Senior Product Designer

📍 Job Overview

Job Title: Senior Product Designer Company: Planful Location: Hyderabad, Telangana, India Job Type: Full-Time Category: Product Design / User Experience Date Posted: 2025-08-20 Experience Level: 5-10 Years Remote Status: Remote Friendly

🚀 Role Summary

• Drive the evolution of the Planful platform's user interface through expert interaction and visual design.
• Champion user-centric design principles, reducing friction and enhancing the overall user experience of enterprise SaaS products.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with Product Management and Engineering teams to translate complex problems into intuitive and effective design solutions.
• Contribute to the continuous improvement of the Planful Design System and pattern library.
• Infuse empathy and flair into the design process, ensuring Planful is a delight for finance and business users.

📝 Enhancement Note: While the role is titled "Senior Product Designer," the responsibilities strongly align with a UX/UI Designer focused on enterprise software. The emphasis on enterprise SaaS, financial domain experience, and collaboration with product and engineering pivots this role towards a B2B operations-centric design function. The mention of Material Design System indicates a potential lean towards Google's design principles, which is common in modern enterprise applications.

📈 Primary Responsibilities

• Collaborate with Product Managers to brainstorm and research innovative solutions for user problems, leveraging competitor analysis, UX research, and industry best practices.
• Develop comprehensive wireframes that illustrate end-to-end user flows and solutions, adhering to the Planful Design System.
• Create high-fidelity mockups and interactive prototypes that align with Planful's brand guidelines, presenting them to stakeholders for feedback and iteration.
• Partner closely with Engineering teams throughout the development lifecycle to address design constraints and ensure the successful implementation of optimal user experiences.
• Actively contribute to and maintain the Planful pattern library, enhancing design consistency and team standards.
• Advocate for user needs and translate them into actionable design specifications for product development.
• Ensure the design output meets usability standards and contributes to Planful's reputation for ease of use in the financial performance management space.
• Participate in design reviews and provide constructive feedback to peers to foster a culture of continuous improvement in design quality.

📝 Enhancement Note: The responsibilities highlight a hands-on design role with significant collaboration requirements. The focus on iterating based on feedback and working closely with engineering underscores the importance of a pragmatic and adaptable design approach within an agile development environment. The expectation to contribute to the pattern library suggests a desire for designers who can help scale design efforts and maintain consistency.

🎓 Skills & Qualifications

Education: A Bachelor's or Master's degree in Design, Human-Computer Interaction, Computer Science, or a related field is typically expected for senior roles, though a strong portfolio and extensive experience can often substitute.

Experience: A minimum of 5 years of professional experience in product design, with a focus on interaction and visual design for enterprise Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platforms. Experience in the financial technology (FinTech) or financial performance management (FPM) domain is highly desirable.

Required Skills:

• Portfolio: A robust portfolio demonstrating a strong track record of interaction design and visual design for complex enterprise SaaS products. This should include case studies showcasing problem-solving, design process, and measurable outcomes.
• Design Process: Proven experience executing a full design process, from initial brainstorming and user research through to final delivery and post-launch iteration.
• Collaboration: Demonstrated ability to work effectively with Product Managers, Engineers, and other stakeholders in a cross-functional environment.
• Communication & Presentation: Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to clearly articulate design decisions, present concepts to stakeholders, and facilitate design discussions.
• Wireframing & Prototyping: Proficiency in industry-standard design tools for wireframing, prototyping, and visual design (e.g., Figma, Sketch, Adobe XD, InVision).
• User Empathy: Deep understanding of user needs and the ability to translate them into intuitive design solutions.
• Design Systems: Experience working with and contributing to design systems and pattern libraries.
• Problem Solving: Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to tackle complex design challenges in a B2B context.

Preferred Skills:

• Financial Domain Experience: Prior experience designing for financial planning, budgeting, consolidation, reporting, or analytics software.
• Material Design System: Familiarity with and application of the Material Design System principles and components.
• UX Research: Experience conducting or collaborating on user research activities to inform design decisions.
• Agile Methodologies: Experience working within Agile/Scrum development environments.

📝 Enhancement Note: The emphasis on an "enterprise SaaS" portfolio is critical. Candidates should showcase their ability to design for complex workflows, data-heavy interfaces, and professional users who require efficiency and accuracy. Financial domain experience is a strong plus, indicating a need for designers who can quickly grasp the nuances of financial planning and reporting.

