Staff/Lead Product Designer

Role Overview

As a Staff/Lead Product Designer at Thistle, you’ll help ensure a consistent, high-quality user experience for both consumers and internal users. You’ll create repeatable systems and guidelines so design can scale across the organization, collaborating closely with product, engineering, and cross-functional teams.

You’ll report to the Chief Product Officer and, on day one, will be the sole product design team member. As the design team grows, you will become a player-coach—owning design execution while also leading and managing people.

Responsibilities

• Think holistically about complex systems and connect user needs with business objectives.
• Create user-centered design solutions informed by research, member insights, and industry best practices.
• Partner with product to define and execute research initiatives that guide design direction and business strategy.
• Present concepts and communicate design intent via design specs and presentation documents.
• Collaborate with product managers and engineers to define, negotiate, and refine design requirements.
• Own and iterate the design system, advocating for scalable design solutions across product, brand, and marketing.
• Partner with marketing to maintain brand consistency and evolve the brand design system.
• Represent design in planning and product channels; facilitate design discussions and provide actionable feedback.

People Leadership (as the team grows)

• Build and manage the product design team.
• Hire and lead with a well-communicated vision.
• Coach designers and guide deliberate career development paths.
• Act as a player-coach, directly executing projects while also managing people.

Requirements

• Provide a portfolio link demonstrating product design work and your design thinking (include any needed access details/passwords).
• Strong ability to empathize with customers and translate research and business goals into effective product experiences.
• Ability to clearly communicate and align design requirements with product and engineering partners.

Nice-to-haves

• Experience scaling design systems and establishing repeatable design processes across an organization.
• Experience leading or mentoring designers (especially in an early-design-team context).