Senior Product Designer

📍 Job Overview

Job Title: Senior Product Designer

Company: Partly

Location: Auckland, New Zealand; Christchurch, New Zealand; Austin, Texas, United States; London, England, United Kingdom

Job Type: FULL_TIME

Category: Product Design / AI Product Experience

Date Posted: 2026-10-04

Experience Level: Senior (5+ years)

Remote Status: Office-First with Flexibility (Hybrid potential within office locations)

🚀 Role Summary

• Drive the evolution of product design within an AI-centric company, focusing on novel agentic and generative user experiences.

• Own and champion the design system, ensuring its integrity and scalability for both human engineers and AI coding agents.

• Define and implement interaction patterns for AI-driven workflows, balancing automation with user control and decision-making.

• Collaborate closely with Product Leads and engineers to ship high-quality, impactful product features that delight customers.

• Contribute to a global design team, fostering coherence and maintaining experience quality across all Partly products.

📝 Enhancement Note: This role is positioned as a Senior Product Designer with a significant focus on the emerging field of AI-driven product experiences. The emphasis on "agentic and generative experiences," "coding agents," and "AI surfaces" indicates a need for candidates who can think beyond traditional UI/UX and embrace designing for AI-powered systems. The role is not embedded within product teams but operates as a central design function, responsible for the design system and overall product coherence.

📈 Primary Responsibilities

• Design System Ownership: Lead the development, maintenance, and evolution of Partly's design system, ensuring it's robust, scalable, and usable by both human engineers and AI coding agents. This includes defining components, patterns, rules, and comprehensive guidance.

• AI Experience Pattern Definition: Shape and ship novel interaction patterns for agentic and generative AI experiences, including natural language interfaces, generated UI, and AI agents that manage administrative tasks.

• Uncertainty Handling: Define how the product and its AI agents behave when uncertain, including how they show their reasoning, accept corrections, and resolve disagreements with users.

• Product Personality & Tone: Define and imbue the product with a distinct character and tone of voice for its AI agents, ensuring consistency across all customer touchpoints.

• Quality Assurance & Coherence: Uphold and enforce high-quality experience standards across all Partly products, identifying and rectifying inconsistencies at the system level rather than on a per-page basis.

• Prototyping & Validation: Build functional prototypes using AI tools within the design system, test them with real data, and validate them through direct customer interaction.

• Engineering Collaboration: Pair directly with Product Engineers and their teams, working collaboratively on detailed design implementation and reviewing UI generated by coding agents.

• Customer Research: Conduct in-depth customer research by spending time with repairers and suppliers in their environments, on calls, and within the product, working alongside regional Product Leads.

• Principle & Rule Documentation: Articulate and document the principles and rules governing the product's behavior on behalf of users in a clear, actionable manner for both engineers and AI models.

📝 Enhancement Note: The responsibilities highlight a unique blend of traditional product design and cutting-edge AI product development. The emphasis on "coding agents" and designing for AI models as users of the design system is a significant differentiator. The role requires not just design execution but also strategic thinking about the future of product design in an AI-first world.

🎓 Skills & Qualifications

Education: No specific degree is mandated, with emphasis placed on demonstrated experience and portfolio.

Experience: Typically 5+ years of experience designing complex software, with a strong preference for hands-on experience and demonstrable impact in agentic or AI-driven experiences. The quality of evidence is prioritized over the exact number of years.

Required Skills:

• Senior-Level Design Execution: Proven ability to lead design projects end-to-end with measurable impact on user behavior.

• Agentic/AI Experience Design: Demonstrated experience designing and shipping agentic or AI-driven experiences, including making critical calls on task autonomy, human-in-the-loop processes, and evaluation criteria.

• Systems Thinking: Strong ability to contribute to or build scalable design systems that are adopted by engineers, with a clear understanding of systems requirements for AI users.

• Production-Ready Craft: Deep fluency in interaction design, visual design, and copywriting, with the ability to create polished, considered interfaces for dense, technical tools.

• Product Judgement: Ability to translate ambiguous briefs into clear problems, constraints, and testable solutions, with strong rationale for trade-offs and an understanding of when prototypes are misleading.

• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Comfort working with multiple product teams simultaneously, managing stakeholder expectations, and holding teams accountable for design quality.

• Customer Empathy: A deep curiosity and understanding of customer needs, particularly for professionals with high expectations and established workflows.

• Communication Skills: Excellent written, verbal, and visual communication capabilities.

Preferred Skills:

• Experience designing workflow-heavy, data-dense, or technically complex B2B products.

• Familiarity with marketplace, catalog, e-commerce, or supply chain domains (automotive experience is a bonus but not required).