📊 Process & Systems Portfolio Requirements

Portfolio Essentials:

• Enterprise SaaS Case Studies: Showcase at least 2-3 detailed case studies focusing on enterprise SaaS products, highlighting your specific contributions to interaction and visual design.
• Problem-Solution-Outcome: Clearly articulate the user problem, your design process, the solutions you developed, and the impact of your designs, ideally with quantifiable metrics.
• Design Process Documentation: Include examples of wireframes, user flows, interactive prototypes, and high-fidelity mockups that demonstrate your design thinking and execution.
• Collaboration Examples: Illustrate how you collaborated with product managers and engineers, perhaps through shared design artifacts or descriptions of your working process.
• Design System Contribution: If applicable, show examples of how you've contributed to or utilized a design system or pattern library.

Process Documentation:

• Workflow Design: Examples of designing complex workflows for business users, demonstrating an understanding of efficiency and task completion.
• UI/UX Implementation: Showcases of how your designs were translated into functional software, highlighting your attention to detail in UI implementation and adherence to brand guidelines.
• Iteration and Improvement: Evidence of design iteration based on user feedback, A/B testing, or performance data, demonstrating a commitment to continuous improvement.
• Cross-functional Alignment: Documentation or examples of how you aligned design solutions with technical constraints and product requirements.

📝 Enhancement Note: The portfolio is the primary screening tool for this role. Candidates must clearly demonstrate their ability to solve complex problems within an enterprise context. Metrics demonstrating efficiency gains, user satisfaction improvements, or adoption rates will significantly strengthen an application.

💵 Compensation & Benefits

Salary Range: For a Senior Product Designer with 5-10 years of experience in Hyderabad, India, a competitive salary range would typically fall between ₹1,500,000 to ₹3,000,000 per annum. This estimate is based on industry benchmarks for experienced design professionals in major Indian tech hubs like Hyderabad, considering the company's focus on enterprise software and its backing by a private equity firm.

Benefits:

• Paid Time Off: Includes 2 Volunteer days, Birthday PTO, and quarterly company-wide Wellness Days, promoting work-life balance and employee well-being.
• Family Support: Generous maternity and paternity leave benefits, including 3 months' supply of diapers and meal deliveries for the first month, supporting new parents.
• Company Culture Events: Annual company-wide culture kickoff event (Planful Palooza), fostering team cohesion and engagement, with past events held in diverse locations.
• Professional Development: A company-wide Mentorship program with executive sponsorship and manager-specific monthly training programs to support career growth.
• Employee Resource Groups (ERGs): Support for ERGs such as Women of Planful and Parents of Planful, encouraging diversity, inclusion, and community building.
• Health and Wellness: Comprehensive health insurance and other standard benefits expected for a full-time employee in India.

Working Hours: The standard working hours are likely to be aligned with typical full-time employment in India, approximately 40 hours per week, with flexibility often offered to accommodate project needs and personal well-being, especially given the remote-friendly nature of the role.

📝 Enhancement Note: The salary range is an estimate for Hyderabad. Actual compensation may vary based on specific experience, interview performance, and negotiation. The benefits package is quite robust, highlighting Planful's commitment to employee well-being and professional development, which is attractive to experienced professionals.

🎯 Team & Company Context

🏢 Company Culture

Industry: Planful operates in the Financial Performance Management (FPM) cloud software sector, a critical area for businesses managing planning, budgeting, consolidations, reporting, and analytics. This industry demands precision, reliability, and efficiency from its software solutions. Company Size: Planful is a private company backed by Vector Capital. While the exact employee count isn't provided, being a significant player in the FPM space suggests a mid-to-large-sized organization with established teams and processes. This size typically offers opportunities for impact without being overly bureaucratic. Founded: Planful was founded to streamline financial operations. Its history and growth, supported by private equity, indicate a company focused on innovation and market expansion within the enterprise software landscape.

Team Structure:

• Product Design Team: The Senior Product Designer reports to the Team Lead, Product Design. This suggests a structured design department with leadership and specialization.
• Cross-functional Collaboration: The role emphasizes close collaboration with Product Management and Engineering, indicating a typical agile product development environment where design is integrated early and often.
• Functional Integration: Design work will likely be integrated into product squads or feature teams, working alongside product managers, engineers, and potentially QA.

