say on everything design.
Role Responsibilities
What You'll Bring
We're helping them hire their first designer.
Our client's customers are high-growth businesses who come to them wanting one thing: to get their story out. When the product makes that harder (or not quite as aesthetic as it could be) or has a step too many, a flow that doesn't quite land - the story stalls.
A small, sharp team keeps those frictions out today, but nobody there is a designer. That's the gap this role exists to close.
Each team member is encouraged to have opinions on what gets built, to talk to customers and validate ideas, to add their own taste and judgement, and to ship the ideas they believe will move the needle. As the technology evolves, so will the team. You won't be pigeonholed into your title, but you will have the final say on everything design.
Role Responsibilities
- Operate end-to-end across the SDLC, from talking to customers through to shipping
- Talk to customers directly, watch them use the product, and bring what you learn back into the work rather than waiting for it to arrive as a ticket
- Turn customer insight into better flows, clearer journeys, and sharper product decisions
- Prototype ideas quickly to pressure-test them before they're built
- Work closely with product and engineering — improving their UX, look, and feel, and letting their expertise sharpen yours
- Design for AI-native workflows, where the product suggests, drafts, and acts rather than just sitting there as a screen
- Keep the product and brand reading as one company
- Establish lightweight patterns and standards that speed the team up rather than slow it down
- Have a huge impact on how customers tell their stories, free from the organisational constraints and handovers that dull a good idea before customers ever see it
What You'll Bring
- Deep product design and UX experience - you'll have that design taste that is hard to describe, but we'll see it in your portfolio
- B2B SaaS experience, or a genuine interest in mar-tech
- Enough technical fluency to be able to prototype in code, but you'll also know when to ask an engineer for help.
- AI forward and you've got good examples on how you'd used it to research, draft, prototype, and ship, with a view on where it makes design better and where it makes it worse.
- You'll understand the hustle of a startup. This is a lean team with some ambitious goals - you're happy mucking in with talented, hard working and fun people to deliver some exceptional results!