• Experience working in high-growth startup and scale-up environments.

• Experience within a global, distributed design team.

📝 Enhancement Note: The requirements strongly emphasize practical experience and a portfolio that showcases work with AI and agentic systems. The distinction between "required" and "preferred" highlights the core need for AI design expertise and systems thinking, while other areas represent valuable but not essential additions. The explicit statement that "if half the work makes you nervous, this isn't the role" underscores the AI-forward nature of the position.

📊 Process & Systems Portfolio Requirements

Portfolio Essentials:

• Demonstrated AI/Agentic Experience: Showcase at least one significant project where you designed agentic or AI-driven user experiences, detailing the problem, your approach, the AI components involved, and the outcomes.

• Design System Contribution: Include examples of your involvement in building or significantly contributing to a design system, highlighting its structure, principles, and how it was adopted.

• Systems Thinking in Practice: Provide examples of how you applied systems thinking to solve complex design problems, particularly those requiring scalability and consistency across multiple products or user types.

• Functional Prototyping: Present working prototypes, ideally built with AI tools or demonstrating complex interactions, that showcase your ability to bring designs to life and test them with real data.

• Customer Research Insights: Illustrate how you incorporated customer research into your design process, with specific examples of how insights led to product improvements, especially for B2B or technical users.

Process Documentation:

• Design Principles & Guidelines: Clearly articulate the principles and rules that guided your design decisions, especially for AI interactions and system behavior.

• Workflow Design & Optimization: Detail how you analyzed and improved complex workflows, particularly those involving administrative tasks or data-heavy interactions.

• AI Interaction Design Rationale: Explain the trade-offs and decisions made when designing AI agent behavior, uncertainty handling, and user correction mechanisms.

📝 Enhancement Note: The portfolio requirements are heavily weighted towards demonstrating experience with AI and agentic systems, along with a strong foundation in design systems and systems thinking. Candidates must be able to articulate their design process, particularly how they've navigated the complexities of AI interactions and ensured quality in a system designed for both human and AI users.

💵 Compensation & Benefits

Salary Range:

• Austin, Texas, USA: For a Senior Product Designer with 5+ years of experience in AI and complex software, the estimated salary range is USD $130,000 - $180,000 annually. This is based on industry benchmarks for senior design roles in tech hubs, adjusted for the specialized AI/agentic experience.

• London, UK: For a Senior Product Designer, the estimated salary range is GBP £75,000 - £110,000 annually. This accounts for London's cost of living and the specialized skill set.

• Auckland & Christchurch, New Zealand: For a Senior Product Designer, the estimated salary range is NZD $120,000 - $170,000 annually. This reflects the senior level and the demand for specialized tech talent in New Zealand.

📝 Enhancement Note: Salary ranges are estimates based on publicly available data for Senior Product Designer roles in major tech hubs, adjusted for the specified locations and the advanced skill set required for AI/agentic design. Actual compensation will depend on the candidate's specific experience, interview performance, and location.

Benefits:

• Healthy, Catered Lunches: Provided daily in Auckland, Christchurch, London, and Austin offices, including snacks and drinks.

• Wellness Allowance: A $1,500 USD annual allowance (or local equivalent) for gym memberships, physio, massages, GP visits, and other wellness-related expenses.

• Family Support: 3 months of fully paid parental leave for primary caregivers, with a flexible return-to-work option.

• Commute Assistance: Choice of a paid 24/7 car park or a commute allowance for those traveling to a Partly office.

• Inspiring Workspaces: Access to modern, architecturally designed offices equipped for collaboration and creativity.

• Office-First with Flexibility: A strong emphasis on office-based work for collaboration and speed, balanced with a high-trust environment allowing schedule flexibility.

• Team Celebrations: Regular social events including weekly happy hours, monthly lunches, quarterly "Season Openers," and an annual global offsite.

• Relocation Assistance: Support provided for candidates relocating to join the company.

Working Hours: While the role defaults to office presence, a high-trust environment allows for flexibility in managing schedules to achieve work-life balance and optimize productivity. The typical full-time expectation is around 40 hours per week.

📝 Enhancement Note: The benefits package is comprehensive, with a strong focus on employee well-being, work-life balance, and fostering a connected team culture, even in a distributed setting. The "Office-First with Flexibility" model indicates a preference for in-person collaboration while acknowledging the need for individual autonomy.

🎯 Team & Company Context

🏢 Company Culture

Industry: Software / Artificial Intelligence / Automotive Replacement Parts Platform

Company Size: Growing rapidly, indicated by tripling the team in the last 12 months and expecting to double again. Likely in the 50-200 employee range, moving towards scale-up.

