Principal Product Designer (Customer Design Lead)

Role Overview

Join Thumbtack as a Principal Product Designer (Customer Design Lead). You will own the end-to-end customer experience across native and web, set the quality bar, and lead cross-pillar initiatives that shape the future direction of the customer platform.

Key Missions

• Own the end-to-end customer experience across Thumbtack’s native and web platforms, ensuring consistency and quality.
• Identify systemic gaps in the experience and high-impact opportunities; lead cross-pillar projects to address them.
• Establish and maintain customer-focused design principles that guide teams’ product and quality decisions.

Responsibilities

• Shape the organization’s approach to customer-centered design and strategy.
• Drive high-impact strategic projects across teams.
• Set and uphold the quality infrastructure for the customer experience.
• Mentor senior and mid-level designers.

Requirements

• Ability to work across multiple teams and drive alignment on ambiguous, high-stakes problems.
• Strong product thinking: strategy, prioritization, and handling complex business/user tradeoffs.
• 12+ years of product design experience, including substantial time at principal or staff level.
• Excellent communication skills; able to present and influence at the org/company level.
• Deep expertise in cross-platform experience design (native + web).
• Experience partnering with research and analytics leaders to generate strategic insights.
• Proven track record establishing quality infrastructure (e.g., design principles, quality bar, rituals).
• Portfolio showing platform/pillar-level ownership, not just individual feature work.
• Exceptional mentorship/coaching skills, especially for senior/staff ICs.

Nice to Haves

• (Not explicitly stated.)