Senior Product Designer

📍 Job Overview

Job Title: Senior Product Designer

Company: Aircall.io, Inc.

Location: Madrid Office, Spain

Job Type: Full-time

Category: Product Design, UX/UI

Date Posted: 2026-07-30

Experience Level: 5-10 years

Remote Status: On-site

🚀 Role Summary

• Spearhead the end-to-end product design experience for a complex AI-powered communication platform, focusing on revenue teams.

• Drive innovation in AI-native and agentic workflows, translating cutting-edge concepts into intuitive and trustworthy user interfaces.

• Own and evolve a pragmatic, scalable design system in Figma to ensure consistent, high-quality, and rapid product delivery.

• Act as the founding designer, setting the quality bar and making critical decisions that shape user interactions with AI daily.

• Collaborate closely with leadership, product founders, and engineering teams to challenge, iterate, and ship impactful product enhancements.

📝 Enhancement Note: This role is explicitly described as the "founding designer" for a specific product area, implying significant autonomy and impact. The emphasis on AI and "agentic workflows" suggests a focus on designing systems that proactively assist users, particularly in sales contexts, which is a key GTM (Go-To-Market) operations area. The need to "fix the legacy" while "designing what's next" indicates a balance between strategic long-term vision and immediate tactical improvements, a common challenge in scaling tech companies.

📈 Primary Responsibilities

• End-to-End Design Ownership: Drive the complete product experience, from initial discovery and user research through interaction design, to high-fidelity UI execution for AI-driven customer communication tools.

• Legacy Improvement & Debt Reduction: Conduct comprehensive audits of existing product interfaces and user flows, identifying and systematically addressing design debt to elevate the overall user experience without sacrificing development velocity.

• AI-Native Interface Design: Translate the vision for agentic, AI-native interactions into concrete, user-friendly interfaces that make novel AI capabilities feel obvious, intuitive, and reliable for sales professionals.

• Design System Development & Maintenance: Build, evolve, and maintain a pragmatic and scalable design system within Figma, ensuring consistency, efficiency, and speed in product feature development and iteration.

• AI-Augmented Design Workflow: Leverage AI tools extensively within the design process for faster prototyping, broader exploration of design directions, and acceleration of everyday design tasks, pushing the boundaries of AI's role in design.

• Client-Centric Discovery: Proactively engage with users through direct conversations, call observations, product data analysis, and user feedback mechanisms to identify and prioritize critical problems and opportunities.

• Collaborative Partnership & Challenge: Foster extremely close working relationships with the tech team and product founder, bringing well-reasoned opinions, constructively challenging assumptions, and actively exploring alternative solutions.

• Strategic Trade-off Management: Make critical decisions regarding product release timelines, feature prioritization, and the balance between design craft and development speed, clearly communicating these decisions to stakeholders.

• Engineering Collaboration: Work in tight alignment with frontend engineers (utilizing NextJS and Tailwind CSS) to ensure the delivered product precisely matches design intent and provides an optimal user experience.

📝 Enhancement Note: The responsibilities highlight a blend of strategic design leadership and hands-on execution. The emphasis on "fixing legacy," "designing what's next," and "making trade-offs" points to a dynamic environment where product evolution is continuous. The explicit mention of "AI-native, agentic workflows" for "revenue teams" suggests a strong connection to GTM operations, where AI is increasingly used to enhance sales productivity and customer engagement.

🎓 Skills & Qualifications

Education: While no specific degree is mandated, a strong foundation in Design principles, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), or related fields is implied by the experience requirements.

Experience: 5+ years of senior product design experience, with a proven track record of shipping complex B2B/SaaS or AI-driven products.

Required Skills:

• Mastery of UX/UI: Demonstrated expertise in user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) design principles, with a strong portfolio showcasing successful product implementations.

• Figma Proficiency: Fluency in using Figma for design, prototyping, and design system development.

• Design System Thinking: Deep understanding and practical experience in building and maintaining scalable design systems.

