Sr. Product Designer

📍 Job Overview

Job Title: Sr. Product Designer

Company: Baselayer

Location: New York City, NY, United States

Job Type: Full-time

Category: Product Design / UX/UI Design

Date Posted: May 23, 2026

Experience Level: Mid-Level

Remote Status: Hybrid (4 days in office)

🚀 Role Summary

• Lead end-to-end product design for a sophisticated fintech platform, focusing on user experience for complex Know Your Business (KYB) and compliance workflows.

• Develop and scale a robust design system, ensuring consistency, usability, and efficiency across the Baselayer platform using established components and tokens.

• Collaborate closely with engineering and product teams to translate intricate financial data and risk management concepts into intuitive and accessible user interfaces.

• Leverage AI tools in conjunction with Figma to accelerate design exploration, prototyping, and design-to-code handoffs, driving faster iteration cycles.

📝 Enhancement Note: This role is positioned as a "Sr. Product Designer" indicating a need for significant autonomy and ownership in design execution and system contribution, even with 3+ years of experience. The emphasis on fintech, KYB, and compliance suggests a complex problem space requiring strong analytical and problem-solving skills within a design context.

📈 Primary Responsibilities

• Own the complete product design lifecycle, from initial problem identification and user research to stakeholder alignment and final UI delivery.

• Design and refine screens, user flows, and interactions for Baselayer's core platform, strictly adhering to and contributing to the existing design system and component library.

• Translate complex Know Your Business (KYB), risk assessment, and regulatory compliance workflows into clear, intuitive, and highly usable interfaces for institutional clients.

• Foster strong collaborative partnerships with engineering teams to ensure design feasibility, maintain visual and interactive consistency, and facilitate seamless handoffs.

• Utilize AI-powered design tools alongside Figma to expedite exploration, rapid prototyping, and accelerate design-to-code workflows, enhancing overall team velocity.

• Proactively identify and address UX inconsistencies across the product, contributing actionable improvements and enhancements to the central design system.

• Participate actively in user research initiatives and usability testing sessions to validate design decisions and gather critical user feedback for iterative improvements.

📝 Enhancement Note: The responsibilities highlight a strong focus on system design and complex workflow translation, common in regulated industries like fintech. The explicit mention of AI tools indicates a forward-thinking approach to design processes, requiring adaptability and a willingness to adopt new technologies.

🎓 Skills & Qualifications

Education: While no specific degree is listed, a Bachelor's degree in Design, Human-Computer Interaction, or a related field is often preferred for product design roles. Candidates with equivalent practical experience will also be considered.

Experience: Minimum of 3 years of progressive experience in UX/UI design or digital product design. This includes experience gained through internships, freelance projects, or entry-level full-time positions.

Required Skills:

• Proficiency in Figma, including advanced features such as Auto Layout, variants, components, and design tokens for scalable design systems.

• Exceptional attention to detail, with a proven ability to maintain consistency across various design files, states, and use cases.

• Demonstrated ability to take direction, iterate rapidly on design concepts, and effectively incorporate feedback from cross-functional teams.

• Strong communication and collaboration skills, with a proactive approach to working with product managers, engineers, and fellow designers.

• A keen interest in learning and contributing to design systems, with an understanding of how to scale visual languages and ensure brand consistency.

Preferred Skills:

• Experience with AI tools for design exploration, prototyping, or design-to-code workflows.

• Familiarity with user research methodologies and conducting usability testing.

• Understanding of front-end development principles (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) to inform design feasibility.

• Experience working in a startup environment with a fast-paced, agile development process.

• Portfolio showcasing a strong understanding of design systems and component-based design.

📝 Enhancement Note: The "minimum requirements" are relatively flexible on formal education, emphasizing practical experience and specific tool proficiency (Figma). The "What Sets You Apart" section strongly suggests a candidate who is not only technically skilled but also possesses a passion for systems thinking and a proactive, detail-oriented approach to craft.

📊 Process & Systems Portfolio Requirements

Portfolio Essentials:

• Demonstrate end-to-end product design ownership for at least 1-2 significant projects, showcasing problem definition, ideation, design execution, and outcomes.

• Include detailed case studies that highlight the application and contribution to a design system, focusing on component usage, variant definition, and token implementation.

• Showcase the ability to translate complex workflows (e.g., KYB, risk, compliance) into clear, intuitive, and user-friendly interfaces, with examples of wireframes, user flows, and final UI designs.

• Present examples of iterative design processes, including how user feedback and usability testing informed design decisions and led to measurable improvements.

Process Documentation:

• Provide examples of how you have documented design processes, including user research findings, design principles, and interaction guidelines.

• Illustrate experience with design system documentation, potentially including component specifications, usage guidelines, and contribution workflows.

• Showcase how you have collaborated with engineering on design handoff and implementation, potentially including examples of using tools for design specifications.

