Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Circle is building the world’s leading all-in-one platform for online communities. They are seeking a Lead Product Designer to own design for one of their most important product areas, defining problems, shaping direction, and shipping experiences while collaborating closely with product managers and engineers.
Responsibilities
- Own a product area end-to-end: identify opportunities, frame the problem, set design direction, and ship—operating as a peer to Product and Engineering, not a downstream executor
- Design complex, multi-step product flows that serve multiple user types—balancing creator needs against member experience, and making sophisticated behavior feel simple
- Prototype and test at speed—using AI-assisted tools, code-generation workflows, and whatever gets you to a testable concept fastest
- Influence product strategy beyond your own surface: contribute to roadmap conversations, flag opportunities other teams miss, and connect dots across the product
- Drive the craft standard on your area—interaction design, visual quality, and the small details that separate polished product from 'good enough'
- Collaborate closely with engineers and design engineers to turn concepts into working, shippable experiences—not hand off specs and hope
- Raise the bar for the broader design team through feedback, shared frameworks, and the quality of your own output
Skills
- Strong alignment with our values, find our values on our career page if you haven't read up on them yet
- You are proficient in English (spoken, written, and reading) at a CEFR Level C2 / ILR Level 5
- 5–7+ years of product design experience. Your portfolio should show systems-level thinking: shipped 0→1 work, complex multi-user flows, and evidence that you shaped the product direction—not just the interface
- Experience operating as the most senior designer on a product area—setting direction, making tradeoffs, and owning outcomes without constant guidance
- Strong prototyping skills—you build clickable, realistic prototypes yourself
- Proficiency in Figma for high-fidelity design and collaboration
- Exceptional written and verbal communication—able to clearly explain complex ideas, influence decisions, and align teams asynchronously. You write well because that's how decisions get made in a distributed team
- Comfortable designing in ambiguity and building conviction through iteration, not waiting for perfect requirements
- An active, evolving AI workflow—you already use AI tools in your design process and can speak concretely about how. This isn't a checkbox; it's a real part of how we evaluate fit
- Bonus if you're already using AI-assisted prototyping tools like Cursor, Claude Code, v0, or Lovable
Benefits
- Equity in the company with ongoing refresh grants
- 35 days of paid time off each year
- A remote-only team that comes together twice a year for company retreats in incredible destinations around the world
- Incredible flexibility and autonomy
- A benefits package that supports health, wellbeing, and professional growth
Company Overview