Director - UX Design

📍 Job Overview

Job Title: Director - UX Design

Company: JazzX AI

Location: Los Altos, California, United States

Job Type: Full-Time

Category: UX Design / Product Design Leadership

Date Posted: April 15, 2026

Experience Level: 10+ Years

Remote Status: On-site

🚀 Role Summary

• Lead the strategic vision and execution of UX design for AI-native digital workers, focusing on human-AI collaboration in complex enterprise environments.

• Drive foundational design system architecture and establish a robust user research discipline to deeply understand enterprise personas and their high-stakes workflows.

• Own the end-to-end product experience, ensuring seamless integration of AI capabilities into users' daily operations and fostering adoption at scale.

• Build and scale a world-class UX organization, attracting, mentoring, and retaining top talent in product design, UX research, and content design.

• Partner closely with Product, Marketing, and Sales teams to craft compelling product narratives and effectively demonstrate the value of AI-powered enterprise solutions.

📝 Enhancement Note: This role is positioned as a "Director - UX Design" with a significant emphasis on building from "0 to 1" and scaling, indicating a strategic leadership position requiring a blend of hands-on execution and organizational development. The focus on "AI-native digital workers" and "institutional intelligence" suggests a need for deep understanding of complex B2B SaaS products, particularly in regulated industries.

📈 Primary Responsibilities

• Define and champion the UX vision and principles for AI-native digital workers, balancing automation capabilities with essential oversight mechanisms like clarity, control, explainability, trust, and speed for professional users.

• Lead comprehensive user research initiatives and workflow discovery processes to gain deep insights into enterprise personas, their specific incentives, operational constraints, and critical pain points.

• Architect the platform's overall experience and establish a scalable design system, including defining specialized AI patterns for task states, reasoning visibility, confidence signaling, audit trails, and robust enterprise-grade controls.

• Take ownership of the end-to-end product experience and drive user adoption by overseeing UX across all product surfaces, defining key success metrics, and ensuring JazzX AI is seamlessly integrated into users' daily enterprise workflows.

• Build, mentor, and scale a world-class UX function, including hiring and developing a team of product designers, UX researchers, and content designers to meet evolving platform needs.

• Collaborate closely with Product Management, Marketing, and Sales to translate complex technical capabilities into clear, intuitive narratives and compelling demonstrations for enterprise buyers and end-users.

📝 Enhancement Note: The responsibilities highlight a "player-coach" role, requiring hands-on design work (Figma, prototyping, research) alongside strategic leadership and team building. The emphasis on "AI-native and agentic UX expertise" and designing for "regulated, complex domains" points to a need for specialized knowledge beyond typical SaaS UX.

🎓 Skills & Qualifications

Education: Bachelor's degree in Design, Human-Computer Interaction, Computer Science, or a related field; Master's degree preferred.

Experience: 12+ years of progressive UX design experience, with a substantial portion dedicated to leading design for enterprise-grade products and demonstrating a strong track record of shipped products.

Required Skills:

• 0 → 1 Builder with Startup DNA: Proven ability to architect an end-to-end user experience from the ground up and operate effectively in a fast-paced startup environment.

• Deep Enterprise Software Experience: Demonstrated success designing complex B2B applications for professional users, understanding enterprise buying cycles, multi-persona workflows, and deployment realities in large organizations.

• AI-Native and Agentic UX Expertise: In-depth experience designing AI-powered systems where AI performs consequential work and humans supervise outcomes, with strong instincts for human-in-the-loop controls, explainability, auditability, and trust-building UX.

• Full-Stack UX Leadership: Proficiency across user research, information architecture, product design, user interaction design, visual design, prototyping, and usability testing, maintaining a high bar for craft and shipped quality.

• Design Systems Thinking: Ability to conceptualize, build, and scale a design system that enhances engineering velocity and ensures product coherence across diverse workflows and future vertical expansions.

• AI-Fluent Practice: Demonstrated use of AI tools in personal design work (prototyping, research synthesis, concept generation) and a proactive approach to exploring AI-assisted design methodologies.

