Senior / Staff Product Designer - Patient

Headway

$180K — $265K *
Healthcare
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 5+ years of product design experience for Senior position; 8+ years for Staff position
  • Proven portfolio showcasing impactful design work in consumer or patient-facing products
  • Ability to simplify complex, state-heavy problems into coherent user experiences
  • Experience with experimentation and user metrics tracking
  • Fluency in AI prototyping tools as part of design workflow
  • Motivated by a mission to improve mental healthcare access

Responsibilities

  • Own the patient experience from problem framing to launch and iteration
  • Prototype and test concepts with AI tools like Claude Code or Cursor
  • Collaborate with product managers, engineers, and researchers to influence product scope
  • Design impactful moments in patient care journey such as provider matching and appointment booking
  • Run experiments to measure success in user engagement and retention
  • Contribute to the company's design system and share insights with the team
  • (Staff only) Lead both new and existing projects, focusing on AI-native designs

Benefits

  • Equity compensation
  • Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage
  • 401K retirement savings plan
  • Work-from-Home Stipend
  • Therapy Reimbursement
  • 16 weeks parental leave for eligible employees
  • Flexible PTO and 13 paid holidays per year
  • Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
  • Training and professional development opportunities
Full Job Description
ABOUT THIS ROLE

We're hiring Senior and Staff Product Designers to own the patient experience at Headway. The work calls for strong craft, sharp product instincts, deep customer obsession, and real fluency in an AI-native environment where prototyping in code is core to the role.

Senior designers bring 5+ years of experience and a track record of owning complex surfaces end to end. Staff designers bring 8+ years, span both 01 and at-scale work, and shape how the broader team operates. Both levels partner closely with PMs, engineers, and researchers, and own the outcomes their team ships.

Our design team works AI-first. Designers use Claude Code and Cursor to prototype, ideate, and ship improvements to our codebase. We want designers who already work this way and treat AI as a primary part of their practice.

THE PROBLEM WE'RE SOLVING

Finding the right therapist, understanding your insurance benefits, and staying in care shouldn't be hard. Today it is. One million patients a month ask for a referral to a mental health provider. We're building AI-powered matching and personalized care navigation that gets those patients into care and keeps them there.

YOU WILL...
  • Own the patient product experience end to end, from problem framing through launch and iteration. You're the primary design voice on your team.
  • Prototype and test ideas quickly with Claude Code, Cursor, or your AI tool of choice. AI generates the pixels and prototype. You define the patterns, behaviors, and quality bar.
  • Partner closely with product managers, engineers, and researchers. You shape what gets built, including scope and priority.
  • Design for the moments that matter most in a patient's journey: finding a provider, understanding their benefits, booking an appointment, and staying engaged in care.
  • Run experiments with clear success metrics. You measure conversion, retention, and task completion, and you treat a negative result as a finding.
  • Contribute to Helix, our design system, and share your AI prompts and patterns with the broader design team.


At the Staff level, you'll also:
  • Lead both 01 and at-scale work. You'll launch new patient surfaces and meaningfully improve what's already running at scale.
  • Design AI-native patient experiences: conversational flows, intelligent matching, and agentic care navigation that replace manual processes outright.
  • Set the standard for AI-native practice on the design team. You prototype in code and stay involved through launch.
  • Mentor other designers, raise the craft bar, and shape how the design org works through critique, design system contributions, and shared practice.
  • Influence product direction with design rationale, research, and storytelling. Shaping the patient roadmap is part of the job.


YOU'LL BE A GREAT FIT IF...

Senior:
  • You have 5+ years of product design experience, with a portfolio that shows strong craft, structured thinking, and measurable business impact.
  • You have experience designing consumer or patient-facing products where the quality of the experience directly affects whether people get help.
  • You're a systems thinker who can take a complex, state-heavy problem and shape it into a coherent, simple experience.
  • You bring product strategy instinct. You shape what to build from customer insight and bring your own point of view to the roadmap.
  • You're fluent in experimentation. You've run multi-sprint experiment arcs against real metrics, and you design each round to teach you something.
  • You're fluent with AI prototyping tools and treat them as core to how you work.
  • You're motivated by Headway's mission of making mental healthcare accessible and affordable.


Staff (all of the above, plus):
  • You have 8+ years of product design experience, with a portfolio that shows exceptional craft, systems thinking, and measurable business impact.
  • You've done real 01 work. You've defined a patient-facing product surface from scratch, and you're comfortable when the requirements aren't written yet.
  • You've designed agentic or AI-powered workflows: conversational flows, intelligent recommendations, or replacing a manual step in the care journey with an AI-driven one.
  • You're a systems thinker who can hold a stateful, multi-actor patient experience in your head and design with awareness of the full pipeline.
  • You've elevated the designers around you through mentorship, critique, or the quality of your own work.

Compensation & Benefits:

The expected base pay range for this position is $180,000 - $225,000 (Senior) & $212,000 - $265,000 (Staff), based on a variety of factors including qualifications, experience, and geographic location. In addition to base salary, this role may be eligible for an equity grant, depending on the position and level.

We are committed to offering a comprehensive and competitive total rewards package, including robust health and wellness benefits, retirement savings, and meaningful ownership opportunities through equity. Compensation decisions are made holistically, ensuring fairness and alignment with market benchmarks while recognizing individual contributions and potential.
  • Benefits offered include:
    • Equity compensation
    • Medical, Dental, and Vision coverage
    • HSA / FSA
    • 401K
    • Work-from-Home Stipend
    • Therapy Reimbursement
    • 16-week parental leave for eligible employees
    • Carrot Fertility annual reimbursement and membership
    • 13 paid holidays each year as well as a Holiday Break during the week between December 25th and December 31st
    • Flexible PTO
    • Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
    • Training and professional development


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