About the role

Role Overview

Principal Product Designer (Customer Design Lead) at Thumbtack, owning the end-to-end customer experience for the Customer platform across native and web. You’ll set the design quality bar, shape the future direction of the customer experience, and mentor senior and mid-level designers.

Key Responsibilities

Own the end-to-end customer experience on Thumbtack’s customer platform, ensuring coherence and quality.
Identify and influence strategic product opportunities using a customer-centered approach.
Mentor and lead designers (senior and mid-level) by:
- Establishing design principles and standards
- Driving high-impact strategic projects
Work effectively across multiple teams to align on ambiguous, high-stakes problems.

Requirements

12+ years of product design experience, with significant time at principal or staff level.
Portfolio showing platform-level/pillar-level ownership (not only individual features).
Proven ability to establish a quality infrastructure (e.g., design principles, quality bar, rituals).
Exceptional mentorship/coaching skills, especially for senior/staff ICs.
Strong communication: able to present and influence at org/company level.
Strong product thinking: shape strategy, prioritize opportunities, and manage complex business/user tradeoffs.
Experience partnering with research and analytics leaders for strategic insights.
Deep expertise in cross-platform experience design (native + web).

Nice to Have

Not explicitly stated beyond the ability to partner with research/analytics and lead strategic initiatives across teams.

About Thumbtack

Thumbtack is a customer platform company that helps connect people with local services, supporting small businesses and service professionals. The role focuses on designing the end-to-end customer experience across web and native products, indicating a product design organization working across multiple teams.