Staff Product Designer (Autonomous Recruiting)

Handshake; United States; On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health Insurance

401k match

Equity

Parental leave

Sabbatical

Volunteer time off

Professional development stipend

Job summary

Handshake is building a new AI-native product from the ground up to reimagine how recruiters and hiring managers source, engage, and manage talent. As Staff Product Designer, you’ll own the end-to-end design across user flows, prototypes, and high-fidelity mocks, shaping a consumer-grade yet craft-forward experience for a complex B2B workflow.

You’ll collaborate with product, engineering, and data teams, define problems, set goals, and guide strategy for a high-visibility product area, bringing

Qualifications

• 7+ years of product design experience, ideally for enterprise or B2B workflows.
• Experience designing for AI-native products with chat, composer, and agent interactions.
• Strong visual and interaction design craft with shipped work and measurable impact.
• Excellent cross-functional collaboration and clear communication with leadership.
• Ability to handle ambiguity and lead design from concept through post-launch iterations.

Responsibilities

• Own design end-to-end, from early concept through post-launch iteration: user flows, interaction prototypes, high-fidelity mocks, and collaboration through build.
• Design core interaction patterns for working with AI and agents—particularly around chat, composer, and the movement between conversational and structured parts of the product.
• Partner closely with product, engineering, and data teams to define problems, set goals, and shape product strategy for a new, high-visibility product area.
• Rapidly iterate through wireframes and prototypes to gather feedback early and often.
• Obsess over craft, with a strong point of view on visual and interaction design.
• Collaborate closely with designers working on adjacent parts of the broader employer experience to ensure a coherent, unified product.

Skills

Product design

AI-driven design

Collaboration

Visual design

Prototyping

User research

Ownership

Communication

Design systems

Job description

We’re building a new, AI-native product from the ground up—one that reimagines how recruiters and hiring managers source, engage, and manage talent from a blank slate

This is a rare opportunity to shape a product’s foundational experience rather than iterate on an existing one, working closely with an AI recruiting assistant that sits at the center of the workflow

As a Staff Product Designer on this team, you’ll help define what it means to design a consumer-grade, craft-forward experience for a complex B2B workflow, with a particular focus on how users move fluidly between conversational AI, agentic automation, and traditional structured tools

Things are moving quickly and the scope of this role will evolve, so we’re looking for someone comfortable with ambiguity who can dive deep into complex workflows, simplify them, and bring a strong opinion on how people should collaborate with AI and agents day to day

Partner closely with product, engineering, and data teams to define problems, set goals, and shape product strategy for a new, high-visibility product area

Own design end-to‑end, from early concept through post‑launch iteration: user flows, interaction prototypes, high‑fidelity mocks, and collaboration through build

Tackle complex and ambiguous human‑centered design problems, translating them into clear, simple, consumer‑grade solutions

Design core interaction patterns for working with AI and agents—particularly around chat, composer, and the movement between conversational and structured parts of the product

Rapidly iterate through wireframes and prototypes to gather feedback early and often

Obsess over craft, with a strong point of view on visual and interaction design

Collaborate closely with designers working on adjacent parts of the broader employer experience to ensure a coherent, unified product

Benefits

• Health Insurance: Comprehensive medical , dental, and vision coverage
• Fertility and family forming: Through a partnership, Handshake offers comprehensive family benefits, including infertility treatments and a $15K stipend, to its employees.
• LGTBQ+ coverage: All medical plans cover transgender services.
• Mental health: Discounts on a variety of wellness apps and an Employee Assistance Program with access to five free counseling sessions.
• Tax savings: Tax‑advantaged benefits to save money on healthcare, dependent care, and other expenses.
• Life & disability insurance: Essential benefits and automatic coverage with basic life insurance, plus short‑term and long‑term disability coverage.
• 401k match: Dollar‑for‑dollar match up to 1% of pay, with a max of $1,200 per year.
• Equity: Our equity program includes grants at hire, refresher grants after two years of tenure, and grants alongside promotions.
• Financial management: Handshake partners to provide free professional financial planning services.
• Learning & development: Employees are provided with an annual stipend to use towards professional development, career development workshops, manager trainings, and 1‑on‑1 coaching through external partnerships
• Community leader support: Employee Resource Group leaders are compensated with a quarterly bonus for the high‑impact work the role requires
• Parental leave: Leaves of 16 weeks for birth‑giving parents and 10 weeks for non‑birth‑giving parents; the policy applies to adoptions as well. Handshake also partners to provide one‑on‑one coaching on preparing for leave and coming back from leave
• Flexible time off: No accrued time off or waiting period to take vacation. Two paid flexible holiday days off to observe holidays that closely align with religious, cultural, and personal needs
• Sabbatical: Paid six‑week sabbatical to recharge and reset beginning at six years of continuous, full‑time employment, and every four years thereafter
• Volunteer time off: Two days off for social and civil activism, volunteer work, and/or any related activities, including attending and participating in protests

Curious and always learning, with a growth mindsetComfortable with ambiguity and rapid change; excited to build something from scratch rather than optimize an existing systemDeep visual and interaction design expertise, with a proven track record of shipped work and measurable impact7+ years of product design experience, ideally on enterprise or B2B products involving complex workflowsDesign-led thinker who raises the bar by embedding design thinking into day‑to‑day work and helping others growComfortable incorporating generative AI tools into the design process to accelerate ideation, prototyping, and iteration, while maintaining a high bar for product thinking, craft, and user experienceGritty and hands‑on. You’re willing to roll up your sleeves and take ownership—nothing is “someone else’s problem.”Strong communicator who clearly articulates design decisions, tradeoffs, and the thinking behind them to partners and leadershipHighly collaborative. You value diverse perspectives and incorporate them into the design process to achieve better outcomesExperience designing for an AI‑native product with real thinking about chat, composer, and agent interaction patterns