• Interaction Design: Strong ability to define and design complex interaction patterns for intricate workflows.

• Visual Craft & Information Hierarchy: Keen eye for visual aesthetics, detail, and the ability to structure complex information logically and intuitively.

• Ambiguity Tolerance: Comfort and proven ability to design for uncertain environments, novel AI interactions, data-heavy workflows, and products that undergo frequent iteration.

• Fast-Paced Execution: A demonstrated ability to move quickly, iterate based on feedback, and prioritize shipping functional product over exhaustive polishing.

• Founder's Mindset: Ability to think and act like a founder, making pragmatic trade-offs, prioritizing ruthlessly, and driving initiatives forward independently.

• Constructive Challenging: Willingness and ability to challenge ideas constructively, defend design decisions with data and rationale, and collaborate effectively to find optimal solutions.

• User-Centricity: A commitment to staying close to users, understanding their real problems, and advocating for their needs throughout the design process.

• AI as a Design Material: Enthusiasm and capability to explore and utilize AI as a core material and tool within the design process.

• English Fluency: Excellent verbal and written communication skills in English for effective stakeholder collaboration.

Preferred Skills:

• Experience designing for AI-native products or agentic workflows.

• Familiarity with the sales process and tools used by revenue teams.

• Experience collaborating with NextJS and Tailwind CSS frontend development teams.

• Spanish language proficiency.

📝 Enhancement Note: The emphasis on a "founder's mindset," "making trade-offs," and "shipping fast" is crucial for candidates applying to early-stage or rapidly scaling product teams within a company. The specific mention of "AI as a design material" and "agentic workflows" signals a need for forward-thinking designers who can conceptualize and design for emerging technologies. The requirement for English fluency and Spanish as a plus is standard for international roles.

📊 Process & Systems Portfolio Requirements

Portfolio Essentials:

• Demonstrated UX/UI Mastery: Showcase a range of projects that clearly illustrate your expertise in user experience and user interface design, highlighting your problem-solving approach.

• Complex B2B/SaaS or AI Product Examples: Include case studies of products that are complex, ideally within the B2B, SaaS, or AI domains, demonstrating your ability to handle intricate user flows and business requirements.

• Design System Contributions: Present examples of your involvement in creating or significantly contributing to design systems, detailing their structure, components, and impact on development efficiency.

• Interaction Design Examples: Provide detailed examples of complex interaction patterns you've designed, explaining the rationale behind your decisions and how they enhance usability.

• AI/Agentic Workflow Concepts: If possible, include conceptual work or case studies that demonstrate your thinking around designing for AI-driven or agentic workflows.

Process Documentation:

• Problem Discovery & Research: Detail your process for identifying user problems, conducting user research (interviews, data analysis), and documenting findings to inform design decisions.

• Design Iteration & Trade-offs: Illustrate how you iterate on designs, make critical trade-offs between craft and speed, and manage the design process in a fast-paced environment, with examples of decisions made and their outcomes.

• Design System Implementation: Explain your approach to implementing and evolving design systems, including how you ensure adoption by engineering and maintain consistency across products.

• Collaboration & Communication: Showcase examples of how you collaborate with product managers, engineers, and leadership, including how you present designs, gather feedback, and communicate design rationale.

📝 Enhancement Note: For a "founding designer" role, the portfolio must go beyond just showcasing polished UIs. It needs to demonstrate strategic thinking, the ability to manage ambiguity, experience with design systems, and a proven capacity for shipping in a fast-paced, iterative environment. Evidence of designing for AI or complex B2B/SaaS scenarios is critical. The emphasis on "making trade-offs" and "fixing legacy" suggests a need for case studies that show pragmatic problem-solving rather than solely greenfield design.

