Design Leader, New Verticals (AI Products)

Role Overview

As Design Leader for New Verticals (AI Products) at Playlist, you will be the founding/early design leader for AI-native vertical software. This senior individual contributor role focuses on 0→1 product creation for SMB wellness operators, owning the product vision, roadmap, and execution—while working closely with a small engineering and product team.

Responsibilities

• Own, evolve, and champion product vision, strategy, and roadmap for new vertical SMB products.
• Drive an AI-native design philosophy, including where AI replaces workflow, consults, and automates on behalf of customers.
• Go into the field: build relationships with practitioners/operators, learn their unmet needs, and iterate on requirements live.
• Ship quickly with a small cross-functional team; own roadmap, specifications, and releases.
• Create compelling end-to-end product experiences that connect customer needs, business goals, and technical capabilities.
• Build and leverage LLM-powered tools, including creating them when they don’t exist.
• Identify opportunities for AI, automation, and intelligent systems to deliver differentiated customer value.
• Influence executive stakeholders through storytelling, customer insights, strategic thinking, and design excellence.

Requirements

• 10+ years of design experience, including building tools businesses rely on day-to-day.
• Shipped 0→1 products and successfully scaled the customer base.
• Experience designing AI or AI-native products; strong opinions on how LLMs break and how to design for probabilistic outputs and user trust.
• Comfort with ambiguity and high agency; can set priorities and thrive with roadmap ownership.
• Ability to move between strategic product shaping and hands-on design execution.
• Strong systems thinking across workflows, ecosystems, and interconnected products.

Bonus / Nice to Have

• Experience in health, wellness, fitness, or service-business SMB.
• Understanding the operational realities of running small practices or studios.