Freelance Product Designer (Fractional)
About the Role
This is a fractional product design role at an early-stage AI-powered talent marketplace, working directly with the founding team and engineering to shape the full design surface of a product that changes how people find jobs. You will be the design voice in the room, with real ownership and no layers of approval slowing you down.
What You'll Do
Own the entire design surface, including product UI, candidate-facing experiences, company dashboards, and the AI interaction layer.
Turn ambiguous problems into clean, intuitive end-to-end flows while maintaining a high bar for craft.
Build and evolve the design system from the ground up as the product grows.
Run lightweight user research by conducting interviews, watching sessions, and identifying friction points with both candidates and companies.
Partner directly with founders and engineering to ship product quickly and iteratively.
Contribute to product direction beyond pixels, offering input on strategy and priorities alongside the founding team.
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 that demonstrates taste, clarity, and thoughtfulness through shipped work.
Experience designing end-to-end flows and interaction models for multi-stakeholder products.
Experience building design systems from scratch or at an early stage.
Comfortable conducting lightweight user research and translating findings into product decisions.
Able to work autonomously with minimal direction in an async, distributed team.
Currently active in product design work, not returning after a long gap.
Nice to have: experience designing marketplaces, platforms, or multi-sided networks.
Nice to have: experience designing AI-powered products or conversational interfaces.
Nice to have: background in recruiting, HR tech, or talent marketplace products.
Compensation & Benefits
Competitive compensation in the range of $100,000 to $120,000 USD annually, structured as a fractional freelance or contractor engagement. Visa sponsorship is not available.
Location
Fully remote, open to candidates worldwide.