Head of Product Design - AI Commerce

Doing product research online feels harder than ever. AI promised better information. Instead it flooded the web with hallucinations, generated content, and confident-sounding answers that have no idea what's true.
Product.ai is building the truth engine for shopping. When every other AI tool summarizes and guesses, we verify. Not opinions. Not averages. Ground truth.
Self-funded and profitable for over a decade, we're a team of e-commerce veterans who have been building commerce truth systems at scale. Over a billion dollars in annual transaction volume. Millions of customers served. Product.ai is our flagship - the new starting point for shopping in the AI era. We're in early alpha, building alongside our community of domain experts.
Nobody has designed what verified truth should look like as a consumer experience. Every AI commerce interface is built around affirmation - everyone saying yes feels good. We need the Head of Product Design who designs what confidence looks like when it's earned through evidence, not engineered through persuasion. You'll own design strategy, design systems, design leadership, and the user signal pipeline that feeds our verification engine. Your team will be small. Your scope will be total.
Based in Santa Monica. Hybrid schedule with flexibility. For the right builder, we're open to remote.
What You Will Build

• The Experience Paradigm. How does an interface build confidence without pressuring purchase? How do confidence states differ from affirmation states? What does visual density look like when users are in hunt mode versus validation mode? You will define the experience paradigm from first principles, then systematize it into a design language that scales across every surface we ship. This is foundational work - the kind that gets referenced for years.
• The Experience Standard. A design standard - not a guide - for every consumer surface we ship, from our core web app (smartphones first) to API-native agent surfaces (JSON-LD + MCP protocol) to embedded verification widgets in third-party experiences. You're designing polymorphic UX that maintains its integrity across human interfaces and machine-readable outputs. The standard must be rigorous enough that a new designer can ship quality work on day one, and flexible enough that it doesn't calcify as we enter new categories.
• User Signal Pipeline. Every design choice generates data - red states versus green states, hunt psychology versus validation, community verification activity. You'll architect how that signal flows back into the product loop as design inputs that make the next iteration smarter. You'll build the company's first real design research practice, adding systematic user contact to a company that has historically operated on founder conviction and data analysis.
• Design System Evolution. Today's design system covers our current surfaces. You'll architect the system for growth across new categories, platforms, and partner integrations without building for a future that doesn't exist. The system must serve both the vibrant retail register (homepage, category pages) and the institutional density register (MLPs, verification workstations).
• Revenue Engine. Design decisions directly impact our $1B+ commerce platform. Checkout confidence, verification display, state indicators, merchant signaling - these drive affiliate economics. A 2% improvement in verification-to-click conversion is worth millions in annual revenue. You'll optimize both user trust and business velocity, understanding that these are not in tension when the product is honest.

Who You Are

• You have uncommon taste and the track record to prove it. You can see what should exist before it exists. You've shipped consumer products where the design was the competitive advantage - not a coat of paint on engineering decisions. Your portfolio includes at least one product where you defined the experience paradigm, not just refined an existing one. You can trace the causal chain from design choice to user behavior to revenue impact.
• You design products AND define products. You make product strategy concrete through design and challenge the CEO when the direction is wrong - with evidence, not taste alone. You've navigated founder disagreements productively. Sometimes you won. Sometimes you changed your mind. Both outcomes made the product better.
• You're obsessed with users, not audiences. You sit in the discomfort of user confusion and stay there until it resolves. You run sessions yourself - you don't delegate research to a team and read the summary. You've killed design directions you loved because the research said users didn't.
• You operate at speed under ambiguity. You ship incomplete systems knowing they'll evolve. You've built design practices at early-stage companies where there was no design system, no research infrastructure, and no established process. You found that liberating, not terrifying.
• You're technical enough to design for real constraints. You understand how design lives in code. You can prototype in Figma, in code, or in HTML. You know the constraints that matter (responsive behavior, state management, performance budgets) and the ones that don't. You've shipped consumer products at scale and stayed to maintain them - you know the difference between launching and sustaining.

Ownership
We operate as a high-performance studio, not a typical corporation. Every builder at Product.ai is a partner, not an employee collecting a paycheck.

• Base: $450,000 - $650,000. Top of market. Your base covers your life; your ownership builds your freedom.
• Equity: You receive a formal ownership stake via Profits Interest Units (PIUs) - Class B Membership Interests with a $0 strike price. Not options. Not RSUs. Actual ownership that participates in the upside from day one and qualifies for Capital Gains tax treatment.
• Profit Sharing: You participate in the company's annual success. As an equity holder, you receive a pro-rata share of Free Cash Flow (FCF) - real cash, every year, not a promise tied to a future exit.
• Liquidity: We operate an Annual Tender Offer where the company buys back vested interests at fair market value. You can turn ownership into cash every year. No waiting for an IPO. No hoping for an acquisition.
• Benefits: 100% premium coverage for you and your family, daily catered lunches, and unlimited PTO that we actually expect you to use.

How to Apply
We skip the 60-minute recruiter screen. Instead, you'll answer a few short video questions so we can get to know how you think and work. Less time than a phone screen, and you can do it whenever works for you.
The Process:

Click Apply.

Record short video responses to our questions (no prep required - we want to see how you naturally think).

Your responses go directly to the hiring team. No ATS. No keyword parsing.

We're not looking for polished presentations. We're looking for signal on who you are.