• Comfort in Regulated, Complex Domains: Experience designing for environments where accuracy, compliance, and trust are paramount (e.g., financial services, healthcare, legal). Experience in mortgage/lending is a significant plus.

Preferred Skills:

• Experience building and scaling a design team from inception.

• Expertise in specific regulated industries like financial services, healthcare, or legal.

• Familiarity with AI/ML concepts relevant to enterprise workflows.

• Strong presentation and storytelling skills for executive stakeholders.

• Experience with Agile development methodologies.

📝 Enhancement Note: The requirement for "12+ years of UX design experience" and a "proven track record leading design for enterprise products" strongly suggests a senior leadership role. The emphasis on "AI-native and agentic UX expertise" and "regulated, complex domains" indicates a specialized skill set is highly valued, moving beyond general UX proficiency.

📊 Process & Systems Portfolio Requirements

Portfolio Essentials:

• Shipped Enterprise Products: Showcase at least 2-3 significant enterprise products or complex features that have been successfully launched and are in production.

• Complex Workflow Design: Demonstrate deep dives into understanding and redesigning intricate, multi-step enterprise workflows, illustrating your process from discovery to solution.

• Design System Development: Include examples of a design system you have built or significantly contributed to, highlighting its components, guidelines, and impact on product consistency and development efficiency.

• AI/Human-in-the-Loop Design: Present case studies where you designed systems involving AI collaboration, focusing on how you addressed explainability, trust, control, and auditability for professional users.

• Research-to-Design Impact: Illustrate how user research directly informed design decisions and led to measurable improvements in user experience or business outcomes.

Process Documentation:

• Workflow Discovery & Analysis: Provide examples of how you map, analyze, and document complex enterprise workflows, including methods for identifying pain points and opportunities for improvement.

• Design System Implementation: Detail your process for creating, documenting, and socializing a design system, including collaboration with engineering and product teams.

• AI UX Pattern Design: Showcase your approach to designing specific UX patterns for AI interactions, such as confidence signaling, reasoning visualization, and intervention workflows.

• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Document how you collaborate with product managers, engineers, and other stakeholders throughout the design lifecycle, ensuring alignment and efficient execution.

📝 Enhancement Note: Given the "0 -> 1" nature of the role and the focus on building a design function, the portfolio should emphasize not just individual design execution but also the strategic thinking behind establishing processes, systems, and a team. Demonstrating the ability to define and implement design best practices from scratch is crucial.

💵 Compensation & Benefits

Salary Range: Based on industry benchmarks for a Director-level UX Design role in the San Francisco Bay Area with 10+ years of experience, particularly in a high-demand field like AI and enterprise software, the estimated salary range is $200,000 - $280,000 annually. This range can vary based on the candidate's specific experience, qualifications, and the company's compensation philosophy.

Benefits:

• Competitive health, dental, and vision insurance plans.

• Stock options or equity grants, reflecting the early-stage nature of the company and potential for significant growth.

• Generous Paid Time Off (PTO) and company holidays.

• 401(k) retirement savings plan.

• Professional development budget for conferences, training, and continuous learning.

• Opportunities for significant impact and ownership in a rapidly growing AI startup.

• Potential for flexible work arrangements, though the role is currently designated as on-site.

Working Hours: Standard full-time work week, typically 40 hours. However, given the demanding nature of a startup environment and a leadership role, flexibility and occasional extended hours may be expected to meet project deadlines and strategic goals.

📝 Enhancement Note: The salary estimate is based on data for senior UX Design Directors in the Los Altos/Bay Area market, considering the specialized nature of AI and enterprise software, and the early-stage company context which often includes equity. Benefits are typical for tech startups, with an emphasis on equity and growth opportunities.

🎯 Team & Company Context

🏢 Company Culture

Industry: Enterprise Software, Artificial Intelligence (AI), AI-Native Digital Workers. JazzX AI operates at the cutting edge of AI, aiming to redefine how enterprises leverage intelligence and automation for complex, consequential work. The company is focused on building AI systems that capture expert judgment, ensure explainable decisions, and improve through real-world execution, moving beyond simple automation to "institutional intelligence."

