Sr. Product Designer

HopSkipDrive is seeking a Senior Product Designer to lead complex design initiatives across its marketplace, software, and internal systems. The role owns end-to-end design solutions, advances design systems and AI-powered experiences, and uses research and data to improve user and business outcomes while mentoring designers and collaborating across teams.

Responsibilities:

• Lead Strategic Design Initiatives: Contribute to product design vision and strategy, applying systems thinking to complex challenges and leading design initiatives that address strategic product opportunities across HopSkipDrive's portfolio
• Define Patterns & Consistency: Define UX patterns and ensure consistency across products, developing and implementing scalable design systems and components with strong proficiency in design tools, prototyping, and accessible design
• Drive Research-Informed Decisions: Conduct strategic design research to identify long-term opportunities, integrate user research and data analysis into strategic product decisions, and synthesize complex findings into clear, actionable insights
• Lead AI-Accelerated Discovery: Lead discovery phases using AI tools to synthesize research at a speed and depth not possible manually, bringing sharper, data-backed rationale into cross-functional design strategy conversations, and evaluating which design problems are strong candidates for AI-powered solutions
• Design AI-Powered Features: Design high-quality AI-powered product features with well-defined interaction patterns, error states, and edge cases — bringing a discerning eye to AI tool outputs and iterating with intent
• Mentor & Elevate the Team: Mentor other designers, facilitate design workshops and critiques, foster a collaborative design culture, and help establish team norms for effective, critical use of AI tools
• Communicate & Influence: Communicate and defend design rationale to executive stakeholders and cross-functional teams, facilitate cross-functional workshops to drive alignment, and present design strategy and vision to senior stakeholders
• Own Design Outcomes: Own design outcomes for significant product areas, define and measure success in terms of business and user metrics, and drive measurable customer impact through well-designed AI experiences — reducing friction, improving personalization, and increasing user confidence

Requirements:

• 5+ years of product design experience, with a track record of leading complex, cross-functional design initiatives end to end
• Advanced UX/UI design skills with a focus on holistic user experiences, strong visual execution, and proficiency in end-to-end design
• Experience establishing and maintaining design standards, best practices, and scalable design systems for a team
• Proven ability to lead complex prototyping and usability testing efforts, ensuring high-quality, accessible results across multiple product areas
• Demonstrated ability to integrate user research and advanced data analysis into strategic product decisions, and to lead research initiatives that inform roadmap and strategy
• Experience in designing for mobile and web platforms
• Experience mentoring designers, facilitating critiques and workshops, and fostering a collaborative, user-centered design culture
• Exceptional communication skills, with the ability to defend design rationale to executive stakeholders and build strong relationships across the organization
• Hands-on experience using AI tools to accelerate discovery, research synthesis, and prototyping — with the judgment to know when AI interpretation is reliable and when human judgment must lead
• A discerning eye for AI-generated design output, consistently iterating with intent and creating new skills or workflows to increase team efficiency and consistency
• Proficiency with modern design and prototyping tools (e.g., Figma), along with solid understanding of design systems and scalable design practices