Product Designer
Please read first
This is a full-time, in-person role based in San Francisco (Presidio) - we work from the office 5 days a week.
You must be based in the Bay Area or willing to relocate before starting.
We require US work authorization, but are open to O-1 or J-1 visa sponsorship for exceptional candidates.
About Sauna by Wordware
Every tool you use was built as an island, so you became the glue between them. You carry a name from Gmail into the CRM, a time from the CRM into Calendly, a note from Calendly into a doc. AI showed up and mostly became an eleventh window to paste into.
Sauna is a hybrid of AI and software standing on one shared brain. It holds your context and hands you real software built on top of it. You talk to it like a chatbot and use what it builds like an app: software for the path you repeat, AI for the edge that never repeats. Keep it to yourself, or share the brain with your team.
The clearest way to see it is a tool doing what its whole category cannot. An ordinary Calendly shows a stranger your free slots. Your Calendly writes the invite email itself, because it knows how the two of you know each other, and it offers a board member the slot over your gym block, because it knows which of your busy hours bend and for whom.
Wordware is the team behind it, 15 people backed by Spark Capital, Felicis, and Y Combinator with a $30M seed, the largest in YC's history. We build from an office in the Presidio, fifty metres from Crissy Field beach, and we work absurdly hard because we can see and feel the outcome every day.
About the Role:
We're looking for a Product Designer to reimagine how humans collaborate with AI. You'll be designing the interfaces (not just screens) that make collaborating with AI and building AI assistants feel as intuitive as having a conversation with a friend, colleague or employee. This role requires someone who can navigate extreme complexity while maintaining an unwavering focus on delight and the experience for the user. You'll work directly with our engineers to create design patterns that don't exist yet, shaping how millions will build and collaborate with AI. As an early team member, you'll have an outsized impact on our product's evolution and report to our CEO and Head of Product.
Heads-up: while we don't use seniority titles at Wordware, this role is intended for designers with 5+ years of experience who are already operating at a Senior, Staff, or Principal level.
What You'll Do:
Design end-to-end user flows for AI agent creation, from natural language input to deployment
Design across platforms: you should be comfortable working on mobile interfaces, desktop, and responsive web
Develop interaction patterns for real-time feedback where the assistant comes alive in the experience, while keeping the underlying mechanics quietly out of the way
Build and maintain our design system, ensuring consistency across rapidly evolving product surfaces
Prototype novel interfaces using real AI models to validate design decisions with actual system behavior and real users
Partner with engineering to ensure designs perform beautifully at scale
Conduct user research to uncover unmet needs and opportunities
Design for progressive disclosure, revealing complexity only when users need it
Create motion and micro-interactions that make synchronous and asynchronous AI processes feel responsive
Influence product strategy by identifying opportunities through design exploration
Who You Are:
Minimum:
This role demands someone who thrives at the intersection of design craft and technical systems.
Have designed complex products that achieved both usability and adoption goals
Demonstrate deep understanding of information and interaction architecture for multi-platform systems
Show expertise in interaction design, including keyboard-first interfaces
Bring strong visual design skills with proven ability to create cohesive, scalable design systems
Excel at prototyping, from paper sketches to high-fidelity interactive demos (bonus: the closer to real code the better)
Understand interface development concepts and limitations for mobile and web to design feasible solutions
Communicate design rationale effectively to both technical and non-technical stakeholders
Bonus (but not required):
Built products using LLMs or other AI technologies as a designer or builder
Digital native who leverages AI as a creative partner, using generative models and AI tools as a real competitive advantage in your workflow
Thrive in an AI-native environment where pushing boundaries with these tools is part of the daily practice
Motion design skills for creating fluid, responsive interfaces
Code proficiency enabling you to build functional prototypes or contribute to implementation
Experience with design engineering, bridging design and development workflows
Track record of designing for uncertainty and evolving system capabilities
Background in conversational UI or natural language interfaces
Published writing or talks about product design
Experience designing for both technical and non-technical users in the same product
Compensation & Benefits:
Base salary: $140K-$220K + meaningful early-stage equity + health, dental, 401(k), considerable PTO, gym budget, lunch.
The Process:
We keep our process simple. Exceptional candidates go from first touch to offer within 2 weeks.
1. Application: Submit your resume and answer a few short questions.
2. 15-minute intro call: Quick check to align on location, motivation, and logistics. If it's a go, we move fast from here.
3. Portfolio review & design exercise: Walk through your work, then work through a real Wordware design problem with us.
4. Final conversation: We answer your questions and scope out the work trial.
5. Work trial: Paid, in person, usually a few days to two weeks. You work on a real project with us. See how we work, see if it fits, both sides.