📝 Enhancement Note: While not explicitly stated as a formal requirement, a portfolio is implicitly essential for a design role. The emphasis on design systems, complex workflows, and iterative processes suggests that candidates should prepare case studies that highlight these specific aspects of their design experience.

💵 Compensation & Benefits

Salary Range: $100,000 - $162,500 annually, plus equity.

Benefits:

• Flexible PTO: Generous paid time off policy allowing employees to recharge as needed without bureaucratic hurdles.

• Equity: Stock options or grants, aligning employee success with company growth.

• Comprehensive Health Coverage: 100% employer-paid premiums for health, dental, and vision insurance.

• 401(k) with Company Match: Retirement savings plan with employer contributions to match employee investments.

• HSA Contributions: Health Savings Account contributions provided by the company for applicable health plans.

• Gym Stipend: An annual stipend of $250 to support employee wellness and fitness.

• Career Growth: Significant opportunities for professional development and advancement within a high-growth startup environment, working alongside experienced founders.

• Transparency and Voice: A culture that values transparency, radical candor, and empowers all team members to contribute their ideas.

Working Hours: Standard full-time hours, typically around 40 hours per week, with a hybrid work arrangement requiring 4 days per week in the New York City office.

📝 Enhancement Note: The salary range provided is competitive for a Sr. Product Designer role in New York City, especially for a high-growth fintech startup. The benefits package is robust, with a strong emphasis on employee well-being and ownership. The hybrid model is clearly defined.

🎯 Team & Company Context

🏢 Company Culture

Industry: Fintech, specifically focusing on business identity and verification infrastructure. Baselayer is rebuilding the foundational layer that determines business legitimacy and risk for financial institutions and other platforms.

Company Size: Baselayer is a rapidly growing startup, indicated by the "About the Team" section describing a "small team" and the "inflection point" they are at. While an exact number isn't provided, it suggests a dynamic, agile environment where individual contributions have significant impact.

Founded: Founded less than two years ago (based on the description "We've built something that gets 98% in under two years."), indicating a relatively young, innovative, and fast-paced company.

Team Structure:

• The design team is small, with the Sr. Product Designer working closely with a Lead Designer. This suggests a highly collaborative and hands-on environment where senior members mentor and guide.

• The broader team is cross-functional, emphasizing close collaboration between Product Design, Engineering, and Product Management.

Methodology:

• Data-Driven Infrastructure: The core product is built on fusing vast amounts of data into a unified graph, emphasizing data integrity, accuracy, and performance.

• Agile & Iterative Development: The description "no layer of process between an idea and shipping it" and "move faster on explorations, prototypes, and design-to-code workflows" points to an agile methodology focused on rapid iteration and quick deployment.

• Research & Problem Solving: The team tackles complex "graph AI problems, retrieval problems, and fraud-modeling problems," indicating a strong emphasis on research, experimentation, and solving challenging technical and analytical issues.

Company Website: Baselayer.com

📝 Enhancement Note: Baselayer operates in a technically deep and complex domain (entity resolution, graph AI for finance). The culture is described as fast-paced, ownership-driven, and research-oriented, appealing to individuals who thrive in startup environments and enjoy solving foundational infrastructure problems.

📈 Career & Growth Analysis

Operations Career Level: This role is a "Sr. Product Designer," typically falling into the mid-to-senior level of a design career path. It signifies a step beyond junior or entry-level roles, requiring a strong foundation in core design skills and the ability to work with some autonomy. The emphasis on contributing to a design system and owning end-to-end processes aligns with this mid-senior level.

Reporting Structure: The Sr. Product Designer will work closely with the Lead Designer. This implies a direct reporting relationship to the Lead Designer, who likely oversees the design function within the company. Collaboration with engineering and product teams will also be a significant part of the daily workflow.

Operations Impact: While not a traditional "operations" role in the sense of Revenue or Sales Operations, this Product Designer's work has a profound impact on the "operations" of Baselayer's clients. By creating clear, usable interfaces for complex KYB, risk, and compliance workflows, this role directly enables financial institutions and other businesses to operate more efficiently, reduce risk, ensure compliance, and onboard customers faster. The design system itself is an operational asset that ensures consistency and scalability across the product offering.

Growth Opportunities:

• Design System Leadership: As the company scales, there will be opportunities to take on more leadership in evolving and managing the design system, potentially becoming a Design System Lead or Advocate.

• Specialization: Deepen expertise in designing for complex financial workflows, entity resolution, AI-driven platforms, or graph-based data visualization.

• Mentorship: As a senior member, opportunities to mentor junior designers or product managers on design best practices will arise.

• Product Strategy: Contribute more directly to product strategy by leveraging design insights to identify new opportunities and improve existing features.

• High-Growth Startup Experience: Gain invaluable experience in a fast-scaling tech company, which can be a significant career accelerator.

📝 Enhancement Note: The "Sr." title suggests a pathway to more senior design leadership or specialized expertise within Baselayer, particularly in the area of design systems and complex fintech UI.