Company Size: Early-Stage Startup. As an early-stage company backed by SAIGroup, JazzX AI likely has a lean, agile team where individual contributions have a significant impact. This environment fosters rapid iteration, direct access to leadership, and a strong sense of collective mission.

Founded: Precise founding date not specified, but JazzX AI is a relatively new venture, indicated by its early-stage status and focus on defining a new market for AI-native digital workers. It's backed by SAIGroup, an investment firm committed to scaling AI-powered enterprise software companies.

Team Structure:

• Lean and Agile: Expect a flat hierarchy with direct access to founders and key stakeholders.

• Cross-functional Collaboration: High emphasis on close collaboration between Product, Engineering, Design, and Sales/Marketing teams to rapidly prototype, test, and iterate on solutions.

• Specialized Expertise: The team is likely composed of individuals with deep expertise in AI/ML, enterprise software development, and now, a foundational leader in UX Design.

• Reporting Structure: The Head of UX Design will report directly to a senior executive, likely the CEO or Head of Product, and will be responsible for building and managing the UX function.

Methodology:

• Agile Development: Iterative product development cycles with a focus on rapid feedback loops.

• Data-Driven Decision Making: Utilizing user data, product analytics, and market insights to inform design and product strategy.

• User-Centricity: Deep commitment to understanding and solving complex user problems through rigorous research and design.

• AI Integration: A core methodology involves integrating AI capabilities to automate tasks, surface judgment, and drive continuous improvement in enterprise workflows.

Company Website: https://jazzx.ai/

📝 Enhancement Note: The company's description emphasizes a mission-driven approach to building "AI-native digital workers" for "institutional intelligence." This implies a culture that values deep technical innovation, rigorous problem-solving, and a pragmatic approach to bringing AI to market for high-stakes enterprise use cases.

📈 Career & Growth Analysis

Operations Career Level: This role represents a foundational leadership position, equivalent to a Director or VP-level individual contributor responsible for establishing and scaling an entire discipline (UX Design) within a nascent company. It is a critical "0 to 1" role with significant strategic influence.

Reporting Structure: The Head of UX Design will likely report directly to a C-suite executive (e.g., CEO, CTO, or Head of Product), indicating high visibility and direct access to strategic decision-making. This structure allows for immediate impact on product direction.

Operations Impact: The Head of UX Design will have a profound impact on JazzX AI's success by defining the usability, trustworthiness, and adoption of its AI-native digital workers. Their work will directly influence how effectively enterprises can integrate and benefit from institutional intelligence, impacting revenue, efficiency, and customer satisfaction by making complex AI solutions accessible and reliable.

Growth Opportunities:

• Organizational Scale: Opportunity to build and scale the UX function from scratch, defining its structure, processes, and culture as the company grows.

• Strategic Leadership: Influence product strategy and company direction, contributing to the definition of a new category of AI-powered enterprise software.

• Deep Domain Expertise: Develop unparalleled expertise in designing for AI-native systems, human-AI collaboration, and complex regulated industries.

• Executive Advancement: Potential to grow into a VP-level role or transition into broader product leadership as the company matures.

• Industry Influence: Become a recognized leader in the emerging field of AI-native enterprise UX.

📝 Enhancement Note: This is a high-impact, high-growth opportunity. The "0 -> 1" nature of the role means the individual will shape the entire UX practice, offering significant career acceleration potential beyond typical linear progression. The focus on establishing a new market category for AI-native digital workers provides a unique growth trajectory.

🌐 Work Environment

Office Type: On-site. The role is based in Los Altos, CA, suggesting a requirement for in-person collaboration, team building, and hands-on work within the company's physical workspace.

Office Location(s): Los Altos, California. This location places the company within the Silicon Valley ecosystem, offering access to talent, innovation, and a vibrant tech community.

