Principal Product Designer

Ethos; United States; On-site; USD 165,000 - 292,000; Full time

Job summary

Ethos is seeking a seasoned Design Leader to help build the next generation of products. This player-coach role focuses on craft at scale, owning projects while guiding other designers.

You will set design quality, influence across teams, and drive impact across our core businesses and new ventures. You’ll lead end-to-end design efforts, mentor peers, and elevate output through standards, feedback loops, and scalable systems.

Qualifications

• At least 10 years of Product Design experience.
• At least 2 years at a venture-funded, private startup.
• Experience influencing the work of others through management or leadership.
• In-house experience on direct-to-consumer products.
• Growth Product/Design environment experience.
• Experience with storytelling and design craft as levers for product performance.
• Ability to clearly articulate design decisions with intentionality and rigor.
• Strong portfolio showing high-quality work with interaction details and content design.
• Experience leading end-to-end projects from discovery to engineering implementation and measurement.
• Experience launching 0-1 products.
• Ability to quickly detect and address process or alignment issues.
• Must be located in Eastern Time Zone.

Responsibilities

• Lead design strategy across multiple business units including all aspects of design craft.
• Help set the vision for our overall user experience.
• Direct and guide the work of other designers.
• Build new products and iterate on existing ones.
• Manage executive stakeholders across engineering, product, marketing, and more.
• Drive improvements to the product development process with cross functional partners.

Skills

Product Design

Leadership

User Flows

Portfolio

End-to-End Design

Job description

About Ethos

Ethos is a leading life insurance technology company on a mission to protect families by democratizing access to life insurance and empowering agents at scale. With its robust three-sided technology platform, Ethos is transforming the life insurance experience for consumers, agents, and carriers alike. Ethos offers instant, accessible products and a seamless online process that requires no medical exams and just a few health questions; it eliminates traditional barriers, making it easier than ever for everyone to protect their families. Ethos is redefining how life insurance is bought, sold, and underwritten.

About Ethos

Ethos is a leading life insurance technology company on a mission to protect families by democratizing access to life insurance and empowering agents at scale. With its robust three-sided technology platform, Ethos is transforming the life insurance experience for consumers, agents, and carriers alike. Ethos offers instant, accessible products and a seamless online process that requires no medical exams and just a few health questions; it eliminates traditional barriers, making it easier than ever for everyone to protect their families. Ethos is redefining how life insurance is bought, sold, and underwritten.

Design at Ethos

Design at Ethos plays an instrumental role in shaping every aspect of the product. We work across the organization to develop novel solutions to large, interesting challenges, and build world class products that create real value for real people. You will experiment, invent, and occasionally fail but most importantly, you will make and impact and grow in your craft.

About The Role

We’re looking for a seasoned designer with leadership experience to help build the next generation of products at Ethos. This is a player coach role focused on craft at scale. You’ll own some projects but also direct the work of other designers. As part of a team, you’ll help set the bar for quality and impact for the team, and help the team achieve it. You will work across a variety of products and experiences that span our core businesses and expand into new businesses.

Your influence across the team is not limited to ‘mentorship,’ you will be in a position to actively uplevel the output through your feedback, standards and systems that you design and implement.

Duties And Responsibilities

• Lead design strategy across multiple business units including all aspects of design craft
• Help set the vision for our overall user experience
• Direct and guide the work of other designers
• Build new products and iterate on existing ones
• Manage executive stakeholders across engineering, product, marketing, and more
• Drive improvements to the product development process with cross functional partners

Qualifications & Skills

• At least 10 years of Product Design experience
• At least 2 years at a venture-funded, private startup required
• At least 2 years in a role where you are influencing the work of others either through direct management or indirect leadership
• Demonstrable impact raising the bar for design practices and output of organizations you have been a member of
• The majority of your experience is in-house working on direct-to-consumer products
• You’ve worked in a high-velocity, high-ambiguity, experiment-driven environment - ideally in a Growth Product/Design environment
• You’ve worked on high consideration consumer flows where storytelling and design craft are meaningful levers for product performance
• You can clearly articulate the reasoning behind your design decisions. Your work demonstrates intentionality and rigorous thinking
• A strong portfolio that demonstrates your ability to produce high-quality work, including interaction details, storytelling, visual polish, and content design
• Experience leading projects end-to-end, including discovery, problem definition, ideation, and validation, all the way through engineering implementation and measurement
• Experience in improving flows and launching 0-1 products
• Demonstrated ability to detect process and misalignment issues quickly and work to alleviate them
• Must be located in Eastern Time Zone

The US national base salary range for this full-time position is $165,000 - $292,000. Our salary ranges are determined by role, level, and location. The range displayed on each job posting reflects the minimum and maximum target for new hire salaries for the position across all US locations. Within the range, individual pay is determined by work location and additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training.

Please note that the compensation details listed in US role postings reflect the base salary only and do not include applicable bonus, equity, or benefits.

You can find further details of our US benefits at https://www.ethoslife.com/careers/

Don’t meet every single requirement? If you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway. At Ethos we are dedicated to building a diverse, inclusive and authentic workplace.

We are an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. Pursuant to the SF Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider employment for qualified applicants with arrests and conviction records.

To learn more about what information we collect and how it may be used, please refer to our California Candidate Privacy Notice.