About the roleThis isn't a typical product design role. Some days you'll craft an interface, on others you'll untangle a workflow, shape a policy, map a complex system, or find the words that make it all click. Your work might live in an API or documentation that helps a customer build, in the flow a cardholder moves through when their card is frozen, or in the tool an employee uses to make things right. Your job is to see how all those pieces fit together - and turn complexity behind the scenes into something simple, clear, and human.
Because customers build their products on top of ours, designers here constantly decide where Cardless should offer flexibility and where we should take a clear position on how something ought to work. A solution may need to serve a customer's product team, feel native to their brand, make sense to a cardholder, and work for the teams operating it behind the scenes. That means designing systems and patterns and explaining them clearly enough that others can build from them.
You'll work directly with Engineering, Product, Compliance, and operational teams to make ideas tangible. You won't always receive a neat brief or hand off a finished Figma file. You'll help define the problem, iterate across whatever medium fits, use AI to explore, and stay involved as the work meets reality.
What you'll do- Your work will span across Cardless. Here are a few of the systems and experiences you'll help shape:
- Design a system of components and flows that customers can embed in their own product across web and mobile, from a single flow (opening an account, submitting a dispute, making a payment) to an end-to-end financial product.
- Turn our interactions with customers into a product: design the documentation, communication, and tooling that shape how their teams onboard, get support, and work with Cardless over time.
- Partner with Sales to make new ideas tangible through prototypes and demos. Shape the website, decks, and other ways we tell the Cardless story consistently.
- Partner with Engineering to create a great developer experience: integration guides, reference examples, and a playbook covering every state a customer's team needs to implement.
- Embed yourself in one of Support, Compliance, Fraud, Disputes, and Ops. Learn how the work gets done, then design the customer touchpoints, communications, processes, workflows, and internal tools as one system - and use AI to help prototype, build, and iterate on this.
What we're looking for- We don't require any specific experience for this role. We care much more about how you think, the problems you've taken on, and what you've made real. Show us shipped products, rough prototypes, system diagrams, documentation, workflows, or even a messy Figma file - whatever best demonstrates your judgment and craft. That said, we do require:
- Strong product reasoning. You know when to create flexibility and when to take a clear position on how something should work.
- Clear writing and storytelling. You know how to take a complicated idea, find what matters, and explain it simply.
- You can get deep, fast. You learn complex domains, move between different modes of work, and develop the context to make good decisions.
- Technical curiosity. You care about the developer experience at the level of language and concepts.
- Exceptional visual craft. Your work sets a standard and gives others a reference to build from.
- A hunger to shape what comes next. AI is changing how designers work, and you want to help invent the new playbook. You use tools like Cursor, Codex, or Claude Code to make ideas real. When a tool, workflow, or system is missing, you build it for yourself and the team.
This role isn't a fit if- You want to own one product surface or work on one kind of problem.
- You need most of your work to end in a polished Figma file. Craft matters enormously here, but you'll often work in other modes, using whatever artifact best communicates intent to the team and moves the work forward.
- You want to join a mature design team with established tools, standards, and processes.
- You prefer design to begin with a clear brief and end with a handoff.
CompensationThis role has an annual starting salary range of $175,000-$275,000 + equity + benefits. Actual compensation is influenced by a wide array of factors including but not limited to skills, experience, and specific work location.
BenefitsWe're proud to offer our team excellent benefits:
Meaningful Start-up equity
100% health, vision & dental primary coverage
+ 75% health, vision & dental dependent coverage
Catered lunches
$250/month Commuter benefit
Parental leave
Team building events & happy hours
Flexible PTO with a minimum of 15 days off per year
Apple equipment
401k plan
LocationWe're headquartered in San Francisco, CA, with a beautiful office in Jackson Square. This role is in-office 5 days a week.