💵 Compensation & Benefits

Salary Range:

The salary for a Senior Product Designer in Madrid, Spain, with 5-10 years of experience, especially in a "founding designer" capacity for a rapidly scaling tech company, can range significantly. Based on industry benchmarks for similar roles in major European tech hubs and considering Aircall's unicorn status and AI focus, a competitive range would likely be between €60,000 and €90,000 annually, potentially higher for exceptional candidates with highly relevant AI/B2B SaaS experience.

Benefits:

• Competitive Salary Package: As stated by the company.

• Work-Life Balance: Acknowledged as important by Aircall.

• Growth Opportunities: Fast-learning environment, entrepreneurial spirit, and opportunities for professional development.

• International Environment: Exposure to a diverse, multi-cultural team (45+ nationalities).

• Stock Options/Equity: Potentially offered given the company's unicorn status and the "founding" nature of the role.

• Health & Wellness Programs: Common benefits in tech companies, though not explicitly detailed.

• Professional Development Budget: For conferences, training, and certifications.

Working Hours:

A standard full-time work week is typically 40 hours. Given the "fast, lean, and obsessively accountable" nature of the role and the "founder's mindset" expected, flexibility and a willingness to go above and beyond may be required, balanced by the company's stated commitment to work-life balance.

📝 Enhancement Note: Salary estimates are based on current market data for Senior Product Designers in Madrid, considering the tech industry, the company's growth stage (unicorn), and the specific demands of a founding role with AI product focus. Benefits are inferred from standard offerings at companies like Aircall and those explicitly mentioned. The "40 hours" is a standard baseline, but the role's description implies a dynamic work environment where flexibility is key.

🎯 Team & Company Context

🏢 Company Culture

Industry: Technology, AI-powered Customer Communications Platform, SaaS. Aircall operates within the rapidly evolving Customer Experience (CX) and Sales Technology sectors, with a strong emphasis on AI innovation.

Company Size: Aircall is a "unicorn," indicating a valuation exceeding $1 billion and significant growth. With teams across multiple global locations, it's a large, rapidly scaling organization with a substantial employee base (likely several hundred to over a thousand).

Founded: Aircall was founded in 2014. This means the company has moved beyond its startup phase and is now a mature, high-growth organization with established processes and a strong market presence, but still retains an agile and innovative spirit, especially with its AI initiatives.

Team Structure:

• Founding Designer Role: This position is unique, acting as the "founding designer" for a specific product area. This implies a high degree of autonomy and direct reporting, likely to a Head of Product, VP of Product, or even a co-founder/CEO, rather than a large design team.

• Cross-functional Collaboration: The designer will partner "extremely closely" with the Leadership team, Product Founder, and Engineering (Frontend Engineers using NextJS, Tailwind). This suggests a highly collaborative, integrated approach where design is a core part of the product development lifecycle.

• Agile and Lean Methodology: The description emphasizes being "fast, lean, and obsessively accountable," indicating an agile development environment where teams work in short sprints, prioritize efficiently, and focus on delivering measurable outcomes.

Methodology:

• Customer-Obsessed & Data-Driven: Aircall values understanding customer needs deeply and using data to inform decisions, a core principle for effective operations and product development.

• Ownership & Continuous Learning: Employees are encouraged to take ownership of their work and engage in ongoing skill development.

• Thoughtful Speed & Execution Focus: The company prioritizes impactful execution and thoughtful decision-making, balancing speed with strategic foresight.

• AI-First Approach: There's a strong focus on leveraging AI across product lines, influencing both the product's functionality and the internal workflows, including design.

Company Website: https://www.aircall.io/

📝 Enhancement Note: The "founding designer" aspect is crucial here. It means the candidate won't be joining a large, established design team with a rigid hierarchy but will likely be a primary design voice for their product area. This requires strong self-direction and the ability to influence from a foundational level. The company's "unicorn" status implies stability and resources, while its AI focus suggests an innovative and forward-looking environment.

📈 Career & Growth Analysis

Operations Career Level: This role is positioned at a Senior level, specifically a "founding designer." This signifies a high level of individual contribution and influence, with responsibilities typically associated with principal or lead designers in more established structures. The scope includes not just execution but also strategy, system building, and setting quality standards for a critical product area.

