Staff Product Designer
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Staff Product Designer who owns end-to-end design of GrantOS — the platform, core, and enterprise foundation of Instrumentl's grant-management SaaS for nonprofits. Day to day: defining data models, permissions, and design-system patterns, driving 0-to-1 product definition, running user research, and coaching designers in a B2B SaaS environment.
Hello, we’re Instrumentl. 👋
Nonprofits do some of the most important work in the world, and most of them are still managing grants in spreadsheets. We're fixing that.
Instrumentl is a profitable, hypergrowth, YC-backed SaaS platform building the operating system for grant-funded organizations. More than 5,500 nonprofits use Instrumentl to discover, track, and win grant funding, from local community organizations to the San Diego Zoo and the University of Alaska. Collectively they’ve moved over $1 billion through our platform.
We're growing quickly, customers love us (check out our G2 reviews!), and we're hiring people who want to build something that matters.
About the role:
What you'll do:
Platform & Systems
- Own end-to-end design for GrantOS across Platform, Core, and enterprise, from discovery through ship and iteration
- Define the data relationships, permission models, and integration surfaces that hold up across every workflow in the product
- Set the interaction patterns and design system foundations that every other product area inherits
- Design how work connects across pods, so a change in one area makes the next one smarter instead of harder
Zero to One
- Drive definition in genuinely greenfield spaces where the right answer is not obvious yet
- Write your own brief, frame the problem, and set roadmap direction in partnership with your PM
- Make good calls with incomplete information and sequence the work so the team ships learnings quickly
- Shape how grant professionals manage tasks, reporting, and integrations across the full grant lifecycle
Research & Influence
- Recruit participants, run the interviews, and synthesize ambiguous user needs into clear product direction
- Bring a point of view into the room and push back when something is not right for users
- Align engineering, product, and GTM on direction at any level of the company
- Raise the quality bar across the design team and coach the designers around you
What we're looking for:
Required
- 10+ years of product design experience with meaningful time at staff or principal level, having owned entire product domains rather than features inside them
- Proven end-to-end ownership of a platform or core product area in complex B2B or enterprise SaaS: data models, permissions, integration surfaces, and patterns that other teams build on top of
- Shipped net-new product work alongside that platform work, including 0-to-1 areas you helped define rather than received as a finished spec
- Deep involvement in user research end to end, from planning and recruiting through synthesis into product decisions
- Experience designing agentic or AI-powered product surfaces
Nice to have
- Design systems experience where you defined the patterns, not only used them
- Prototyping with AI tools, for example building working prototypes in Claude or Cursor that engineers can build from
- Exposure to compliance, data integrity, or workflow-heavy domains
- Startup experience where process was lightweight and you brought your own structure
- Experience mentoring or coaching other designers
- Familiarity with the nonprofit or social impact sector
Compensation & Benefits
For US-based candidates, the target salary range for this role is $200,000 – $230,000 USD, plus equity. Final compensation is determined based on experience, skillset, scope of responsibility, interview performance, and geographic location. We’re committed to paying competitively and equitably.
For candidates based in Canada, compensation varies by province and will be shared by your recruiter early in the process.
Benefits
- 100% covered health, dental, and vision insurance for employees (50% for dependents)
- Generous PTO, including parental leave
- 401(k)
- Company laptop and home-office stipend
- Bi-annual company retreats
Instrumentl is evolving rapidly. You’ll always have new challenges and opportunities to grow here.
As published by lever
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- Will you now or in the future require employment visa sponsorship (e.g., H-1B visa) to legally work for our company? choose one
- Tell us about a complex system you've owned end-to-end — something data-dense, operationally critical, or financially complex. What was the design challenge, what was your process, and what did you ship? written answer
- What unique skills or qualities do you bring? What would past managers and colleagues say you do exceptionally well? written answer
- Please include a link to your portfolio with case studies that explain your process and design decisions. Don't forget the portfolio password! written answer
