Senior Product Designer

Acorn; Sydney; Sur place; AUD 120 000 - 170 000; Plein temps

Résumé du poste

Acorn is seeking a Product Designer to own significant features from discovery to delivery, collaborating with Product Management and Engineering to ship high-quality experiences. You will lead research, define interactions, and evolve the design system within an AI-enabled SaaS platform.

The role demands sharp craft, strong judgment, and the ability to work within a product direction set by leadership. Sydney-based, in-office role with opportunities to impact large-scale learning solutions.

Qualifications

• Substantial product design experience with end-to-end ownership of complex problems, including research, interaction design, prototyping and delivery.
• Fluency designing SaaS or technology products with multi-user, role-based, permission-driven software.
• Deep knowledge of interaction design and usability principles with attention to detail.

Responsabilités

• Own the design of significant features end to end from discovery through shipped experience.
• Plan, run and synthesize your own research including user interviews and usability testing.
• Design for real-world complexity: permissions, role-based states, empty states, error handling and edge cases.
• Maintain a high standard of interaction, visual and content craft.

Connaissances

Product design

SaaS

Figma

Design systems

User interviews

Interaction design

Usability testing

Outils

Figma

Description du poste

Are you a Product Designer who does your sharpest work when handed a real problem and trusted to run with it, who treats research as the route to a point of view rather than a box to tick, and who holds a high bar on craft? We’d love to hear from you.

About Acorn

At Acorn PLMS, we are on a mission to transform the corporate learning experience. Our cutting-edge Performance Learning Management System (PLMS) software is powered by AI and designed to ensure that what people learn directly contributes to their exceptional performance in business. Corporate performance and learning need a revolution, and Acorn PLMS is the antidote. We are the only solution that guides learners step by step to master the specific capabilities required for their roles, ultimately accelerating organisational performance.

Location

We are open to individuals based in Sydney: this is an in-office role.

Role Overview

You’ll work from a feature brief, not a blank page. Product direction is set by the Director of Product Design and Product Management. Within it, you own the design of the features you’re given, from discovery through to shipped experience, making the design decisions that shape how they work and partnering closely with Product Management and Engineering to deliver them.

We’re looking for someone who brings sharp craft and sound judgement to every feature they touch.

Our Capabilities Framework

We use Acorn at Acorn. Our managers and staff align on the 5 capabilities needed for each role and the level expected, using our Acorn AI tool to keep this consistent across the business. The 4 levels are Foundational, Developing, Proficient, and Advanced.

These are the 5 key capabilities for this role and the level expected:

1. Product Strategy, Outcomes & Trade-offs (Developing)

Works within the product direction and feature brief they are given, and makes sound design-level decisions inside it: flows, states, defaults, and permissions behaviours. Identifies risks to the outcome early and escalates when the evidence challenges the brief.

2. Insight Synthesis & Problem Framing (Proficient)

Triangulates qual, quant, and domain knowledge into crisp problem framing. Uses insight to prioritise design effort and stop low-value work. Establishes reliable validation practices for the features they own.

3. Complex Interaction Design & Quality (Proficient)

Holds the quality bar on the features they own. Resolves ambiguous interaction problems with strong rationale. Improves accessibility and usability systematically, not incidentally.

4. System Evolution & Reuse (Proficient)

Highly skilled across Figma and the design system. Owns key patterns, ensures parity between design and code with Engineering, and balances consistency with product needs without creating fragmentation. Treats the system as a living asset, not a static library.

5. Stakeholder Alignment & Facilitation (Proficient)

Runs design work directly with Product Management and Engineering downstream of briefing, without needing to be chaperoned. Navigates disagreement while maintaining trust and momentum. Aligns partners on cohesive experience decisions and keeps trade-offs visible.

Key Responsibilities:

• Own the design of significant features end to end, from discovery through to shipped experience.
• Plan, run and synthesise your own research, including user interviews and usability testing.
• Design for real-world complexity: permissions, role-based states, empty states, error handling and edge cases.
• Hold a high standard on interaction, visual and content craft.
• Own and evolve design system patterns in Figma, with parity in code.
• Work closely with Product Management and Engineering through delivery.
• Apply the platform’s design principles consistently.
• Review implementations against design intent and push for quality fixes.