Reporting Structure: While not explicitly detailed, as a "founding designer" who partners "extremely closely with our Leadership team — but you're expected to challenge, not just execute," the reporting line is likely direct and influential. It could be to a VP of Product, Head of Product, or a specific Product Founder, rather than a large design manager. This offers high visibility and direct impact.

Operations Impact: The role has a direct impact on revenue generation and customer success by designing AI-powered communication tools for sales teams. By improving user experience, streamlining workflows, and enhancing AI adoption, this designer will directly contribute to Aircall's customers' ability to drive revenue, resolve issues faster, and scale their operations more effectively. The "founding designer" status means their work will lay the groundwork for future product development and user adoption in this critical AI domain.

Growth Opportunities:

• Design Leadership: Opportunity to grow into a leadership role within the AI product design domain, potentially leading future design initiatives or even a team as the company scales.

• Specialization in AI Design: Deepen expertise in designing for cutting-edge AI applications and agentic workflows, a highly sought-after skill in the current market.

• Product Strategy Influence: Directly influence product strategy and roadmap through direct collaboration with leadership and a founder's mindset.

• Design System Ownership: Further develop skills in building and scaling complex design systems for a high-growth, global product.

• Cross-functional Expertise: Gain extensive experience working with product founders, engineering leads, and business stakeholders in a fast-paced, agile environment.

📝 Enhancement Note: The "founding designer" title is key to understanding the growth potential. It signifies an opportunity to build something from the ground up, influencing not just the product's design but potentially its future strategic direction and the evolution of the design function within that product area. This is a significant step beyond a standard senior individual contributor role.

🌐 Work Environment

Office Type: The role is based in the "Madrid Office," indicating an on-site work arrangement with access to a physical workspace. This suggests a collaborative office environment conducive to in-person interaction and team synergy.

Office Location(s): Madrid, Spain. This location offers a vibrant European hub for technology and business. Specific details on office amenities, accessibility, or hybrid policies would need to be confirmed, but the primary designation is on-site.

Workspace Context:

• Collaborative Hub: The office environment will likely foster in-person collaboration, serendipitous interactions, and team alignment, crucial for a founding designer working closely with leadership and engineering.

• Tools & Technology: Access to necessary design tools (Figma) and the opportunity to work with modern frontend technologies (NextJS, Tailwind) through close engineering partnerships.

• Team Interaction: Regular opportunities to connect with colleagues across product, engineering, and potentially other departments, fostering a strong sense of team and shared purpose. The emphasis on "45+ nationalities" suggests a diverse and international workplace culture.

Work Schedule: While a standard 40-hour week is typical, the role's description ("fast, lean, and obsessively accountable," "founder's mindset") suggests that flexibility and dedication beyond strict hours may be necessary at times, particularly during critical development phases. The company's stated value of "work-life balance" aims to mitigate burnout, implying a focus on efficient work rather than excessive hours.

📝 Enhancement Note: The "on-site" designation is important for candidates who prefer or require in-person collaboration. The Madrid location offers a specific cultural and professional context. The description implies a dynamic workspace where design is integrated deeply with product and engineering, fostering a hands-on, collaborative approach.

📄 Application & Portfolio Review Process

Interview Process:

• Initial Screening: Likely a conversation with a recruiter to assess basic qualifications, experience, and cultural fit.

• Portfolio Review & Design Challenge: A deep dive into the candidate's portfolio, focusing on relevant projects, design process, and decision-making. This may include a take-home design challenge or a live design exercise focused on a specific problem relevant to Aircall's AI products.

• Stakeholder Interviews: Meetings with Product Leadership, Engineering Leads, and potentially other designers or product founders to evaluate technical skills, collaboration style, and strategic thinking.

• Final Interview: Potentially with senior leadership (e.g., Head of Product, CEO) to discuss overall fit, vision, and long-term contributions.