Workspace Context:

• Collaborative Hub: The office environment will likely foster close collaboration among design, engineering, and product teams, with spaces designed for brainstorming, whiteboarding, and iterative design sessions.

• Tooling & Technology: Access to state-of-the-art design tools, including Figma, prototyping software, and potentially AI-assisted design tools, will be available to support the team's work.

• Innovation Focus: The workspace will reflect the company's mission to push boundaries in AI, likely encouraging experimentation and a forward-thinking approach to problem-solving.

• Professional Setting: As a company focused on enterprise solutions, the workspace will likely maintain a professional atmosphere conducive to focused work and client interactions.

Work Schedule: While a standard 40-hour work week is implied, the dynamic nature of an early-stage startup, especially in a leadership role, suggests that flexibility and a willingness to dedicate additional time when necessary will be important for driving success. The on-site requirement emphasizes team presence and immediate availability for collaborative activities.

📝 Enhancement Note: The "On-site" work arrangement in Silicon Valley typically implies a highly collaborative and fast-paced environment. For a Director-level UX role, this suggests significant interaction with cross-functional teams and a need to actively shape the team's physical and working environment.

📄 Application & Portfolio Review Process

Interview Process:

• Initial Screening: A recruiter or hiring manager will conduct an initial call to assess overall fit, experience alignment, and understanding of the role.

• Portfolio Review & Design Deep Dive: Candidates will present their portfolio, focusing on case studies that demonstrate their ability to tackle complex enterprise challenges, design AI-native systems, and build design systems. Expect detailed questions about design decisions, research methodologies, and collaboration processes.

• Leadership & Strategy Interview: Discussions will focus on your vision for UX at JazzX AI, your approach to building and leading a team, and how you would establish the UX function from the ground up. Strategic thinking about AI-UX principles will be key.

• Cross-Functional Interviews: Meetings with key stakeholders from Product, Engineering, and potentially Sales/Marketing to assess collaboration style, communication skills, and alignment with company goals.

• Final Round / Executive Interview: A final conversation with senior leadership (e.g., CEO) to discuss overall fit, long-term vision, and strategic alignment.

Portfolio Review Tips:

• Curate Strategically: Select 3-5 of your strongest projects that directly address the requirements: enterprise B2B, complex workflows, AI/human interaction, and design systems.

• Tell a Story: For each case study, clearly articulate the problem, your role, the process you followed (research, ideation, design, testing), the specific challenges you overcame, your design decisions (and why), and the measurable impact or outcomes.

• Highlight AI Nuances: Specifically call out how you designed for AI capabilities, explainability, trust, and human oversight. This is a critical differentiator for JazzX AI.

• Showcase System Thinking: Demonstrate your ability to build scalable design systems, not just individual UI elements. Explain the rationale behind your approach and its benefits.

• Quantify Impact: Whenever possible, use data and metrics to showcase the success of your designs, whether it's user adoption, efficiency gains, or error reduction.

• Prepare for "0 to 1" Questions: Be ready to discuss how you would establish a UX function, build a team, and set design principles from scratch.

Challenge Preparation:

• Hypothetical Scenario: You might be given a hypothetical problem related to designing an AI-native digital worker for a specific enterprise task and asked to outline your approach.

• Design System Exercise: A task might involve critiquing an existing system or outlining the key components of a new design system for AI-driven workflows.

• Team Building Strategy: Be prepared to discuss how you would recruit, onboard, and mentor UX talent in a startup environment.

• AI UX Principles: Articulate your core beliefs and strategies for designing trustworthy and effective AI-human collaborative systems.

📝 Enhancement Note: The emphasis on "AI-native and agentic UX expertise" and "0 -> 1 builder" means interviewers will heavily scrutinize how candidates approach novel design challenges specific to AI and how they can build foundational processes and teams. Portfolio selection and presentation should directly address these unique requirements.

🛠 Tools & Technology Stack

Primary Tools:

• Figma: Expected to be the primary tool for UI design, prototyping, and collaboration. Proficiency in leveraging its advanced features for design systems and complex UI is essential.

