VP, Product Design

Algolia, Inc.; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 165,000 - 197,000; Full time

Job summary

Algolia is seeking a VP of Product Design to lead the organization responsible for the Application Layer and Satellite. You will shape the design strategy for developer-facing surfaces, ensuring AI-assisted workflows and a scalable design system.

The role requires 15+ years in product design, AI-native leadership, and a track record of growing teams. You’ll collaborate with Product, Engineering and GTM to turn complex AI-enabled experiences into measurable outcomes.

Qualifications

• 15+ years in product design, with 6+ years leading design organizations (managers of managers) in B2B SaaS or developer platforms.
• Demonstrated AI-native design leadership with shipped AI/ML-powered experiences (conversational, agentic or generative).
• Technical depth: front-end fundamentals (React), component architecture, design tokens, APIs, and behavior of LLM-based systems.
• Proven ownership of a complex technical application experience for developer and business audiences.
• Hands-on experience building/scaling a design system with cross-org adoption and governance.
• AI-augmented practice: using AI tools daily to modernize team workflows.
• Executive presence: translating design impact into business terms for C-level peers.
• Track record of growing design teams and developing leaders.

Responsibilities

• Own product design vision and strategy for the entire application experience, from developer onboarding to enterprise orchestration.
• Set AI design standards for trust, transparency, and human-in-the-loop controls in agentic UX.
• Manage Satellite Design System as a product with roadmap, governance, adoption metrics and AI-native evolution.
• Lead a technical product design organization with hiring, coaching and leadership development.
• Maintain a high quality bar by meeting usability and performance standards of core search.
• Partner with Product, Engineering and GTM to represent design at the executive level.

Skills

AI-native design leadership

React & design tokens

LLM behavior awareness

Design systems architecture

Executive presence

Team building & coaching

Product design strategy

Tools

React

Design Tokens

APIs

LLM systems

Job description

Algolia is the retrieval intelligence layer that turns intent into trusted, decision-grade outcomes. Powering more than 1.7 trillion queries a year for over 18,000 customers with millisecond latency and 99.999% reliability, we are the recognized leader for Search and Product Discovery by top industry analyst firms. The Algolia platform turns a company's products, content, and business rules into data that humans, applications and AI agents can act upon. The result is trusted customer experiences with stronger conversions for measurable business impact.

The Opportunity

As AI agents increasingly search, synthesize & act on behalf of users – the traditional search interface becomes optional – or disappears entirely. That makes the interfaces that remain matter more, not less – the surfaces where humans direct, constrain, trust & supervise intelligent systems.

We're looking for a VP of Product Design to lead the organization that owns Algolia's Application Layer – the product surfaces where developers, merchandisers & business teams build, configure & optimize search & AI experiences – & Satellite, our design component library, the system that powers consistency & velocity across every Algolia product.

This role sits at the center of our two foundational bets – becoming the retrieval & intelligence layer for agentic AI while deepening our hybrid AI search moat – executed in parallel, not sequentially.

Three Design Challenges Define The Mandate

• Automation with control. Our customers demand deterministic control – an AI system that can't explain why Product A outranks Product B creates immediate friction. You'll close the gap between the promise of AI ease-of-use & the lived experience of customers – designing interfaces where business users set goals & constraints that guide AI behavior, with transparency & explainability built in.
• Simplicity as a moat. Algolia's developer advantage is only as strong as its relative simplicity. As platform capability grows – our abstractions must improve faster than our complexity. The application layer is where that battle is won or lost.
• Time-to-first-intelligence. Bottom-up adoption is non-negotiable. You'll own the product-led experience that lets a builder go from signup to a working, intelligent experience in minutes – re-earning developer affinity with each new generation of builders.

We need someone AI-native – a leader who designs with AI (AI-assisted design workflows, design-to-code pipelines), designs for AI (agentic, conversational & generative interfaces) & builds a design organization whose operating model assumes AI as a core collaborator – humans shifting into supervisory & judgment roles as execution is delegated to systems.

