Senior Product Designer

Location: South Africa

Department: Sand Technologies

Senior Product Designer

Are you an experienced, well-rounded product designer looking to do foundational work on AI products that are reshaping how critical industries operate globally? If so, we should probably talk!

About Sand

Sand Technologies is a global physical AI company using data and AI to make critical industries work better. We partner with governments, cities and enterprises to improve how essential systems operate across healthcare, water, energy, telecommunications and infrastructure.

Our work delivers proven real-world impact. We have built AI systems that help manage London’s water supply, supported telecom network planning across hundreds of cities, and developed digital healthcare platforms serving tens of millions of people across Africa. From intelligent command centers to AI-powered infrastructure platforms, we help organizations sense, analyze and act in complex environments.

Our people are ambitious, curious and relentlessly practical. Our teams work alongside clients in the field, solving hard problems and deploying solutions that last. With colleagues across Africa, Europe, the UK and the US, we operate across the full stack - from research and engineering to deployment and capability building.

Our mission is simple: to harness AI to solve humanity’s most pressing challenges.

About the role

As a Senior Product Designer, you'll execute the end-to-end design of one or more products, all the way from UX research through to polished, production-ready interfaces. You'll work closely with Product, Engineering, and Data Science, and as a senior-level contributor, also play a role in shaping how design operates at Sand.

What you’ll do

User Research & Insight

• Plan and lead user research, including interviews, usability testing, surveys, and facilitating workshops, and translate findings into actionable design direction
• Build and maintain user personas, journey maps, and other research artifacts that keep the wider team grounded in user reality
• Drive competitive and market analysis to inform product positioning and design strategy

Product Design

• Own the design of complex product areas end-to-end: from problem framing and ideation through to detailed UI, interaction design, and handoff
• Collaborate closely with Product Managers, Engineers, and Data Scientists to ship work that is both desirable and technically feasible
• Create, maintain and contribute to scalable design systems, component libraries, and documentation
• Present design decisions clearly to stakeholders, backing them with research, data, and rationale
• Consider accessibility, ethical implications, and inclusivity in your design practice

Design Leadership

• Mentor and give meaningful feedback to junior and mid-level designers
• Contribute to team-wide design processes, culture, and ways of working
• Champion user-centred design across the business, not just within the design team
  
  

Who you are

Essential

• 5+ years of product design experience, with a strong portfolio demonstrating complex, shipped enterprise or commercial products
• Experience designing for data-heavy or dashboard-heavy interfaces
• Fluency in the full design process - research, IA, interaction design, visual design, testing, and implementation with software engineers
• Proficiency with Figma and AI-powered design tooling
• Proven ability to work effectively in agile, cross-functional teams
• Strong communication skills - you can articulate why design decisions were made
• Comfortable with ambiguity and able to create clarity from it
• Ability and willingness to travel across the African continent

Nice-to-have

• Experience in government, energy, or enterprise B2B & SaaS sectors
• Exposure designing AI/ML products, and working alongside data science teams
  
  

How we work

Due to the highly collaborative and internationally distributed nature of our work, successful candidates must be comfortable operating in small teams while contributing to larger, globally coordinated efforts. Essentials: A strong sense of ownership, self-motivation, and discipline in maintaining clear and consistent communication through virtual collaboration tools and video conferencing.