Design Lead

Midjourney; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 285,000 - 350,000; Full time

Job summary

Midjourney in San Francisco is seeking a Design Lead to shape the future of our products, partnering with the Chief Design Officer and guiding the product design team. You will spend meaningful time designing, prototyping, reviewing work, and solving difficult product problems alongside your team.

If your favorite part of leadership is modeling excellence by collaborating and getting your hands dirty, you’ll fit right in.

Qualifications

• A decade of experience designing software that users love.
• Experience leading design teams while remaining hands-on in design tools.
• Strong collaboration with engineers, researchers and product teams.
• Ability to craft intuitive product experiences with AI integration.
• Comfort with prototyping, reviewing work, and mentoring designers.

Responsibilities

• Shape the direction of Midjourney's products in collaboration with the Chief Design Officer.
• Recruit, mentor, and lead the product design team.
• Stay close to the work by designing key product experiences and solving hard design problems.
• Partner with engineering and research to translate new AI tech into intuitive experiences.
• Establish design reviews and rhythms to help the team deliver their best work.
• Ensure a coherent experience across Midjourney's growing product portfolio.

Skills

Design leadership

Figma

Claude Code

Cursor

Tools

Claude Code

Cursor

Job description

About The Job
Midjourney is an independent research lab exploring new mediums of thought and expanding the imaginative powers of the human species. We are a small, self-funded team focused on design, human infrastructure, and AI.

About The Job
Midjourney is an independent research lab exploring new mediums of thought and expanding the imaginative powers of the human species. We are a small, self-funded team focused on design, human infrastructure, and AI.
We don't think the future should look like yesterday's software. Our design team works across research, engineering, and product to make new capabilities feel intuitive, fun to use, and deeply human.
We're looking for a Design Lead to help lead that effort.
You'll partner closely with our Chief Design Officer to shape the future of Midjourney's products while building and leading the product design team.
This isn't a traditional management role. You'll spend meaningful time designing, prototyping, reviewing work, and solving difficult product problems alongside your team. Most days you will be helping exceptional designers do the best work of their careers by building with them. If your favorite part of leadership is modeling what good looks like by collaborating and getting your hands dirty with your team, you'll probably enjoy it here.
What you'll do

• Work closely with the Chief Design Officer to shape the direction of Midjourney's products.
• Recruit, mentor, and lead the product design team.
• Stay close to the work by designing key product experiences and helping teams solve their hardest design problems.
• Partner closely with engineering and research to turn new tech into intuitive product experiences.
• Establish design reviews and operating rhythms that help the team do its best work.
• Ensure a coherent experience across Midjourney's growing portfolio of products.

You might be a fit if

• You've spent the last decade designing software people love to use.
• You've led design teams, but you still want to be in Figma every day.
• You're as comfortable thinking through product strategy as you are refining a single interaction.
• You work well with engineers and like building things that don't have established playbooks.
• You care about craft and iterate until something feels right.
• You're comfortable using tools like Claude Code and Cursor as part of your workflow.
• You believe the best work comes from showing work early and often, and collaboratively iterating on unfinished work
• You're excited by the idea that AI requires entirely new interaction paradigms, not just new features.
• Work > ego
• Prototypes > presentations

Logistics

• Full-time. San Francisco Hybrid.
• Compensation: $285,000-$350,000 + benefits