Portfolio Review Tips:

• Tell a Story: Structure your case studies to tell a clear narrative: the problem, your approach, your role, the solution, and the impact (metrics are key!).

• Highlight Process & Trade-offs: Emphasize your design process, how you made decisions, and especially how you navigated ambiguity, made trade-offs, and addressed legacy issues. For this role, show how you balance speed with craft.

• Showcase AI/Complex B2B: Prioritize projects that demonstrate experience with complex B2B/SaaS or AI products. If you have AI-specific design work, make it prominent.

• Demonstrate Design System Skills: Clearly articulate your experience with design systems, including their architecture, adoption, and evolution.

• Be Ready to Defend Decisions: Prepare to discuss your design choices, rationale, and how you would approach specific challenges at Aircall, especially concerning AI and agentic workflows.

Challenge Preparation:

• Understand Aircall's Product: Research Aircall's current platform, its AI features, and its target users (revenue teams). Understand the competitive landscape.

• Focus on AI & Agentic Design: If given a challenge, consider how AI can be leveraged to solve user problems or enhance workflows. Think about user trust, transparency, and control in AI interactions.

• Emphasize Speed & Pragmatism: Given the "ship fast" mantra, your approach should demonstrate efficiency and the ability to deliver a viable solution quickly, rather than an overly polished, time-consuming one.

• Articulate Trade-offs: Be prepared to discuss the trade-offs you made in your challenge solution and why.

📝 Enhancement Note: The "founding designer" role implies a rigorous interview process that tests not just design execution but also strategic thinking, problem-solving under pressure, and the ability to influence without formal authority. The portfolio review will be critical, focusing on demonstrating the ability to balance innovation with practicality, a key requirement for this specific role.

🛠 Tools & Technology Stack

Primary Tools:

• Figma: The core design and prototyping tool, essential for creating interfaces, user flows, and maintaining the design system.

• Design Systems: Proficiency in building, managing, and scaling design systems is a fundamental requirement. This includes understanding component libraries, design tokens, and documentation best practices.

• AI Design Tools: While not explicitly named, the role encourages pushing AI's role in design, suggesting familiarity with or willingness to explore AI-powered design assistants, prototyping tools, or concept generation aids.

Analytics & Reporting:

• Product Data Analysis: The ability to dig into product data to understand user behavior and identify design opportunities is crucial. While specific tools aren't listed, familiarity with common analytics platforms (e.g., Mixpanel, Amplitude, Google Analytics) is beneficial.

• User Feedback Platforms: Experience with tools or processes for collecting and analyzing user feedback from various channels.

CRM & Automation:

• Understanding of CRM & Sales Tools: While not a direct requirement to use them, an understanding of how Aircall's product integrates with or complements CRM systems (like Salesforce, HubSpot) and other sales automation tools is important for context.

• Frontend Collaboration Tools: Familiarity with tools used in software development workflows, such as Jira for task management and Git for version control (though direct use is unlikely, understanding the concepts is helpful for collaboration).

Specific Technologies:

• NextJS & Tailwind CSS: While the designer won't be coding these, understanding their capabilities and how they are implemented will facilitate smoother collaboration with frontend engineers.

📝 Enhancement Note: The emphasis on Figma and design systems is standard for senior design roles. The unique aspect is the encouragement to leverage AI in the design workflow itself, indicating a forward-looking approach to design tooling. Understanding the frontend stack (NextJS, Tailwind) is important for effective collaboration with engineers, ensuring designs are feasible and aligned with technical constraints.

👥 Team Culture & Values

Operations Values:

• Customer Obsession: A deep commitment to understanding and serving the needs of Aircall's users, particularly revenue teams, is paramount.

• Data-Driven Decision Making: Relying on data and user insights to inform design choices and measure impact.

• Ownership & Accountability: Taking full responsibility for outcomes, not just deliverables, and driving initiatives to completion.

• Continuous Learning: A dedication to ongoing skill development, staying updated on design trends, AI advancements, and industry best practices.