Methodology:

• User-Centered Design: The role's focus on empathy and user problems points to a user-centered design methodology.
• Agile Development: Collaboration with engineering and iterative feedback loops suggest an agile or iterative development approach.
• Data-Informed Decisions: While not explicitly stated, leveraging UX research and user feedback implies a data-informed approach to design decisions.
• Systematic Design: Adherence to brand guidelines and the Planful Design System indicates a commitment to systematic and consistent design execution.

Company Website: planful.com

📝 Enhancement Note: Planful is positioned as a leader in FPM, meaning the design team supports a product critical to business operations. The company's backing by Vector Capital suggests a focus on growth and potentially aggressive product development cycles. The emphasis on culture and employee benefits is a strong signal about the company's values.

📈 Career & Growth Analysis

Operations Career Level: This role is positioned as "Senior," indicating a level of autonomy, expertise, and mentorship capability. A Senior Product Designer is expected to lead design efforts for significant features or product areas, mentor junior designers, and contribute to strategic design decisions. In the context of operations, this means driving efficiency and usability improvements within critical business software.

Reporting Structure: The Senior Product Designer reports to the Team Lead, Product Design. This provides a clear reporting line for guidance, performance management, and career development discussions within the design function.

Operations Impact: The Senior Product Designer has a direct impact on the usability and efficiency of Planful’s FPM software. By reducing user friction and improving workflows, the designer contributes to increased user productivity, faster financial closing cycles, more accurate reporting, and ultimately, better financial decision-making for Planful's customers. This role is crucial for customer adoption, retention, and satisfaction within the competitive enterprise software market.

Growth Opportunities:

• Leadership: Potential to grow into a Lead Product Designer or Design Manager role, overseeing a team and strategy.
• Specialization: Opportunity to deepen expertise in financial domain design, complex enterprise workflows, or specific areas of the Planful platform.
• Mentorship: Develop leadership and mentorship skills by guiding junior designers and contributing to the overall design team's growth.
• Strategic Contribution: Influence product strategy and roadmap through design insights and user advocacy.
• Cross-functional Influence: Gain experience influencing broader product development processes and company-wide design standards.

📝 Enhancement Note: The Senior title implies ownership over significant design areas and the potential to influence team direction. The growth opportunities are typical for senior roles, focusing on leadership, specialized expertise, and strategic impact within the product development lifecycle relevant to operations professionals.

🌐 Work Environment

Office Type: While the job posting doesn't specify an office type, the "Remote Friendly" indication suggests a hybrid or fully remote work model is either available or supported. For an enterprise SaaS company, offices are often designed to foster collaboration among product, engineering, and design teams.

Office Location(s): The primary listed location is Hyderabad, Telangana, India. Planful may have other offices globally, but this role is situated within the Hyderabad tech ecosystem.

Workspace Context:

• Collaborative Hubs: If an office environment is utilized, expect spaces designed for team collaboration, brainstorming sessions, and design critiques.
• Technology Integration: Access to modern design tools, collaboration platforms, and potentially advanced hardware for design work.
• Cross-functional Interaction: Opportunities to interact daily with product managers, engineers, and potentially customer success or sales teams to gain a holistic understanding of the user and business context.

Work Schedule: The standard 40-hour work week is expected, with flexibility often provided, particularly in remote or hybrid settings. This allows for efficient task management and accommodates project deadlines while promoting work-life balance.

📝 Enhancement Note: The "Remote Friendly" aspect is a key differentiator. Candidates should clarify the exact remote policy (fully remote, hybrid with specific days, or remote-first) during the interview process. The Hyderabad location places the role within a vibrant tech hub in India.

📄 Application & Portfolio Review Process

Interview Process:

• Initial Screening: HR or Recruiter call to assess basic qualifications, cultural fit, and interest.
• Portfolio Review & Presentation: A critical stage where candidates present their portfolio, detailing 2-3 key projects. This is an opportunity to showcase problem-solving skills, design process, collaboration, and impact. Expect to discuss your role, decisions, and outcomes.
• Design Challenge/Exercise: A take-home assignment or an in-person/virtual whiteboarding session to evaluate design thinking, problem-solving abilities, and approach to specific design challenges relevant to enterprise SaaS.
• Stakeholder Interviews: Meetings with the Team Lead, Product Design, Product Managers, and Engineering leads to assess technical skills, collaboration style, and alignment with team goals.
• Final Interview: Potentially with a senior leader in Product or Design to finalize the decision.

