Freelance Product Designer (Fractional)

About this role

ABOUT THE ROLE

This is a fractional Product Designer role at an early-stage AI-powered talent marketplace startup, working directly alongside founders and engineering to shape the entire product experience. You'll be the design voice in the room — owning everything from candidate-facing AI conversations to hiring manager dashboards — with real ownership and no design-by-committee.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

- Own the full design surface: product UI, candidate experiences, company dashboards, and the AI interaction layer.

- Turn ambiguous, early-stage problems into clean, intuitive user flows while maintaining a high bar for craft.

- Build and evolve the design system from the ground up.

- Run lightweight user research — candidate and company interviews, session observation, and friction identification.

- Produce developer-ready handoffs including specs, redlines, and asset exports, collaborating closely with engineering on implementation fidelity.

- Shape product direction alongside the founding team, contributing input beyond pixels.

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR

- 5+ years designing digital products, with meaningful time at a startup as the primary or sole designer.

- Deep fluency in Figma for product design and design system work.

- A portfolio demonstrating taste, clarity, and thoughtfulness — with shipped work.

- Experience designing end-to-end flows and interaction models for multi-stakeholder products.

- Experience building or evolving design systems from an early stage.

- Comfort conducting lightweight user research including interviews and session observation.

- Ability to work autonomously, async, and with minimal direction in a distributed team.

- Prior fractional, contract, or multi-client design experience, including managing availability, capacity, and billing logistics.

- Strong written and verbal communication skills for presenting and documenting design decisions.

- Familiarity with accessibility principles (WCAG) and inclusive design is a plus.

- Experience designing for marketplaces, platforms, or multi-sided networks is a plus.

- Experience designing AI-powered products or conversational interfaces is a plus.

- Background in HR tech, recruiting, or talent marketplace products is a plus.

COMPENSATION & BENEFITS

Competitive compensation in the range of $100,000–$120,000 USD annually. Flexible fractional engagement with remote work. Visa sponsorship is not available.

LOCATION

Fully remote — open to candidates worldwide.

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