Required Experience:

• Substantial Product Design experience with a portfolio that demonstrates end-to-end ownership of complex problems: research, interaction design, prototyping, and delivery. We want to see the problem you were given, the calls you made, what you killed, and why, not only the final screens.
• Significant experience designing SaaS or technology products. This is not negotiable: you should be fluent in the complexity of multi-user, role-based, permission-driven software.
• Deep working knowledge of interaction design and usability principles, with an eye for detail to match. You notice when spacing, hierarchy or type are slightly off, and you know why it matters to the person using it.
• Expert across the whole of Figma: component-based design, advanced prototyping, variables, and hands-on contribution to a shared design system. Design systems experience is a hard requirement, not a nice-to-have.
• Genuine, self-sufficient research capability, with demonstrated expertise running user interviews. You can plan and moderate your own interviews and discovery, and turn the result into a decision, without a separate research function holding your hand.
• The ability to absorb a sophisticated design philosophy and apply it consistently across varied problems, exercising judgement rather than waiting for each call to be made for you.
• Comfort with ambiguity inside a defined frame. You form a hypothesis before anyone asks you to, and you move.
• A proactive bias to action. You take initiative without waiting to be told the next step, spot the work that needs doing, and pick it up. Downstream of briefing, you run.
• A real and current passion for the craft. You keep learning and sharpening your practice as a habit, not an intention, and you stay genuinely curious about where UX, technology, and product are heading.
• Experience in HR tech, learning technology, or other complex enterprise domains is advantageous but not required.

AI Fluency

At Acorn, we use AI across everything we do and are actively building our AI fluency across the business. We are genuinely excited about what AI makes possible in UX design, and we want someone who feels the same way.

In this role, that looks like:

• Using AI to accelerate research synthesis, surfacing patterns across usability sessions, support tickets, and analytics to inform faster, more confident decisions.
• Leveraging AI-assisted design tools to explore patterns, generate variants, and pressure-test solutions earlier in the process.
• Treating AI as leverage on the parts of the work that do not need a human, so your time goes to the research, judgement, and craft that do.

A clear note on tools: AI design tools sit on top of craft; they do not replace it. Fluency with something like Claude Design without genuine Figma and design systems mastery is a red flag for us, not a substitute. We are not looking for someone who can talk about AI in the abstract. During the process, we will ask you to walk us through what you have actually built, the tools you use daily, and the results you have seen.

Why Join Acorn PLMS?

You will own the design of meaningful features in a product used by over 3 million active learners globally, where your decisions have real, visible impact.

• Acorn is an AI-native platform at an exciting stage of scale, so you will be designing at the intersection of learning, performance, and emerging technology.
• You will work directly alongside the Director of Product Design, with product direction already set, so your energy goes into designing features exceptionally well rather than fighting for a seat at the table.
• Sydney is Acorn's home base. You will be embedded in the team closest to the product's core decision-making, not operating from a satellite office.

Location

This role is based in Sydney, Australia. We are an office-first company, meaning we work from our local offices the majority (if not all) of the time. We want to create great work with great people, and we know from experience that is best done through daily moments like the coffee run, the walk to grab lunch, or quick huddles. This is a large part of the reason we can work at the pace we do.

Candidates will need to be within commuting distance of our offices in the Sydney CBD. Applicants must have full working rights in Australia. Unfortunately, we are unable to provide visa sponsorship at this time.

Our Recruitment Process

Acorn is committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace where everyone feels valued and respected. We are an equal opportunities employer and welcome applications from all qualified candidates. We aim to ensure that our recruitment process is fair and accessible to everyone and encourage candidates to request any accommodations needed during the application or interview stages.

There’s still so much more to do, and we need people who are keen to help us journey into the next phase on board! And since we’re still growing, there’s so much you can learn on that journey with us. To find out more about life at Acorn, our Values and working with us, check out our website at https://acorn.works and see our Life At Acorn video here! https://youtu.be/2BGUk-n3FrQ?si=U_sS5Y5ZSP0tNtZW