• Thoughtful Speed & Execution: Balancing the need for rapid delivery with careful consideration and strategic planning.

• Pragmatism & Trade-offs: A willingness to make practical decisions and necessary compromises to achieve business objectives and ship impactful products.

Collaboration Style:

• Close Partnership: Expectation of extremely close collaboration with leadership, product founders, and engineering teams, fostering a unified product development approach.

• Constructive Challenge: A culture that encourages open dialogue, well-reasoned debate, and challenging assumptions to arrive at the best solutions.

• Cross-functional Integration: Design is integrated into the core product development cycle, working hand-in-hand with technical and product counterparts.

• User-Centricity: A shared focus on understanding and solving real user problems, often involving direct interaction with customers.

• Agile & Iterative: A workflow characterized by rapid iterations, feedback loops, and continuous improvement.

📝 Enhancement Note: The company culture emphasizes agility, ownership, and a strong user focus, all critical for an operations-oriented role like product design within a GTM context. The "founding designer" role will require embodying these values strongly to drive impact in a new product area.

⚡ Challenges & Growth Opportunities

Challenges:

• Balancing Legacy and Innovation: The need to simultaneously improve existing design debt ("fix the legacy") while developing and shipping entirely new AI-driven features ("design what's next") requires significant strategic prioritization and trade-off management.

• Designing for Ambiguity in AI: Translating novel, agentic AI concepts into intuitive, trustworthy, and usable interfaces for complex B2B workflows presents a significant design challenge, as AI interaction patterns are still evolving.

• Setting the Quality Bar as Founding Designer: Establishing the design standard and user experience quality for a new product area requires strong vision, conviction, and the ability to influence stakeholders effectively.

• Rapid Iteration and Shipping: Maintaining high design quality while operating at the "fast, lean, and obsessively accountable" pace demands efficient workflows and effective collaboration with engineering.

• Cross-functional Influence: As the primary design voice, influencing product direction and gaining buy-in from leadership and engineering without a large design team structure requires strong communication and strategic rationale.

Learning & Development Opportunities:

• AI Design Specialization: The opportunity to become a leading expert in designing for AI-powered products and agentic workflows, a rapidly growing and in-demand field.

• Product Strategy Impact: Direct influence on the product roadmap and strategic direction of a key AI initiative within a unicorn company.

• Design System Leadership: Opportunity to own and scale a critical design system, impacting product consistency and development speed across the organization.

• Entrepreneurial Experience: Gaining hands-on experience in a "founding" role within a successful, fast-growing tech company, akin to an early-stage startup experience.

• Cross-functional Mastery: Developing deep expertise in collaborating with product founders, leadership, and engineering in an agile, execution-focused environment.

📝 Enhancement Note: The challenges highlight the demanding yet rewarding nature of this "founding designer" role. The growth opportunities are significant, offering a chance to develop specialized skills in AI design and gain high-level product strategy experience.

💡 Interview Preparation

Strategy Questions:

• Product Vision & AI: "How would you approach designing the future of AI-powered voice and communication for sales teams? What are the biggest challenges and opportunities?" (Prepare to discuss user trust, agentic workflows, and AI's role in enhancing productivity).

• Design Trade-offs & Process: "Describe a time you had to balance design quality with development speed. How did you make trade-offs, and what was the outcome?" (Be ready to discuss specific examples from your portfolio that demonstrate pragmatism and efficient execution).

• Design System Strategy: "How would you approach building or evolving a design system for a fast-moving AI product? What are the key considerations for scalability and adoption?" (Focus on pragmatic approaches, component strategy, and collaboration with engineering).

Company & Culture Questions:

• Aircall's AI Vision: "What excites you most about Aircall's mission to redefine customer communications with AI, and how do you see your design skills contributing to that vision?" (Demonstrate research into Aircall's product and AI strategy).

• Collaboration & Influence: "As the founding designer, how would you build strong working relationships with product and engineering to ensure design