Design Lead - Data Platform

FormativGroup; Austin (TX); Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

FormativGroup in Austin, Texas, is seeking a Design Lead responsible for the product design of a data lineage platform aimed at regulated enterprises. This role goes beyond traditional UI/UX, emphasizing product management and complex problem-solving. You'll translate intricate requirements into user-friendly designs while leading the quality of our design system.

The ideal candidate will have senior-level design experience and a proven track record in B2B SaaS environments, making complex data interfaces accessible and intuitive.

Qualifications

• Senior or lead-level product design experience in enterprise, B2B SaaS environments.
• Strong product thinking and ability to influence product direction.
• Portfolio with complex, data-dense interfaces such as dashboards or enterprise tools.

Responsibilities

• Own the end-to-end product design vision for a data-dense enterprise platform.
• Collaborate with Product and Engineering to define what gets built.
• Run user discovery and research to inform design decisions.

Skills

Product design experience

Information design

Data visualization

User research

AI fluency

Job description

Own product design for an early-stage, data-dense platform built for regulated enterprises.

At FormativGroup, we help organizations modernize the systems, data, and workflows that keep their businesses moving.

We are hiring a Design Lead to own product design for a perimeter-safe data lineage and migration impact-analysis platform for regulated enterprises. We are early: a real, working product becoming a standalone business. This is a build.

This is not a pure UI/UX role. You will think like a product manager, start from the customer problem, help shape what we build and why, and make complex technical information clear and trustworthy.

What You’ll Work On

• Own the end-to-end product design vision for a data-dense enterprise platform.
• Translate complex lineage, migration impact, governance, and blast‑radius workflows into clear, navigable product experiences.
• Partner closely with Product and Engineering to define what gets built, for whom, and why.
• Design for two audiences at once: technical users who need depth and senior stakeholders who need confidence in decisions.
• Build and maintain the design system, set the quality bar, and create repeatable standards for future product surfaces.
• Run user discovery and research; turn what you learn into product direction, design decisions, and prioritization input.
• Use AI across the design workflow, including research synthesis, ideation, prototyping, iteration, and productivity.

What You’ll Bring

• Senior or lead‑level product design experience in enterprise, B2B SaaS, or similarly complex product environments.
• Strong product thinking; you have influenced what gets built and why, not only how it looks.
• A portfolio with complex, data‑dense interfaces made simple: dashboards, graphs, visualizations, technical workflows, or enterprise tools.
• Strong information‑design and data‑visualization instincts.
• End‑to‑end ownership of a design system, from components and standards through adoption and maintenance.
• Fluency working directly with product and engineering teams, with examples of taking ideas from zero to shipped.
• Experience building a design function, practice, or product design standard from scratch.
• AI fluency, with concrete examples of how you use AI in real design work and the results it produced.

How You Work

• You are customer‑problem first: you seek the real user need before designing the solution.
• You are a player‑coach: hands‑on in the work while setting the standard for quality and product judgment.
• You operate well in ambiguity, define the path when one does not exist, and make practical calls with incomplete information.
• You bring clarity without over‑processing; you can raise the design bar while keeping an early‑stage product moving.

Bonus Points If You Have

• Experience designing for technical users such as developers, data engineers, analysts, or platform teams.
• Familiarity with lineage, graph visualization, data governance, migration impact analysis, or metadata products.
• Exposure to regulated‑industry products such as financial services, insurance, healthcare, or government.

What Success Looks Like

• The product experience makes complex lineage and impact information easier to understand, trust, and act on.
• The team has a clear design vision, stronger product judgment, and a practical design system it can build from.
• User research is informing product decisions, not sitting separately from delivery.
• You are a trusted partner to Product, Engineering, and business stakeholders as the platform matures.

Why Join FormativGroup

At FormativGroup, you’ll work with practical, collaborative people solving meaningful business and technology problems. We’re growing, which means you’ll help shape how we deliver for clients.

FormativGroup is an equal opportunity employer providing opportunities to applicants and employees without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or protected veteran status.

ADA Specifications: Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of this position.

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