Staff Product Designer

Learning Commons; Palo Alto (CA); Hybrid; USD 170,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401(k) match

Paid time off to volunteer

Relocation support

Funding for family-forming benefits

Additional team benefits

Job summary

Learning Commons in Palo Alto, CA, is seeking a Staff Product Designer to own the end-to-end developer experience and help shape a coherent platform across integration, onboarding, discovery, and interactive access. You will define what developers see about their integrations, design cross-surface patterns, and mentor designers while raising the craft bar across the team.

The role focuses on building a unified product feel with robust permission and organization models, under philanthropic

Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional experience.
• Strong visual craft and product thinking.
• Experience closing loops with design systems.
• Strategic ownership of a product or platform.
• Systems instincts with API and permissions awareness.
• Comfort with AI-native workflows and rapid prototyping.

Responsibilities

• Own developer experience end to end and guide roadmap.
• Design developer integration views from zero.
• Make the platform read as one product across surfaces.
• Extend the dataset catalog and access experience.
• Set the craft bar and mentor designers.

Skills

8+ years exp

Visual craft

Product thinking

Design systems

Strategic ownership

Systems instincts

Technical depth

New ways of working

Job description

Own the end-to-end developer experience and help shape a coherent Learning Commons platform across integration, onboarding, discovery, and interactive access.

Responsibilities

• Own developer experience end to end: build and hold the point of view on what drives sustained use of Learning Commons tools using research, usage data, and direct partner contact; translate insights into a roadmap the organization aligns behind.
• Design developer integration views from zero: define what developers need to see about their integrations, including usage, quality, errors, and impact (no prior internal art).
• Make the platform read as one product: lead systematic design work across platform, catalog, docs, and marketing surfaces by establishing patterns and information architecture.
• Extend the dataset catalog and access experience: build on what is already shipped, including new features, richer discovery, and the underlying permission and organization models.
• Set the craft bar: partner closely with the design systems lead, mentor designers across the team, and act as a reviewer others seek out.

Requirements

• Minimum 8 years of professional experience.
• Visual craft plus product thinking: strength in visual and interaction design, and the desire to bring brand expression into the product (this role sets the team quality bar).
• Loop closure with design systems: recommendations land in the system rather than remaining one-off; partner with the systems designer to get patterns adopted.
• Strategic ownership: have owned an entire product or platform in production and set direction; frame ambiguous problems, make explicit value and risk tradeoffs, and align stakeholders without waiting for fully specified briefs.
• Systems instincts and technical depth: strong interest in permissions, organization models, and multi-surface navigation; can review an API reference and work with engineers on feasibility while designing within real constraints.
• Comfort with new ways of working: use AI-native methods to ship fast and learn; prototype in code and validate early rather than following a linear ideate-research-build-ship loop.

The Opportunity

• Learning Commons provides a Knowledge Graph of academic standards and learning components, Evaluators for measuring model quality in educational contexts, and Agent Skills that partners like Canva, Diffit, and Playlab build on.
• Developers can find Learning Commons, sign up, get a key, and make their first call.
• The next phase focuses on what developers do after getting started: improving conversion from interest to integration, improving onboarding, evolving the dataset catalog, defining what developers need to see about their integrations, and evolving interactive experiences that let people try products before committing.
• This Staff Product Design role sets direction for the developer experience end to end, including developer integration flows, a platform experience that feels coherent across surfaces, and an access system beneath it.
• Philanthropic funding prioritizes developer and educator outcomes rather than conversion metrics; the audience is technical; the education sector is at an inflection point for what AI should be allowed to do in a classroom.

Team Context

• Learning Commons pairs technology with grantmaking to scale proven teaching and learning practices to benefit every learner.
• The mission translates learning science into classroom practice and accelerates that work with generative AI.
• AI value depends on being grounded in research, high-quality educational data, and expert evaluation.
• The organization is building open, public-purpose infrastructure, including datasets, rubrics, and resources, to raise standards for educational tools and improve learning experiences for students and teachers.

Location & Work Style

• Palo Alto, CA (hybrid)
• Onsite requirement: at least 60% of the working month, approximately 3 days a week
• Specific in-office days are set by the team manager; the exact schedule is communicated during the interview process

Compensation

• $170,000 - $190,000 USD yearly base pay range for a new hire
• New hires are typically hired into the lower portion of the range to support growth over time
• Actual placement is based on job-related skills and experience as evaluated throughout the interview process
• May be eligible for a discretionary annual performance bonus program
• Bonus eligibility and targets follow the company’s total rewards philosophy and may vary by role

Benefits

• Generous employer match on employee 401(k) contributions
• Paid time off to volunteer at an organization of your choice
• Funding for select family-forming benefits
• Relocation support for employees who need assistance moving
• Additional benefits provided to support the team