Founded: Founded by ex-Rocket Lab engineers, suggesting a strong technical foundation and ambitious, problem-solving culture.

Team Structure:

• Global Design Team: This role is part of a dedicated, global design team that operates across all product lines, rather than being embedded within individual product teams.

• Product-Led Teams: Product teams are organized around specific products and led by Product Leads (Principal Product Managers), working with Product Engineers and other engineers.

• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Designers will work closely with Product Leads to understand customer needs and with engineers to implement designs, emphasizing a "pair with engineers, no hand-offs" approach.

Methodology:

• AI-First Development: Partly operates as an AI research company, building and testing prototypes using AI tools (like Claude Code) directly within their design system.

• Iterative Prototyping: Emphasis on rapid prototyping and testing with real data and customers to validate features before full engineering rebuilds.

• Data-Driven Decisions: While not explicitly detailed, the context of AI and complex B2B software implies a strong reliance on data for decision-making and performance measurement.

• Customer-Centricity: Significant time is spent with customers (repairers, suppliers) to understand their workflows and pain points.

Company Website: https://www.partly.com/

📝 Enhancement Note: Partly is positioned as an ambitious, tech-forward startup with a strong engineering pedigree and a clear vision for disrupting a massive industry. The culture appears to value innovation, direct customer engagement, and a high degree of autonomy within a collaborative framework. The AI-centric approach to product development is a defining characteristic.

📈 Career & Growth Analysis

Operations Career Level: This is a Senior Product Designer role, indicating a high level of autonomy, expertise, and influence. It's a position for an individual contributor who can lead significant areas of product design without direct management responsibility, but with substantial impact.

Reporting Structure: The designer will be part of a global design team. While not reporting directly to a Product Lead for daily tasks, they will collaborate closely with multiple Product Leads who own their respective products. The design team's leadership structure is not detailed but implies a focus on shared principles and system ownership.

Operations Impact: The role has a direct impact on customer adoption and stickiness by creating "magical" and coherent user experiences. By owning the design system and AI interaction patterns, this designer will shape the fundamental way users interact with Partly's platform, influencing efficiency for repairers and suppliers, and ultimately contributing to the company's mission and revenue growth.

Growth Opportunities:

• Specialization in AI Product Design: Become a leading expert in designing for AI-powered interfaces and agentic workflows, a rapidly growing and highly valuable field.

• Design System Leadership: Take on greater responsibility for the strategic direction and evolution of a complex, AI-integrated design system.

• Cross-Functional Influence: Grow influence across multiple product lines and engineering teams, shaping product strategy through design leadership.

• Mentorship: Opportunity to mentor more junior designers as the team expands, and to learn from experienced engineers and product leaders.

• Industry Impact: Contribute to a platform aiming to revolutionize a $1.9 trillion industry, with potential for significant personal and professional growth as the company scales.

📝 Enhancement Note: This role offers a unique opportunity for a designer to pioneer new approaches in AI product design. Growth is likely to come from deepening expertise in this specialized area, taking on more strategic design system responsibilities, and influencing product direction at a senior individual contributor level.

🌐 Work Environment

Office Type: Partly operates an "Office-First" model in its locations (Auckland, Christchurch, London, Austin), meaning these are the primary hubs for collaboration. The offices are described as "brand new, architecturally designed" and built for collaboration and creativity.

Office Location(s):

• Auckland, New Zealand

• Christchurch, New Zealand

• Austin, Texas, USA

• London, England, United Kingdom Workspace Context:

• Collaborative Hubs: Offices are designed to facilitate interaction, with social spaces and proximity to amenities.

• Technology Enabled: While not explicitly detailed for design, the company's AI focus suggests a technologically advanced environment. Designers will work with AI tools and directly with engineers.

• Global Team Interaction: While based in an office, designers will collaborate with colleagues across different time zones, requiring effective remote communication strategies alongside in-person collaboration.

Work Schedule: The company promotes a "high trust environment" allowing individuals to manage their time around their lives and flex their schedules to get their best work done. This suggests a balance between structured office presence and personal autonomy, especially within the specified office locations.

📝 Enhancement Note: The "Office-First with Flexibility" model is key. It signals a commitment to in-person collaboration for speed and relationship building, but also acknowledges the need for employee autonomy and work-life balance. The physical office spaces are designed to support this collaborative, creative, and inspiring work environment.

📄 Application & Portfolio Review Process

Interview Process:

• Initial Screening: Review of application, focusing on portfolio and demonstrated experience with AI/agentic design.

• Portfolio Deep Dive: A session to walk through selected projects, discussing design decisions, challenges, and outcomes, with a focus on AI/agentic systems and design system contributions.