• Prototyping Tools: Proficiency in tools like InVision, Principle, or Figma's native prototyping capabilities for creating interactive mockups and user flows.

• User Research Platforms: Experience with tools for usability testing, surveys, and remote research (e.g., UserTesting.com, Lookback, Hotjar, SurveyMonkey).

• Collaboration Tools: Tools like Slack, Jira, Confluence, and potentially Miro or Mural for team communication, project management, and collaborative whiteboarding.

Analytics & Reporting:

• Product Analytics Tools: Familiarity with tools such as Amplitude, Mixpanel, or Pendo for tracking user behavior, feature adoption, and engagement metrics.

• Data Visualization Tools: Experience with tools like Tableau, Power BI, or Looker for analyzing data and creating reports to communicate insights to stakeholders.

CRM & Automation:

• While not directly managed by UX, an understanding of how CRM systems (e.g., Salesforce) and marketing automation tools integrate with or are affected by the user experience of enterprise software is beneficial.

• Familiarity with tools that facilitate developer handoff and design system integration (e.g., Zeplin, Storybook) would be advantageous.

📝 Enhancement Note: The explicit mention of "AI-native" and "AI-fluent in your own practice" suggests that familiarity with AI-powered design tools or platforms that integrate with AI for research synthesis, concept generation, or even code generation would be a significant plus.

👥 Team Culture & Values

Operations Values:

• Innovation & Boldness: A drive to pioneer new technologies and market categories, embracing ambitious goals and pushing the boundaries of what's possible with AI in enterprise.

• Pragmatism & Execution: A commitment to shipping real, production-ready software that delivers tangible value, rather than just demos or conceptual prototypes. Focus on solving actual enterprise problems.

• Collaboration & Transparency: Open communication, shared ownership, and a culture where ideas are freely exchanged across disciplines to achieve collective success.

• User-Centricity & Trust: A deep dedication to understanding user needs and building systems that are not only intelligent but also trustworthy, explainable, and safe for high-stakes applications.

• Continuous Improvement: An ethos of learning, iterating, and constantly seeking ways to enhance product capabilities, user experience, and operational efficiency.

Collaboration Style:

• Cross-Functional Integration: Design is deeply embedded within product development, working hand-in-hand with engineering and product management from ideation through deployment.

• Direct Stakeholder Engagement: The Head of UX will engage directly with leadership, sales, and marketing to ensure design aligns with business objectives and market needs.

• Feedback-Driven: A culture that values constructive feedback, both giving and receiving, to refine designs and processes.

• Knowledge Sharing: Encouragement of sharing best practices, research findings, and design patterns across the team and wider organization to foster collective learning and consistency.

📝 Enhancement Note: The emphasis on "institutional intelligence," "governed, self-improving, and scalable beyond individual expertise," and "AI-native digital workers" suggests a culture that values rigor, responsibility, and a deep understanding of complex systems. The "0 -> 1" aspect also implies a culture that embraces ambiguity, rapid iteration, and building from the ground up.

⚡ Challenges & Growth Opportunities

Challenges:

• Defining a New Category: Establishing clear UX paradigms for AI-native digital workers, where established patterns are scarce and innovation is paramount. This involves navigating uncharted territory in human-AI interaction.

• Balancing Automation and Control: Designing experiences that effectively leverage AI for automation while providing users with appropriate levels of oversight, explainability, and control in high-stakes scenarios.

• Building from Scratch: Establishing the entire UX function, including processes, research pipelines, a design system, and a team, with limited existing infrastructure.

• Enterprise Adoption in Regulated Industries: Overcoming potential resistance to AI adoption and ensuring designs meet stringent compliance, security, and trust requirements in sectors like finance and healthcare.

• Rapid Iteration & Scaling: Keeping pace with fast-moving AI development and scaling the design practice to support platform expansion across multiple industries.

Learning & Development Opportunities:

• Pioneering AI UX: Opportunity to become a leading expert in the emerging field of AI-native enterprise UX design.

• Strategic Impact: Directly shape the product strategy and company trajectory of a venture-backed AI startup.