Portfolio Review Tips:

• Tell a Story: Structure your portfolio presentations around compelling narratives for each project. Highlight the "why" behind your design decisions.
• Focus on Impact: Quantify your achievements whenever possible. Use metrics related to user engagement, efficiency gains, task completion rates, or customer satisfaction.
• Showcase Process: Clearly demonstrate your design process – from research and ideation to iteration and final delivery. Include wireframes, user flows, prototypes, and rationale for your choices.
• Highlight Collaboration: Explain how you worked with cross-functional teams, managed feedback, and navigated constraints.
• Tailor to Planful: Emphasize projects that align with enterprise SaaS, financial software, or complex B2B workflows. Show you understand Planful's domain.

Challenge Preparation:

• Understand the Brief: Carefully analyze any design challenge prompt, identifying key constraints and objectives.
• Think Aloud: During live challenges, articulate your thought process, assumptions, and design rationale clearly and concisely.
• Prioritize: Focus on the most critical aspects of the problem and present a well-reasoned, albeit potentially incomplete, solution.
• User-Centricity: Always ground your solutions in user needs and business goals.
• Visual Polish: For take-home challenges, ensure your presentation is clean, professional, and clearly communicates your design thinking.

📝 Enhancement Note: The portfolio review is paramount. Candidates must be prepared to deeply discuss their work, articulate their design philosophy, and demonstrate how they translate complex business needs into user-friendly interfaces within an enterprise context.

🛠 Tools & Technology Stack

Primary Tools:

• Design & Prototyping: Figma (highly probable, given industry trends and Material Design System mention), Sketch, Adobe XD, InVision.
• Collaboration Platforms: Jira, Confluence, Slack, Microsoft Teams for team communication and project management.
• Design System Management: Tools for managing and contributing to pattern libraries.

Analytics & Reporting:

• Product Analytics: Tools like Mixpanel, Amplitude, or Google Analytics for understanding user behavior within the application.
• Data Visualization: Tableau, Power BI, or internal dashboards for analyzing product usage and performance metrics.

CRM & Automation:

• CRM: Salesforce or similar for understanding customer profiles and sales cycles, which can inform design.
• Project Management: Asana, Trello, or Monday.com for managing design tasks and workflows.

📝 Enhancement Note: Proficiency in modern design and prototyping tools like Figma is essential. Familiarity with enterprise software development workflows, including Agile methodologies and associated collaboration tools, is also important. Understanding how design impacts key business metrics will be a plus.

👥 Team Culture & Values

Operations Values:

• User Focus: A strong commitment to understanding and solving user problems, ensuring the Planful platform is intuitive and efficient for finance professionals.
• Collaboration: A culture that values teamwork, open communication, and cross-functional partnership between design, product, and engineering.
• Excellence & Pride: A drive to build high-quality, impactful products and take pride in the craftsmanship of design solutions.
• Fun & Positivity: An environment that encourages enjoying the work, fostering a positive and supportive team dynamic.
• Continuous Improvement: A dedication to refining processes, improving the design system, and elevating the team's overall output.

Collaboration Style:

• Integrated Teams: Design is likely embedded within product development teams, working closely with Product Managers and Engineers on a daily basis.
• Feedback Loops: Expect regular design reviews, critiques, and collaborative sessions to ensure alignment and quality.
• Proactive Communication: A culture that encourages designers to proactively share their work, seek feedback, and communicate design rationale clearly.
• Shared Ownership: A sense of shared responsibility for product success, with design playing a pivotal role in achieving business and user goals.

📝 Enhancement Note: Planful explicitly mentions "having fun together" and "taking pride in building wonderful products," indicating a culture that balances professional rigor with a positive and engaging work environment. The emphasis on user focus and collaboration is standard for successful design teams.

