Slack VP, Product Design (Individual Contributor; Principal Architect)

Global Gainsight Admins Community; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 260,000 - 420,000; Full time

Job summary

Salesforce is seeking a Slack VP, Product Design (Individual Contributor; Principal Architect) to define and lead the design vision for the AI Operating System, collaborating with product and engineering leadership to prototype and shape Slack’s future. You will craft elegant, high-impact experiences at scale that empower millions of users daily.

You will report to the SVP & Chief Design Officer, shaping strategy, executing with craft, and influencing across the organization while driving the

Qualifications

• 12+ years of product design experience at significant scale.
• Portfolio showing visionary concept work and executional craft.
• Ability to define product direction through design.
• Experience designing consumer-grade experiences in complex contexts.
• Track record influencing product strategy at leadership level without hierarchy.
• Exceptional communication and storytelling; simplify complex ideas.

Responsibilities

• Vision & Concept Design: Define and prototype the long-range design vision for Slack's agentic future, producing seminal concepts and vignettes.
• Executional Craft: Hands-on design at the highest level, pixel-perfect and deeply considered, using tools (AI, code, prototyping) to turn ideas into working experiences.
• Strategic Design Influence: Shape product strategy with leadership to influence decisions at SVP/C-level.
• Cross-Functional Leadership: Align across product, engineering, research, and brand without formal authority.
• Simplification as a Design Discipline: Lead efforts to radically simplify Slack's current experience toward an AI-first paradigm.
• Emerging Interaction Patterns: Invent new patterns for agentic UX and dynamic UI generation.
• User Advocacy at Scale: Champion the enterprise user under pressure and finite resources.

Skills

Vision & Concept Design

Executional Craft

Strategic Design Influence

Cross-Functional Leadership

Simplification as Design

Emerging Interaction Patterns

User Advocacy at Scale

Job description

To get the best candidate experience, please consider applying for a maximum of 3 roles within 12 months to ensure you are not duplicating efforts.

Job Category

User Experience

Job Details

About Salesforce

Salesforce is the #1 AI CRM, where humans with agents drive customer success together. Here, ambition meets action. Tech meets trust. And innovation isn’t a buzzword — it’s a way of life. The world of work as we know it is changing and we're looking for Trailblazers who are passionate about bettering business and the world through AI, driving innovation, and keeping Salesforce's core values at the heart of it all.

Ready to level-up your career at the company leading workforce transformation in the agentic era? You’re in the right place! Agentforce is the future of AI, and you are the future of Salesforce.

About Slack & The Role

Slack is at an inflection point. We're evolving from the world’s most beloved team communication tool into something fundamentally new: an AI operating system where humans and agents work together to get things done. This isn't incremental improvement. It's a reimagining of how work happens.

Slack VP, Product Design (Individual Contributor; Principal Architect) you will be one of the most important design voices shaping that future. This is not a management role. It's a rare seat at the table for a designer who wants to define the product; to hold the vision, drive the craft, and personally execute at the highest level on the next generation of Slack.

You will report to the SVP & Chief Design Officer and partner deeply with product and engineering leadership to prototype, pressure-test, and shape the platform Slack must become. You'll make work that millions of people use every day and you'll help us make the hardest design problems look inevitable in hindsight.

The Opportunity: Designing Slack as the AI Operating System for Action. Slack's defining role in this next era is as the context layer for work: the intelligent interface where humans and AI agents collaborate fluidly to drive outcomes. Built on context, Slack becomes the single, personalized command center that replaces fragmented apps, inboxes, and point solutions.

As Slack VP, Product Design (Individual Contributor; Principal Architect) You Will Be The Designer Helping Us Answer The Hardest Questions At The Frontier Of This Transformation

• Human-Agent Collaboration: What are the right interaction models for a world where AI agents are co-workers? How do agents present information, take action, and hand back control in ways that feel natural, not jarring?
• Radical Simplification: How do we strip Slack down to its most essential, powerful form while making it capable of far more? How do we absorb complexity so users never have to feel it?
• Dynamic & Ambient Interfaces: How do we design surfaces that appear when and where decisions need to be made (across voice, mobile, wearables, and desktop) rather than requiring users to navigate to them?
• The AI Operating System: What does it look like when Slack becomes the single pane of glass for every kind of worker: the CEO, the service agent, the developer, the sales rep? How do we make that feel personal and not overwhelming?