• Organizational Leadership: Develop robust skills in team building, talent management, and establishing design operations from the ground up.

• Industry Exposure: Gain deep insights into complex enterprise workflows within regulated industries, particularly lending and due diligence.

• Continuous Learning: Access to resources for staying at the forefront of AI advancements and design methodologies.

📝 Enhancement Note: The challenges are significant and directly tied to the innovative nature of JazzX AI's mission. Candidates should demonstrate resilience, strategic thinking, and a proactive approach to problem-solving in ambiguous environments. The growth opportunities are equally substantial, offering a chance to define a career path in a cutting-edge field.

💡 Interview Preparation

Strategy Questions:

• "How would you define the core UX principles for AI-native digital workers that balance automation with human oversight and trust?" (Focus on clarity, control, explainability, auditability.)

• "Describe your approach to establishing a user research practice from scratch in an early-stage startup. What would be your first priorities?" (Highlight methods for rapid discovery, persona development, and continuous feedback loops.)

• "How would you approach building a design system for an AI-native platform that needs to scale across various enterprise workflows and industries?" (Discuss modularity, AI-specific patterns, and collaboration with engineering.)

Company & Culture Questions:

• "What excites you most about JazzX AI's vision and mission to build 'institutional intelligence'?" (Connect your passion for AI and enterprise solutions.)

• "How do you foster a culture of innovation and collaboration within a design team, especially in a fast-paced startup environment?" (Share experiences with team building, feedback, and cross-functional work.)

• "Given our focus on regulated industries like finance, what are the key UX considerations you would prioritize to ensure trust and compliance?" (Demonstrate understanding of domain-specific challenges.)

Portfolio Presentation Strategy:

• Lead with Impact: Start each case study by clearly stating the problem, your role, and the key outcome or impact achieved.

• Show, Don't Just Tell: Use visuals extensively – wireframes, mockups, prototypes, user flows, research artifacts – to illustrate your design process and solutions.

• Emphasize Your "Why": Explain the rationale behind your design decisions, linking them back to user needs, business goals, and technical constraints.

• Highlight AI and Enterprise Nuances: Explicitly detail how your designs address the unique challenges of AI-driven systems and complex enterprise environments.

• Discuss Teamwork and Process: Be prepared to talk about how you collaborated with engineers, PMs, and other stakeholders, and how you managed your design process.

• Prepare for "0 to 1" Questions: Have a clear, concise plan for how you would build the UX function at JazzX AI, covering team structure, processes, and key deliverables.

📝 Enhancement Note: Interviewers will be assessing not only your design skills but also your strategic vision, leadership potential, and ability to navigate the complexities of AI in enterprise. Be prepared to articulate your thought process, demonstrate your understanding of JazzX AI's unique value proposition, and showcase your ability to build a function from the ground up.

📌 Application Steps

To apply for this Director - UX Design position:

• Submit your application through the JazzX AI careers portal via the provided Greenhouse link.

• Curate Your Portfolio: Select 3-5 of your most relevant projects that showcase your experience in enterprise B2B design, complex workflow optimization, AI/human interaction, and design system development. Ensure each case study clearly outlines the problem, your process, your role, and the impact achieved.

• Tailor Your Resume: Highlight keywords and experiences that align with the job description, such as "AI-native UX," "enterprise software," "design systems," "0 to 1 builder," and "leadership." Quantify your achievements wherever possible.

• Prepare Your Narrative: Be ready to discuss your vision for UX at JazzX AI, your approach to building a team and processes from scratch, and how you would tackle the unique challenges of designing for AI-native digital workers. Practice presenting your portfolio case studies with a focus on strategic thinking and impact.

• Research JazzX AI and SAIGroup: Understand their mission, products, target markets, and the broader landscape of AI in enterprise software. This will allow you to ask informed questions and demonstrate genuine interest.

⚠️ Important Notice: This enhanced job description includes AI-generated insights and industry-standard assumptions. All details should be verified directly with JazzX AI during the application and interview process.