⚡ Challenges & Growth Opportunities

Challenges:

• Complexity of Enterprise SaaS: Designing for sophisticated financial planning and analysis workflows requires a deep understanding of user needs and business logic.
• Balancing User Needs with Technical Constraints: Effectively navigating trade-offs between ideal user experiences and technical feasibility or development timelines.
• Maintaining Design Consistency: Ensuring a cohesive user experience across a large and evolving enterprise SaaS platform, leveraging and contributing to the design system.
• Adapting to User Feedback: Iterating on designs based on diverse stakeholder and user input, which can sometimes be conflicting.
• Domain Specificity: Quickly learning and applying knowledge of the financial domain to create relevant and effective design solutions.

Learning & Development Opportunities:

• Deepen FPM Expertise: Gain specialized knowledge in financial planning, budgeting, and reporting software design.
• Design System Mastery: Become an expert in managing and evolving enterprise-level design systems.
• Mentorship: Benefit from guidance from experienced design leaders and mentor junior designers.
• Cross-functional Acumen: Enhance understanding of product management, engineering processes, and business strategy within a SaaS company.
• Industry Trends: Stay abreast of emerging design patterns, tools, and best practices in enterprise UX.

📝 Enhancement Note: The primary challenge will be mastering the intricacies of financial performance management software and its user base. Growth opportunities are strong for those looking to specialize in enterprise UX and contribute to a growing SaaS product.

💡 Interview Preparation

Strategy Questions:

• Design Process: Be ready to walk through your end-to-end design process for a specific project, detailing how you approach problem definition, research, ideation, prototyping, and testing.
• Collaboration: Prepare examples of how you've successfully collaborated with product managers and engineers, including instances where you had to negotiate design decisions or navigate technical constraints.
• Problem-Solving: Expect questions that present hypothetical design problems related to enterprise software or financial workflows. Demonstrate your approach to breaking down the problem, identifying user needs, and proposing solutions.
• Design System Contribution: Discuss your experience with design systems – how you've used them, contributed to them, and ensured consistency across products.
• User Empathy: Be prepared to discuss how you incorporate user empathy into your design process and how you advocate for the user within a product team.

Company & Culture Questions:

• Planful's Product: Research Planful's platform, its features, and its target audience (finance and business users). Understand the value proposition of financial performance management software.
• Team Dynamics: Ask about the current structure of the design team, how designers collaborate with product and engineering, and the team's approach to design critiques.
• Company Values: Reflect on how your own work style and values align with Planful's stated values (e.g., fun, pride, collaboration, user focus).

Portfolio Presentation Strategy:

• Structure: Organize your presentation logically, typically by project, with clear sections for context, problem, your role, process, solution, and outcomes/learnings.
• Visuals: Use high-quality visuals, including mockups, prototypes, user flows, and any research artifacts.
• Narrative: Tell a compelling story for each project, focusing on the "why" behind your design decisions and the impact of your work.
• Conciseness: Be mindful of time, focusing on the most relevant details and insights.
• Q&A Readiness: Anticipate questions about your design choices, challenges faced, and how you'd approach similar situations.

📝 Enhancement Note: The interview process will heavily scrutinize your portfolio and your ability to articulate your design thinking within an enterprise context. Demonstrating a deep understanding of user-centered design, collaboration, and the ability to contribute to a design system are key.

📌 Application Steps

To apply for this Senior Product Designer position:

• Submit your application through the provided careers link on Planful.com.
• Portfolio Customization: Ensure your portfolio prominently features enterprise SaaS projects, especially those involving complex workflows or data visualization. Tailor your case study selection to highlight your interaction and visual design skills relevant to financial software.
• Resume Optimization: Update your resume to clearly articulate your 5+ years of experience, emphasizing accomplishments related to user experience improvement, collaboration with product and engineering teams, and contributions to design systems or pattern libraries. Use keywords like "enterprise SaaS," "interaction design," "visual design," and "user-centered design."
• Interview Preparation: Practice presenting your portfolio, focusing on telling a clear story for each project, quantifying impact, and explaining your design rationale. Prepare for potential design challenges by reviewing common UX problem-solving frameworks.
• Company Research: Thoroughly research Planful, its product offerings, and its market position. Understand the challenges and opportunities within the financial performance management industry to better align your responses with the company's goals and culture.

⚠️ Important Notice: This enhanced job description includes AI-generated insights and operations industry-standard assumptions. All details should be verified directly with the hiring organization before making application decisions.