Senior Product Designer

Semafor, Inc; New York (NY); Hybrid; USD 130,000 - 170,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible PTO

Job summary

Semafor is seeking a senior visual and product interaction designer to help shape our growing news products. You will work with engineers, editors, and product managers to design usable, production-ready interfaces and contribute to design systems.

Based in New York with a hybrid schedule (in-office Mon-Thu, remote Fri), you will collaborate across teams, explore AI-enabled workflows, and travel as needed. Base salary ranges from $130,000 to $170,000 per year.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of visual and product interaction design experience in high-growth consumer media.
• Ability to produce production-ready designs with a high degree of independence.
• Experience developing design systems.
• Collaborative, cross-functional work with engineers, editors, PMs and stakeholders.
• Comfort integrating AI tools into design workflows while maintaining craft.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with Product to envision and design innovative news products.
• Partner with Editorial, Product, and Engineering to launch feasible solutions.
• Maintain a cohesive, polished Semafor product experience.
• Support marketing and audience teams to create on-brand materials.
• Contribute to design systems and brand guidelines; ensure cross-platform consistency.
• Collaborate with freelancers and designers, providing critique and feedback.
• Foster a collaborative design culture within Semafor’s design team.
• Provide industry perspective on competitors and opportunities to differentiate.

Skills

Visual design

Product interaction design

Cross-functional collaboration

Design systems

AI tools in design

Startup adaptability

Tools

Figma

Adobe Creative Suite

Sketch

InVision

Job description

Semafor is a global news platform for an increasingly complex world in which consumers are overwhelmed by too many news sources and unsure what to trust. We are building Semafor to enable world-class journalists to deliver reporting and insights with rigor in journalistic forms that ensure a new level of transparency. Our editors and reporters distill the most important stories from all over in formats that uncover the forces shaping the stories, explain the interests behind polarizing narratives, and replenish the stock of shared facts. As a global platform, Semafor recognizes that smart people can disagree and that informed readers need to understand alternative points of view from competing centers of power and culture in a multi-polar world. Want to join us? Read on.

Your Responsibilities:

• Work with our Product team to envision and design innovative news products, developing multiple alternative approaches to product problems and keeping usability top of mind.
• Partner closely with Editorial, Product, and Engineering to design and launch elegant and technically feasible solutions.
• Hold a high bar for the Semafor product experience, ensuring our products feel cohesive and considered.
• Support marketing and audience functions to create brand materials that align with Semafor’s digital products.
• Contribute to Semafor’s design systems and brand guidelines; ensure visual consistency across platforms and teams globally.
• Collaborate with freelancers and other designers, offering critique and feedback to help maintain consistently high-quality design output across the team.
• Help create a collaborative and productive design culture as a member of Semafor’s design team.
• Bring a strong industry perspective on what competitors are doing well or where they are falling short, and how we can break through

What Makes You Qualified

• 5+ years of visual and product interaction design experience, including experience in high-growth consumer companies and/or media businesses
• Ability to develop high-quality, production-ready designs with a high degree of independence
• Experience working with and ideally developing design systems
• Enthusiasm for working collaboratively on a cross-functional team that includes engineers, editors, product managers and business stakeholders
• Experience working with diverse teams with teammates from many different backgrounds.
• Comfortable incorporating AI tools into your design workflow, while maintaining a strong point of view on craft and quality.
• Experience in start-up and/or dynamic work environment demanding flexibility and a willingness to jump in wherever needed to help the team succeed
• An entrepreneurial drive grounded in an eagerness to learn and grow alongside the company as it continues to scale and evolve.
• Passion for the media industry and great journalism
• Willingness to work in person four days per week in New York and travel domestically and internationally as needed.

The base salary for this position ranges from $130,000 - $170,000 per year. Individual compensation varies based on job-related factors, including business needs, experience, level of responsibility, and qualifications.

Additional Job Details:

This position is based in our New York City office with a hybrid work arrangement (in-office Monday-Thursday, remote Friday). Candidates must be authorized to work in the United States.

Semafor offers a Flexible Paid Time Off (PTO) policy to our full-time, salaried employees who may take paid time off as-needed without a prescribed limit or defined balance.

Semafor, Inc. is an equal opportunity employer and enthusiastically encourages people from all backgrounds and experiences to apply. Semafor, Inc. will consider all applicants without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, physical and/or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, age, sexual orientation, military or veteran status, or any other protected characteristic under applicable law.