• Systems & AI Design Challenge: A practical exercise or case study focused on a specific AI interaction problem or design system challenge relevant to Partly's domain. This may involve ideation, system thinking, and prototyping.

• Cross-Functional Interviews: Discussions with Product Leads and Engineers to assess collaboration style, problem-solving approach, and understanding of technical constraints.

• Culture & Values Fit: Conversations to evaluate alignment with Partly's values and working style, particularly regarding autonomy, collaboration, and embracing AI.

• Final Round: Potentially with senior leadership to discuss strategic vision and overall fit.

Portfolio Review Tips:

• Highlight AI/Agentic Work: Dedicate significant space to projects showcasing your experience with AI surfaces, agentic workflows, and human-in-the-loop systems. Clearly articulate your role, the AI components, and the impact.

• Showcase Design System Thinking: Include examples of how you've built or contributed to design systems, emphasizing scalability, reusability, and how it supports diverse users (including AI agents if applicable).

• Demonstrate Problem Framing: For each project, clearly articulate the problem you were solving, your process for defining constraints, and how you arrived at your solution.

• Quantify Impact: Wherever possible, use metrics and user behavior changes to demonstrate the success of your designs.

• Prototype Functionality: Present interactive prototypes that clearly illustrate complex interactions or AI behaviors.

• Explain Trade-offs: Be prepared to discuss difficult decisions, trade-offs made, and any disagreements encountered during the design process.

Challenge Preparation:

• Understand Partly's Domain: Research the automotive replacement parts industry and the challenges repairers and suppliers face.

• Study AI Interaction Patterns: Familiarize yourself with current trends and best practices in generative AI interfaces, agentic workflows, and human-AI collaboration.

• Think Systemically: Prepare to approach design problems from a systems perspective, considering how solutions integrate with a broader design system and product family.

• Practice Articulating AI Decisions: Be ready to explain the rationale behind design choices for AI behavior, uncertainty, and user control.

📝 Enhancement Note: The application process emphasizes practical skills, particularly in AI design and systems thinking. Candidates should prepare to demonstrate their capabilities through their portfolio and potentially a hands-on challenge, showcasing their ability to navigate the complexities of designing for AI-powered products.

🛠 Tools & Technology Stack

Primary Tools:

• Design System Tooling: Expect to work with tools that facilitate the creation and management of design systems. This could include Figma, Sketch, or similar, integrated with documentation platforms.

• Prototyping Tools: Proficiency in creating interactive prototypes is essential, likely using tools like Figma, Framer, or potentially custom AI-assisted prototyping tools mentioned (e.g., Claude Code).

• AI/Code Generation Tools: Experience or willingness to learn tools that allow designers to build working prototypes with AI assistance (e.g., Claude Code) is a significant advantage.

Analytics & Reporting:

• While not explicitly stated, a data-driven approach is implied. Expect to utilize product analytics tools (e.g., Amplitude, Mixpanel) to measure the adoption and quality of designed features. CRM & Automation:

• Not directly relevant for the design role, but understanding how designs integrate with CRM and automation platforms used by sales and operations teams might be beneficial.

📝 Enhancement Note: The emphasis on "working prototypes built inside our design system" and the mention of "Claude Code" suggests a tech stack that integrates design tools with AI capabilities for rapid prototyping and iteration. Proficiency in standard design software is assumed, but adaptability to AI-assisted design tools will be key.

👥 Team Culture & Values

Operations Values: (Derived from company description and role expectations)

• Ambitious Vision: Driven by a mission to connect the world's parts and accelerate sustainability, with a bold vision for the industry.

• Engineering Excellence: Founded by ex-Rocket Lab engineers, implying a culture that values technical rigor, problem-solving, and building robust solutions.

• Customer Focus: Deep commitment to understanding and serving the needs of repairers and suppliers, spending significant time with customers.

• Innovation & Experimentation: Embracing AI as a core technology and encouraging experimentation with new design paradigms and AI tools.

• Quality & Craftsmanship: Holding a high bar for the quality of the user experience and design system, ensuring it's considered and polished.

• Collaboration & Trust: Fostering a high-trust environment that encourages collaboration across global teams and allows for flexible work arrangements.

Collaboration Style:

• Cross-Functional Pairing: Designers work directly alongside engineers ("no hand-offs") to ensure seamless implementation and detail refinement.

• Global Team Cohesion: While distributed, efforts are made to connect globally through events and shared goals, fostering a unified team identity.

• Direct Customer Engagement: Designers are expected to spend time with customers, working with Product Leads who have deep regional customer context.

