VP of Product Design

About Search Atlas

Search Atlas is pioneering agentic marketing - AI that doesnt just recommend what to do but executes. Weve built a platform that manages over $1B in ad spend indexes 100B backlinks and 50B keywords and serves thousands of customers from SMBs to enterprises. We bootstrapped to $30M ARR with 250 employees.

This is a rare opportunity to build the design function at a company with real revenue real data and real product-market fit not a pre-revenue startup guessing at product direction.

The Role

Were hiring our first VP of Product Design to own the end-to-end product experience across the Search Atlas platform. Youll report directly to the CEO/CTO and be responsible for building a world-class design function from the ground up.

This is not a make it pretty role. Youll be accountable for product outcomes - conversion rates activation retention and the overall experience quality of an AI-native platform thats creating a new category.

Why This Role Exists Now

Heres a concrete example of the problem youll solve on day one:

Our trial-to-paid conversion rate has declined meaningfully over the past year. UI/UX changes were made over time but they were never logged versioned or tested systematically. We cant tell exactly what caused the decline. The person we hire will:

• Forensically audit the trial onboarding flow using session recordings funnel analytics and archived versions of the product

• Identify the specific UX regressions that contributed to the decline

• Design and execute a plan to meaningfully improve trial-to-paid conversion

• Build the design ops infrastructure (version control A/B testing change logs) so this kind of blind spot never happens again

If that kind of diagnostic metrics-driven design leadership excites you keep reading.

What Youll Own

• Product Design Vision: Define and own the design language interaction patterns and experience architecture for an agentic AI platform - interfaces where AI executes tasks autonomously and users need transparency control and trust.

• Design System: Build a scalable component-based design system purpose-built for agentic interfaces covering everything from AI status indicators and confidence displays to human-in-the-loop intervention patterns.

• Design Ops: Establish the processes QA workflows versioning and A/B testing frameworks that turn design from an ad hoc function into a disciplined measurable practice.

• User Research: Build a lightweight but rigorous research practice that informs the product roadmap - understanding how marketers agencies and SMBs interact with AI-driven workflows.

• Team Building: Grow and lead the design team from 12 designers today to a high-performing group that can support a rapidly scaling product portfolio.

• Conversion & Activation: Own the full trial-to-paid and onboarding experience with direct accountability for improving conversion activation and retention metrics.

What Were Looking For

Required

• 8 years in product design with 3 years leading design teams at B2B SaaS companies

• Track record of directly improving product metrics (conversion activation retention) through design.

• Experience building design functions or teams from early stage (sub-10 designers)

• Strong portfolio demonstrating systems thinking: design systems component libraries interaction patterns at scale

• Comfort operating as a player-coach: hands-on in Figma one hour showing metrics to rest of leadership the next

• Experience with design ops: versioning change management QA processes A/B testing frameworks

• Analytical fluency - comfortable in Amplitude Mixpanel or similar tools; able to read funnel data and form hypotheses independently

Strongly Preferred

• Meaningful experience designing AI-native or ML-driven product interfaces especially agentic UX patterns (autonomous execution confidence indicators human oversight models)

• Experience with marketing technology SEO or advertising platforms

• Background working in bootstrapped or capital-efficient environments where design resources were scarce and impact had to be outsized

• Familiarity with front-end implementation (enough to prototype or evaluate technical feasibility not necessarily production code)

What This Role Is Not

• A pure management role - youll be hands-on designing especially in the first 612 months

• A rebrand or marketing design job - this is product design focused on the application experience

• A role where you wait for specs - youll be expected to proactively identify UX problems and bring data to the conversation

Compensation & Benefits

• Base Salary: $200K$250K base equity

• Benefits: Fully covered health vision and dental insurance 401(k) Flexible PTO Personal development budget Pet Health Insurance

• Work Model: Hybrid - San Francisco CA

Why Search Atlas

• Category creation: Youd be designing the UX patterns for agentic marketing - a product category that barely exists yet. The design decisions you make will define how marketers interact with autonomous AI.

• Real scale real data: $30M ARR 100B backlinks indexed $1B in ad spend under management. Youre not designing for a hypothetical product - youre optimizing something that thousands of customers already use daily.

• Founder access: You report directly to the CEO/CTO. No layers between you and the technical and strategic decision-maker.

• Bootstrapped discipline: We built this without institutional capital which means every design decision has to earn its place. If you thrive in high-ownership low-bureaucracy environments this is your role.

• Equity upside: Leadership hires get meaningful equity in a company with proven revenue and trajectory.

Interview Process

• Introductory call with recruiting

• Portfolio review design philosophy conversation with CEO/CTO

• Case study: Diagnose a real conversion problem using anonymized product data

• Team and cross-functional interviews

• Offer and reference checks

Search Atlas is an equal opportunity employer.

We encourage candidates of all backgrounds to apply.