Principal Product Designer

Portland Seed Fund; United States; Remote; USD 245,000 - 276,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Full medical coverage

Dental & Vision benefits

Mental health support

16 weeks of parental leave

Unlimited PTO

Remote work stipend

Professional development budget

Job summary

Customer.io is seeking a Principal Product Designer to shape the design vision across our product and platform. This is the highest individual contributor design role, not a manager, but it leads through craft, standards, and partnerships with product and engineering.

You will work on AI-inflected design, build a scalable design system, and mentor staff designers while influencing hiring and cross-functional strategies.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of product design experience with a portfolio showing impact beyond individual craft.
• Proven track record shaping design direction at company level, not just visuals.
• Experience designing for developer and builder audiences (CLI/API-first is a plus).
• Ability to articulate a philosophy on interaction models for agentic and AI-powered products.

Responsibilities

• Shape and communicate a long-range design vision for the product as a whole.
• Drive the strategic direction of the design system and its evolution.
• Close the gap between design intent and shipped product with hands-on involvement.
• Lead design reviews and ensure quality and coherence across major initiatives.
• Develop staff designers through mentorship and feedback.
• Contribute to hiring and calibration to raise the craft bar across teams.

Skills

Design leadership

AI product design

Executive communication

Design systems

Cross-functional collaboration

Mentorship

Job description

Over 9,000 companies — from scrappy startups to global brands — use our platform to send billions of emails, push notifications, in-app messages, and SMS every day. Customer.io powers automated communication that people actually want to receive. We help teams send smarter, more relevant messages using real-time behavioral data.

About the role

Hi, my name is Matt W, VP of Product & Design at Customer.io , and I'm looking for a Principal Product Designer. Principal Product Designer is the highest individual contributor design role at Customer.io . This person shapes the design vision for the company and influences how design is practiced here — through their own craft, through the standards their work sets, and through the partnerships they build with product and engineering leadership.

Customer.io is in a transformational moment: executing against a strong current product while redesigning what the product is and how it's experienced by a new generation of builders. This role has to straddle both — delivering quality and coherence in what exists today while driving the vision for where things go.

This is not a management role, but it's a leadership role in the fullest sense. Their influence is felt company-wide — in the product, in the culture, and in who we hire.

About you

You have a fully formed point of view on how AI changes what software means — for the people who use it, the people who build it, and the agents that increasingly operate it. You have the conviction to put that view to work across a product and an organization. You lead through clarity and example, give candid feedback that improves the work, and operate with humility and curiosity even outside your own expertise.

What we value

• Leads through clarity and example, not control. You shape culture through your own practice — not top-down direction.
• Candid craft feedback. You give feedback that improves the work, even when it's uncomfortable.
• Humility and curiosity. You operate with openness, especially in areas outside your expertise.
• Amplifying others. You raise the impact of people across the whole company — not just the design team.
• Bias for craft. You stay close to the work by choice, and that proximity is how you lead.

Some things you'll do

• Shape and communicate a design vision for Customer.io 's product as a whole — the coherent, long-range picture of what excellent looks like for our customers, brought into rooms where product direction gets set
• Drive the strategic direction of Pluma, our design system — architecture, evolution, deprecation decisions, and the principles that govern how it scales
• Close the gap between design intent and shipped product — stay close enough to implementation to catch divergence, and fix it directly when code is the right tool
• Design for builder and developer audiences — CLI-native flows, API-first onboarding, and interfaces built for people who type before they click
• Lead the design of agentic and human‑AI surfaces across the product — develop the philosophy and advocate for the standards
• Partner with product and engineering leadership on product strategy — bring design into the conversation before direction is set, not after
• Develop and advocate for Customer.io 's AI product design philosophy as a framework the whole team builds from
• Lead design review for major initiatives and bring accountability for quality and coherence across what ships
• Develop Staff designers through direct mentorship, critique, and the clarity of your own example
• Contribute to hiring and calibration — assess candidates with conviction and help the team develop a shared language for what excellent looks like

What we're looking for

• 10+ years of product design experience with a portfolio demonstrating design vision and organizational impact, not just individual craft
• Track record of shaping design direction at the company level — influenced what gets built and why, not just how it looks
• Designed for developer and builder audiences — CLI, API-first onboarding, or infrastructure‑native products
• Developed point of view on AI and agentic product design — has shipped AI‑native interfaces and can articulate a philosophy on interaction models for agentic and delegated use
• Contributed to a design system at the strategic level — shaped what it should be and shouldn't be, and advocated for those decisions over time
• Operates with influence without authority — track record of aligning product, engineering, and exec leadership around a design direction without a management title
• Has raised the craft bar at an organizational level — through critique culture, standards, and the example others internalize
• Executive‑level communication — connects design decisions to customer impact, product differentiation, and business outcomes
• B2B SaaS depth — understands complex, data‑heavy products and has opinions about where the interaction model breaks

We believe in transparency. The starting salary for this role is $245k-$276k USD, depending on experience and subject to market‑rate adjustment.

We know our people are what make us great, and we're committed to taking great care of them. Our inclusive benefits package supports your well‑being and growth, including 100% coverage of medical, dental, vision, mental health, and supplemental insurance premiums for you and your family. We also offer 16 weeks of paid parental leave, unlimited PTO, stipends for remote work and wellness, a professional development budget, and more.

See full benefits here

Our Process

No gotchas, no trick questions — just a clear, human process designed to help both of us make an informed decision.

• 30 minute call with Recruiter
• 45 minute call and portfolio review with Hiring Manager
• 30 minute call with cross‑functional partner
• 60 minute design case call with members of the design & tech team

All final candidates will be asked to complete a background check and employment verifications as part of our pre‑employment process.

Customer.io recognizes the stifling impact of systemic injustice on diverse communities. We commit to using our influence to increase inclusion and equity within the tech industry. We strive to build an inclusive team culture, implement bias‑free hiring practices, and develop community partnerships to expand our global impact.

Zoom is the only video conference platform that we use, virtual interviews will be conducted using the video capability (i.e., not via the chat), and offers will be extended in writing on official Customer.io letterhead. Please be vigilant in all of your job search activity, and if you have any questions, please contact [e-mail] .

Check out our careers page for more information about why you should come work with us! We believe in empathy, transparency, responsibility, and, yes, a little awkwardness. If you're excited by what you read —