• Open Communication: The "high trust environment" suggests open dialogue and feedback loops are encouraged.

📝 Enhancement Note: Partly's culture seems to be a blend of a mission-driven startup with a strong engineering foundation. The emphasis on AI, customer proximity, and collaborative yet flexible work arrangements are key cultural pillars.

⚡ Challenges & Growth Opportunities

Challenges:

• Pioneering AI Design: Designing for AI-driven experiences is a nascent field. Challenges include defining novel interaction patterns, managing user expectations, and ensuring AI behavior is reliable and trustworthy.

• Balancing Automation and Control: Finding the right equilibrium between automating tasks for efficiency and giving users sufficient control and decision-making power, especially in high-stakes B2B environments.

• Design System for AI Users: Adapting and evolving a design system to be effectively used by AI coding agents, not just human developers, presents unique technical and conceptual hurdles.

• Global Coherence: Maintaining a consistent and high-quality user experience across diverse customer segments and geographical regions with a globally distributed team.

• Rapid Growth Environment: Adapting to and contributing to a rapidly scaling company means processes and structures are constantly evolving.

Learning & Development Opportunities:

• AI Product Design Expertise: Become a recognized expert in one of the most rapidly evolving areas of product design.

• Advanced Design Systems: Deepen knowledge in building and scaling complex design systems, including those designed for AI integration.

• Cross-Disciplinary Learning: Gain insights into AI research, engineering practices, and the intricacies of B2B marketplaces.

• Strategic Impact: Contribute to defining the future of product design at a company poised to disrupt a major industry.

• Mentorship & Leadership: Opportunities to mentor emerging talent and influence design direction at a senior level.

📝 Enhancement Note: The challenges are inherent to working at the cutting edge of AI product development. The growth opportunities are significant for individuals looking to specialize and lead in this emerging domain, offering a chance to shape the future of design.

💡 Interview Preparation

Strategy Questions:

• "How would you approach designing a system where an AI agent performs complex administrative tasks for a repairer, and what are the key considerations for when the agent is uncertain?"

• "Describe your experience with design systems. How would you adapt a system to be used effectively by both human engineers and AI coding agents?"

• "Walk me through a project where you had to make difficult trade-offs in your design. What was the situation, what were the options, and how did you decide?"

• "How do you ensure coherence and quality across multiple product lines when you are not embedded in individual product teams?"

• "What are your thoughts on defining the 'personality' or tone of an AI agent? How would you go about establishing that for Partly's customers?" Company & Culture Questions:

• "What interests you most about Partly's mission and our approach to using AI in the replacement parts industry?"

• "How do you see yourself contributing to a high-trust, flexible work environment while working within an 'Office-First' model?"

• "Describe a time you had to push back or disagree with a stakeholder (e.g., Product Lead, engineer) on a design decision. How did you handle it?"

• "What are your expectations for collaboration within a global, distributed design team?" Portfolio Presentation Strategy:

• Focus on AI Impact: For your AI/agentic projects, clearly articulate the problem, the AI's role, your design contribution, and the measurable outcomes. Use visuals that highlight the AI interaction.

• Showcase Systems Thinking: Present your design system work, explaining the principles, components, and how it provides a scalable foundation. If possible, discuss how it could adapt to AI users.

• Demonstrate Process & Rationale: For each project, explain your design process, why you made certain choices, and what you learned. Be prepared to discuss trade-offs and challenges.

• Interactive Prototypes: Use live prototypes where possible to demonstrate complex interactions. Be ready to explain the 'why' behind every element.

• Customer-Centricity: Illustrate how customer insights informed your designs and how you validated solutions with users.

📝 Enhancement Note: Interview preparation should heavily focus on AI product design principles, design systems for AI, and the ability to articulate complex design decisions and trade-offs. Candidates must be ready to discuss their experience with ambiguity and innovation in a rapidly evolving field.

📌 Application Steps

To apply for this Senior Product Designer position:

• Submit your application through the provided link on Ashby.

• Curate Your Portfolio: Select 2-3 key projects that best showcase your experience with AI/agentic design, design systems, and complex software. Ensure each project clearly outlines the problem, your role, design process, AI integration, and measurable outcomes.

• Optimize Your Resume: Highlight your 5+ years of experience, specific skills in AI/agentic design, systems thinking, and experience with B2B or technical products. Use keywords from the job description.

• Prepare Your Presentation: Practice walking through your portfolio projects, focusing on your ability to articulate design rationale, AI interaction strategies, and system design. Be ready to discuss challenges and trade-offs.

• Research Partly: Understand their mission, industry, product, and values. Think about how your design philosophy aligns with their AI-first approach and customer focus.

⚠️ 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.

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