Product Design Manager

nice design jobs; New York (NY); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, and vision plans

401K with employer match

Catered lunch

Dinner stipend

Grubhub subscription

Health & Wellness perks

Team offsites

Generous PTO

Job summary

Mirage is seeking an experienced design leader to head and grow the Product Design team. You will set the vision and quality bar, manage a high-performing design group, and partner with executive, Product, and Engineering teams to drive product strategy and ambitious ideas to life.

As a small, collaborative team, you will own how products look and work, defining new interaction paradigms for AI-native video creation and building the systems and culture needed to deliver exceptional work.

Qualifications

• Experience leading design teams and delivering complex consumer products.
• Strong design judgment and ability to raise the bar from concept to execution.
• Comfort with strategy, people leadership, and detailed critique.

Responsibilities

• Set the vision, strategy, and quality bar for Product Design across Mirage, ensuring cohesive user experiences as the product and company grow.
• Lead, mentor, and develop a team of product designers, providing direction, feedback, and growth opportunities.
• Build a world-class design function, shaping structure, capabilities, and culture over time.
• Collaborate with executive, Product, and Engineering to shape product vision and long-term roadmap.
• Guide design of high-impact initiatives from exploration through launch, turning ambiguity into clear experiences.
• Establish a culture of critique, craft, and user-centered decisions while moving quickly without sacrificing quality.
• Translate emerging AI capabilities into intuitive interaction models and product experiences.

Skills

Design leadership

Product design

Mobile & desktop design

Systems thinking

AI-native design

Startup experience

Job description

Mirage is an AI-native video platform that intelligently orchestrates production and editing through natural language. Our models leverage contextual awareness to execute the same creative decisions a professional editor would — dramatically improving productivity for experienced teams, while making video creation accessible to anyone.

We’re an interdisciplinary team addressing some of the most difficult technical and creative challenges in generative media. As an early member of our team, you’ll tackle foundational problems that remain largely unsolved across the industry, driving an outsized impact on the future of creative expression.

More about us

Product https://mirage.app/captions (Captions by Mirage)

Research https://mirage.app/research (Our Models and Agents)

Updates https://x.com/trymirage (Mirage on X / twitter)

TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/24/mirage-raises-75m-to-continue-building-models-for-its-ai-video-editing-app-captions/, Forbes AI 50 https://www.forbes.com/companies/captions/?list=ai50, Fast Company https://www.fastcompany.com/91270234/video-most-innovative-companies-fast-company-2025-youtube-roku-tubi-vimeo-captions-descript-cour-procreate-synthesia-beeble (press)

Our Investors

We’re very fortunate to have some the best investors and entrepreneurs backing us, including Index Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst, Uncommon Projects, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, Lenny Rachitsky, Antoine Martin, Julie Zhuo, Ben Rubin, Jaren Glover, SVAngel, 20VC, Ludlow Ventures, Chapter One, and more.

Please note that all of our roles will require you to be in-person at our NYC HQ (located in Union Square)

About the Role

We’re looking for our first experienced design leader to lead and grow the Product Design team at Mirage. You’ll set the vision and quality bar for design across the company, manage and develop a team of high-performing designers, and partner closely with our executive, Product, and Engineering teams to shape product strategy and bring our most ambitious ideas to life.

As a small, highly collaborative team, our design team is trusted with significant ownership over not only how our products look and feel, but how they fundamentally work. You’ll help define new interaction paradigms for AI-native video creation, turn rapidly evolving technical capabilities into intuitive products, and build the team, systems, and culture needed to deliver exceptional work.

Responsibilities

• Set the vision, strategy, and quality bar for Product Design across Mirage, ensuring the user experience remains cohesive as the product and company grow.
• Lead, mentor, and develop a team of product designers, providing clear direction, thoughtful feedback, and meaningful opportunities for growth.
• Build a world-class design team, shaping the structure, capabilities, and culture of the function over time.
• Partner closely with the executive, Product, and Engineering teams to shape product vision, strategy, and long-term roadmap.
• Guide the design of complex, high-impact product initiatives from early exploration through launch, helping teams turn ambiguous problems into clear and compelling experiences.
• Establish a strong culture of critique, craft, and user-centered decision-making while creating the processes that help the team move quickly without sacrificing quality.
• Translate emerging AI capabilities into intuitive interaction models and product experiences across text, image, audio, motion, and video.

What Makes You a Great Fit

• A track record of building, managing, and developing high-performing product design teams.
• Significant experience designing and shipping complex consumer products, ideally across mobile and desktop.
• Strong product judgment and exceptional design taste, with the ability to raise the bar from early product thinking through polished execution.
• Able to move fluidly between high-level strategy, people leadership, and detailed product critique.
• Comfortable creating clarity in ambiguous environments and making thoughtful decisions with imperfect information.
• A clear communicator who can inspire teams, explain design rationale, and align people around a shared direction.
• A portfolio that demonstrates strong systems thinking, high-quality craft, and meaningful impact on shipped products.

Even Better If...

• You’ve designed AI-native products, creative tools, or products involving video, audio, image, or motion.
• You’ve helped build or scale a design function at an early-stage or rapidly growing company.
• You have a strong point of view on how people will interact and create with AI as the technology evolves.
• You are grounded, collaborative, and willing to do whatever it takes to help the team win.
• You have been a startup founder or an early design leader at one.

BENEFITS:

• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans
• 401K with employer match
• Commuter Benefits
• Catered lunch multiple days per week
• Dinner stipend every night if you're working late and want a bite!
• Grubhub subscription
• Health & Wellness Perks
• Multiple team offsites per year with team events every month
• Generous PTO policy

Captions provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.

Please note benefits apply to full time employees only.