The RoleYou'll be an early product designer at Town, working closely with our CPO and current designer to take real ownership of core product surfaces. You'll move from a vague problem to a shipped, polished feature without a single handoff, because there's no one to hand off to: you design it, you prototype it, and you push the front-end yourself. With AI in the loop there's no fixed playbook - some problems need you to step back and think from first principles, others just need you to iterate live in code and execute.
This is a high-ownership, high-craft role for someone who is energized by ambiguity, ships constantly, and cares about the last 5% as much as the first 80%.
What you'll do- Own surfaces end-to-end. Take core product areas - think People, Content Library, permissions and approvals, onboarding, agent and routine experiences - from problem definition through high-fidelity design to shipped code. You're accountable for the outcome, not just the artifact.
- Design the interaction paradigms for AI. Translate genuinely complex capabilities - agents acting on a user's behalf, multi-step routines, approvals, trust and control - into interfaces people understand and trust at a glance. Much of this has no precedent; you'll define it.
- Build, don't just spec. Prototype in real code and ship front-end yourself. We pair Figma with AI-assisted coding (Cursor, Claude Code, Codex, etc) and commit directly to the product repo. You don't need to be a staff engineer, but you should be dangerous in the codebase and want to get more so.
- Pair tightly with engineering, product, and the founders. We're small enough that you'll work directly with the CEO, CPO, and the engineers who own each surface. Influence here comes from good work and good arguments, not headcount.
- Talk to users and use research as velocity. Run quick conversations and tests to make sharper decisions faster - research as an accelerator, not a gate.
- Grow the design system. Help evolve a shared, opinionated system (we sweat OkLCH color, motion, and the details) so the whole product feels considered and consistent.
- Contribute to brand and the bigger moments. Pitch in on launches, the marketing site, and the occasional motion/asset work - designers here flex across product and brand when it matters.
What we're looking for- A portfolio of shipped product work where the craft is obviously high - clean UI, considered interactions, real attention to detail. We care far more about what you've made than about years or pedigree.
- Roughly 6+ years designing and shipping software, ideally in fast-moving startups, B2B/SaaS, productivity, or technical/developer tools. If your work is exceptional, the number matters less.
- Comfort owning a problem from ambiguous start to shipped finish, in an environment that moves fast and changes often.
- The ability (and appetite) to prototype and ship in code - HTML/CSS/JS and AI-assisted coding tools. Designers who build are how we move at our speed.
- Fluency in Figma and modern design workflows.
- Genuine curiosity about AI and how people should interact with it - and a point of view about what makes those experiences trustworthy and delightful.
- An owner's mentality: you treat the product like it's yours, because it will be.
Nice to have- Experience designing AI-native or agent-based products.
- A background that blends design and engineering (design engineer, front-end-leaning designer).
- Prior "first or second designer" experience at an early-stage company.
How we work- In-office together in SF or NYC, five days a week - we think the best early-stage design happens in the room.
- Small team, flat structure, very little process. High trust, high autonomy, high standards.
- We ship fast and frequently, then sweat the details until they're right.