Key Responsibilities

• Vision & Concept Design: Define and prototype the long-range design vision for Slack's agentic future, producing the seminal concepts and vignettes that align the organization and inspire the roadmap
• Executional Craft: Personal, hands-on design at the highest level, pixel-perfect, conceptually sharp, deeply considered. Uses whatever tools work best (AI, code, and emerging prototyping techniques) to turn ideas into working experiences fast, explore possibilities, and raise the bar. The bar you set becomes the bar for the team.
• Strategic Design Influence: Partner with the CDO, CPO, and Engineering leadership to shape product strategy through design. Influence decisions at the SVP and C-level through the power of your work and your thinking
• Cross-Functional Leadership: Drive alignment across product, engineering, research, and brand through the quality and clarity of your design work, without needing formal authority
• Simplification as a Design Discipline: Lead the work to radically simplify Slack's current experience, defining what we kill, what we keep, and what we transform as we move toward an AI‑first paradigm
• Emerging Interaction Patterns: Invent new design patterns for agentic UX, for voice‑anchored experiences, ambient AI surfaces, multiplayer human‑agent co‑creation, and dynamic UI generation
• User Advocacy at Scale: Be a relentless champion for the user, particularly the enterprise user under pressure; the worker with 500 unread messages, zero configuration tolerance, and no time to learn a new paradigm

Minimum Qualifications

• 12+ years of product design experience, with senior IC work at significant scale
• A portfolio that demonstrates both visionary concept work and exceptional executional craft
• Proven ability to define product direction through design, not just respond to it
• Experience designing consumer‑grade experiences, deeply intuitive, delightful, effortless, in complex product contexts
• A track record of influencing product strategy at the leadership level without relying on hierarchy
• Exceptional communication and storytelling skills; can make complex ideas simple and make simple ideas compelling

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience designing for AI, machine learning, or human‑agent collaboration. Ideally at the interaction pattern level, not just the UI level
• Experience with enterprise software and the unique constraints of B2B SaaS at scale
• Familiarity with emerging modalities: voice UX, ambient/wearable surfaces, AI‑generated UI
• Experience working directly with C‑suite leadership to define and evolve product vision
• Understanding of Slack, its ecosystem, and what makes it uniquely powerful; and what needs to change

What Makes This Role Different

Most senior IC design roles ask you to execute within a defined vision. This one asks you to be the vision while still doing the work. You'll have the strategic altitude of a leadership role and the craft latitude of a builder role. You'll ship things that change how millions of people experience their working lives.

If you've ever looked at a product you love and thought "I could take this somewhere no one's been yet" this is that role.

Unleash Your Potential

When you join Salesforce, you’ll be limitless in all areas of your life. Our benefits and resources support you to find balance and be your best, and our AI agents accelerate your impact so you can do your best. Together, we’ll bring the power of Agentforce to organizations of all sizes and deliver amazing experiences that customers love.

Accommodations

If you need a reasonable accommodation during the application or the recruiting process, please submit a request via this Accommodations Request Form.

Posting Statement

Salesforce is an equal opportunity employer and maintains a policy of non‑discrimination with all employees and applicants for employment. What does that mean exactly? It means that at Salesforce, we believe in equality for all. And we believe we can lead the path to equality in part by creating a workplace that’s inclusive, and free from discrimination. Know your rights: workplace discrimination is illegal. Any employee or potential employee will be assessed on the basis of merit, competence and qualifications – without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender expression or identity, transgender status, age, disability, veteran or marital status, political viewpoint, or other classifications protected by law. This policy applies to current and prospective employees,