Founding Product Designer (Senior/Staff) - VC Backed Startups

Department: EPD

Location: Bay Area - Hybrid

Compensation: $170K – $250K • Offers Equity

Employment Type: FullTime

Join SignalFire’s Talent Network for Founding Product Designer Roles at VC-Backed Startups

🛑 This is not an application for a specific job. Instead, this is a way to get on the radar of VC-backed startups that are actively hiring Design talent. If you have any questions, please direct inquiries to talentnetwork@signalfire.com.

At SignalFire, we partner with top early-stage startups that are shaping the future of technology. Our portfolio spans 200+ innovative companies across AI, cybersecurity, healthtech, fintech, developer tools, and enterprise SaaS.

We’re looking to connect with exceptional Founding Product Designers who are excited about building intuitive, visually compelling, and user-friendly digital experiences from the ground up. By joining SignalFire’s Talent Network, your profile will be shared with our portfolio companies, giving you visibility into exclusive early-stage opportunities that may not be publicly listed.

Who Should Join?

We’re looking for designers who are:
✔ Passionate about shaping the design vision and user experience for new products
✔ Excited about building and scaling design systems in an early-stage startup environment
✔ Skilled at collaborating with engineers and product teams to translate ideas into compelling interfaces

Typical Roles & Responsibilities

• Define and own the end-to-end user experience and design language for early-stage products

• Create wireframes, prototypes, and high-fidelity UI designs for web and mobile applications

• Develop user research strategies to understand customer pain points and optimize design decisions

• Collaborate with founders, engineers, and product teams to align design with business objectives

• Build and maintain design systems and reusable UI components for scalability

• Conduct usability testing, A/B testing, and iterative improvements based on data and user feedback

• Advocate for design best practices, accessibility, and human-centered design principles

Common Qualifications

While each startup has its own hiring criteria, many founding product design roles in our network look for:

• 3+ years of experience in product design, UI/UX, or visual design for web and mobile applications

• Strong proficiency with Figma, Sketch, Adobe Creative Suite, and prototyping tools (Framer, InVision)

• Experience in building and scaling design systems from scratch

• Knowledge of user research methodologies, usability testing, and data-driven design decision-making

• Understanding of interaction design, motion design, and responsive UI principles

• Familiarity with front-end technologies (HTML, CSS, basic JavaScript) to collaborate effectively with engineers

• Experience working with early-stage startups or lean product teams is a plus

💡 Tools & Technologies You Might Work With:

• Design & Prototyping: Figma, Sketch, Adobe XD, Framer, InVision, Principle

• User Research & Testing: Maze, Lookback, UserTesting, Hotjar, Google Analytics

• Design Systems & UI Libraries: Material Design, Tailwind UI, Carbon Design System

• Collaboration & Handoff: Notion, Miro, Zeplin, Abstract, Storybook

• Front-End Basics (for Collaboration): HTML, CSS, JavaScript basics

What Happens Next?

1. Submit your application to join SignalFire’s Talent Ecosystem.

2. We review applications on an ongoing basis to identify strong candidates.

3. If there’s a match, a SignalFire talent partner or a leader from one of our startups may reach out directly.

4. No match yet? We’ll keep your profile on file for future product design roles in our portfolio.