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.