Staff Product Designer (Visual Design & Systems), Autonomous Recruiting

Handshake is the career network built for the AI economy. With 20 million knowledge workers 1600 educational institutions 1 million employers (including 100% of the Fortune 50) and every major AI lab trusting Handshake to power career discovery hiring and upskilling we sit at the intersection of talent and opportunity at a pivotal moment in history. From freelance AI training gigs to first internships to full-time careers Handshake is where professional journeys begin and evolve. That unique position is driving extraordinary growth: in 2025 we tripled our ARR at scale.

Were building a new AI-native product from the ground upone that reimagines how recruiters and hiring managers source engage and manage talent from a blank slate. The visual language we set in the next few months will shape it for years.

As a Staff Product Designer youll set the craft bar for the product and raise it for the entire Employer design team while owning the design system that keeps our work coherent. Youre a hands-on maker first with a clear spike in visual design. Youll design some of the best-looking best-feeling screens on the team yourself and make everyone elses work better through the system craft reviews and pairing. Our goal is enterprise-grade reliability with consumer-grade craft: a product that feels calm intelligent and clearly hierarchical.

This is a judgment role as much as a craft role. Youll bring a strong point of view on what belongs in the product and what we leave out.

• Own the visual and interaction quality of the products most important surfaces from early exploration through shipped UI.

• Own the design system for the Employer design team keeping Figma and code in sync with engineering.

• Define motion and micro-interactions that shape how an AI product feels to use.

• Raise the bar for the whole team by leading craft reviews pairing with designers and documenting the principles behind good work.

• Partner closely with product engineering and data to shape the product experience.

• Collaborate with designers across the broader employer experience to ensure a coherent unified product.

• 8 years of product design experience with a track record of setting the visual direction for a shipped B2B or prosumer product.

• Exceptional visual craft with typography spacing color hierarchy and density visibly strong across shipped work including edge states.

• Strong interaction and motion sense.

• Experience owning or leading a design system with good judgment about when to use extend or break from it.

• Taste you can explain and teach and a track record of raising the quality of work beyond your own team.

• Fluent in code or close to it and invested in shipped UI matching the design.

• Strong product thinking and a bias toward simplicity.

• Comfortable with ambiguity and rapid change and excited to build something from scratch.

• Experience designing for an AI-native product with real thinking about chat composer and agent interaction patterns.

Handshake delivers benefits that help you feel supported and thrive at work and in life. The below benefits are for full-time US employees.

• Ownership: Equity in a fast-growing company

• Financial Wellness: 401(k) match competitive compensation financial coaching

• Family Support: Paid parental leave fertility benefits parental coaching

• Wellbeing: Medical dental and vision mental health support $500 wellness stipend

• Growth: $2000 learning stipend ongoing development

• Remote & Office: Internet commuting and free lunch/gym in our SF office

• Time Off: Flexible PTO 15 holidays 2 flex days

• Connection: Team outings & referral bonuses

Explore our mission values and comprehensive US benefits at Experience:

Staff IC