Founding Designer PM (Product / UI / UX)

Department: Engineering

Location: San Francisco

Employment Type: FullTime

About the Role

A fast-moving, pre-seed Applied AI startup in San Francisco is hiring a Founding Designer PM to own the entire product design practice — from discovery through delivery. This is a rare hybrid role: you'll be the central product brain, sitting at the intersection of users, founders, engineers, and data, shaping a calm, cinematic design experience that reaches a massive audience. You'll establish the design system, influence what ships every week, and carry meaningful PM responsibilities alongside your craft.

The company operates at the frontier of generative AI and creative intelligence, building tools that help individuals and businesses create and distribute short-form video content at scale across social media platforms.

What You'll Do

• Design the full end-to-end product experience: content creation → interview/input → publish.

• Build a clean, scalable design system and reusable component library from scratch.

• Talk to users constantly and translate qualitative and quantitative insights into concrete product decisions.

• Work hand-in-hand with engineering and founders to define scope, flows, and requirements — and ship weekly.

• Take on PM responsibilities: write specs, define requirements, prioritize ruthlessly, and keep the team aligned.

What We're Looking For

Must-haves (dealbreakers):

• End-to-end product design experience for software products — from user research all the way to final UI handoff.

• A strong, demonstrable portfolio of product UI/UX design for software products.

Required skills:

• Proven experience designing and maintaining a design system with reusable components.

• Familiarity with modern frontend tech stacks (e.g., Next.js, React Native) sufficient to inform design decisions and collaborate tightly with engineers.

Strong nice-to-haves:

• Strong user research and discovery skills — comfortable interviewing users and synthesizing findings into flows and requirements.

• Excellent communication and storytelling skills for presenting design decisions to stakeholders.

• Cross-functional collaborator who works effectively with engineers, data scientists, and leadership.

• Ownership mindset with a high tolerance for ambiguity — you thrive in early-stage environments where the playbook doesn't exist yet.

You'll be a great fit if you:

• Move fast with prototypes, mocks, and iterations — daily.

• Think commercially: you design what people will actually pay for, not just what looks cool.

• Are organized, opinionated, and comfortable owning the entire design practice solo.

• Can communicate clearly and work in-person with a high-velocity team.

Compensation & Benefits

• Salary: Up to $300,000 USD annually (exact floor DOE).

• Early-stage equity in a pre-seed Applied AI company.

• Visa sponsorship: Not available.

Location

This is an on-site role based in San Francisco, CA, USA. In-person collaboration with the founding team is expected.