The Job

What You’ll Own

• Product design vision & strategy for the entire application experience – developer onboarding through enterprise-grade agent orchestration – tied to measurable customer outcomes: adoption, performance & impact in production.
• AI design standards for the company: interaction patterns for agentic UX – trust & transparency, human-in-the-loop controls, streaming & non-deterministic states, explainability of relevance & ranking, graceful failure of probabilistic systems.
• Satellite Design System, run as a product: roadmap, governance, contribution model, adoption metrics, accessibility – & its evolution into an AI-native system with primitives for conversational & agentic interfaces that both humans & AI coding tools can consume.
• A technical product design org – product designers, design engineers, UX researchers, content designers – including hiring, coaching & developing design leadership.
• The quality bar – nothing reaches the market unless it meets or exceeds the usability & performance standards of core search.
• Executive partnership with Product, Engineering & GTM – representing design at the leadership table.

What You’ll Bring

• 15+ years in product design – 6+ leading design organizations (managers of managers) at B2B SaaS or developer-platform companies.
• Demonstrated AI-native design leadership – you've shipped AI/ML-powered product experiences – conversational, agentic, or generative – & have an articulated point of view on AI design patterns, backed by shipped work.
• Technical depth – comfort with front-end fundamentals (React, component architecture, design tokens), APIs & how LLM-based systems actually behave – latency, hallucination, non-determinism – & how those constraints shape interface decisions. You can review a PR conversation & hold your own in an architecture discussion.
• Proven ownership of a complex technical application experience – serving developer & business audiences.
• Hands-on experience building or scaling a design system with real cross-org adoption – as a product, with customers, a roadmap & governance.
• An AI-augmented personal practice – you use AI tools daily in your own workflow & have modernized how teams work, not just what they ship.
• Executive presence – you translate design impact into business terms with C-level peers.
• A record of growing teams & developing design leaders – not just artifacts shipped.

Nice To Haves

• Experience in search – discovery, e-commerce, or data-intensive platforms.
• Background as a design engineer – UX engineer, or former developer.
• Published thinking (talks, writing) – AI design patterns or design systems.

Why This Role, Why Now

Algolia has built category-defining infrastructure; the next chapter is about turning that position into outcome-driven growth – & the application layer is where strategy becomes experience. You'll own the surfaces where thousands of companies direct intelligent systems that reach billions of end users & the design system that determines how fast the entire company ships. If you believe the next generation of great design leaders will be technical, AI-native & systems-minded – few roles offer a better place to prove it.

Algolia does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, military status, veteran status, disability status, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by law.

The annual base salary compensation range for this role reflects market pay data within this location. The exact compensation offered for this role may vary depending on specific location and job-related knowledge, technical skills, and experience; and is only one part of our Total Rewards philosophy to compensate and recognize employees for their work.

Base Salary Pay Range

£158,000—£197,000 GBP

Flexible Workplace Strategy

Algolia’s flexible workplace model is designed to empower all Algolians to fulfill our mission to power search and discovery with ease. We place an emphasis on an individual’s impact, contribution, and output, over their physical location. Algolia is a high-trust environment and many of our team members have the autonomy to choose where they want to work and when.

We have a global presence with offices in Paris, NYC, London, Sydney and Bucharest, however we also offer many of our team members the option to work remotely either as fully remote or hybrid-remote employees. Positions listed as "Remote" are only available for remote work within the specified country. Positions listed within a specific city are only available in that location - depending on the role it may be available with either a hybrid-remote or in-office schedule.

WE’RE LOOKING FOR SOMEONE WHO CAN LIVE OUR VALUES:

• GRIT - Problem-solving and perseverance capability in an ever-changing and growing environment.
• TRUST - Willingness to trust our co-workers and to take ownership.
• CANDOR - Ability to receive and give constructive feedback.
• CARE - Genuine care about other team members, our clients and the decisions we make in the company.
• HUMILITY - Aptitude for learning from others, putting ego aside.

We’re looking for talented, passionate people to help build the world’s best search and discovery technology. We value autonomy, diversity, and collaboration. We’re committed to creating an inclusive workplace where everyone is respected and supported—regardless of race, age, ancestry, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, color, veteran status, disability, or socioeconomic background.