🌐 Work Environment

Office Type: Baselayer operates with a hybrid work model, requiring employees to be based in NYC and spend 4 days per week in the office. This suggests a preference for in-person collaboration and fostering team cohesion.

Office Location(s): The job is based in New York City. Specific office details (e.g., neighborhood, amenities) are not provided but can be assumed to be a modern, tech-focused workspace conducive to collaboration and innovation.

Workspace Context:

• Collaborative Environment: The hybrid model and emphasis on working closely with Lead Designers, engineers, and product teams indicate a highly collaborative workspace designed to encourage brainstorming and real-time problem-solving.

• Technology Focused: As a tech company building foundational infrastructure, the workspace will likely be equipped with modern technology and tools essential for design and development.

• Startup Energy: Expect a dynamic, fast-paced environment characteristic of a startup at an inflection point, with opportunities for direct impact and close interaction with leadership.

Work Schedule: A standard full-time schedule is expected, likely aligning with typical business hours in the New York City timezone. The hybrid model provides structure with 4 days of in-office presence.

📝 Enhancement Note: The hybrid model in NYC emphasizes the company's value of in-person interaction for collaboration and team building, while still offering some flexibility.

📄 Application & Portfolio Review Process

Interview Process:

• Initial Screening: A brief call with a recruiter to assess basic qualifications, experience, and cultural fit.

• Portfolio Review & Design Challenge: A more in-depth session with the Lead Designer and potentially another team member. This typically involves presenting a curated portfolio, discussing past projects, and possibly addressing a small, focused design challenge or case study relevant to Baselayer's domain.

• Cross-functional Interviews: Meetings with engineers and product managers to assess collaboration skills, technical understanding, and ability to articulate design decisions within a broader product development context.

• Founder/Leadership Interview: A final interview with one of the founders or senior leadership to discuss vision, company culture, and the candidate's long-term potential within Baselayer.

Portfolio Review Tips:

• Curate Strategically: Select 2-3 projects that best showcase your experience with design systems, complex workflow design (fintech, compliance, or similar), and end-to-end product ownership.

• Tell a Story: For each project, clearly articulate the problem, your role, the process you followed, the challenges you faced, your specific contributions, and the impact of your design solutions. Use visuals effectively.

• Highlight System Thinking: Explicitly discuss your contributions to or experience with design systems, components, variants, and tokens. Show how you ensure consistency and scalability.

• Focus on Impact: Quantify results where possible (e.g., "improved user completion rate by X%", "reduced design debt," "streamlined onboarding"). Even qualitative impact is valuable.

• Tailor to Baselayer: Demonstrate an understanding of Baselayer's mission, product (business identity, KYB, risk), and the challenges of designing for institutional clients.

Challenge Preparation:

• Be prepared for a design challenge that might involve simplifying a complex data visualization, designing a new feature for a risk management dashboard, or improving a user flow for business onboarding.

• Practice articulating your thought process clearly and concisely, as if you were presenting to a mix of designers, engineers, and product stakeholders.

• Focus on demonstrating your approach to problem-solving, your understanding of user needs, and your ability to integrate with existing design patterns or systems.

📝 Enhancement Note: The interview process is structured to assess not only design craft but also the ability to work within a complex, regulated industry and contribute to a foundational design system. A strong portfolio that highlights system thinking and complex workflow design is paramount.

🛠 Tools & Technology Stack

Primary Tools:

• Figma: The core design tool for UI design, prototyping, and design system management. Proficiency in Auto Layout, variants, components, and design tokens is essential.

• AI Design Tools: Mentioned as being used alongside Figma for exploration, prototyping, and design-to-code workflows. Candidates should be open to and ideally have some experience with tools like Midjourney (for inspiration), Galileo AI, Uizard, or similar AI-assisted design platforms.

Analytics & Reporting: While not directly a designer's primary tool, an understanding of how product analytics (e.g., Amplitude, Mixpanel) are used to measure design impact is beneficial.

CRM & Automation: Not directly relevant to the designer's core function, but awareness of how design impacts user acquisition and retention funnels is valuable.

📝 Enhancement Note: Figma is the absolute cornerstone tool for this role. Familiarity with AI design tools is becoming increasingly important and is explicitly mentioned here as a way to accelerate workflows.

👥 Team Culture & Values

Operations Values:

• Building Foundational Infrastructure: A core value is creating robust, reliable systems that serve as the bedrock for other businesses. This implies a commitment to quality, scalability, and long-term thinking.

• Data Integrity & Accuracy: Given the nature of Baselayer's product (business identity, risk), there's an implicit high value placed on data accuracy, precision, and the responsible handling of sensitive information.

• Ownership & Autonomy: The description "no layer of process between an idea and shipping it" and "Ownership is real" points to a culture where individuals are empowered to take initiative and are accountable for their work.

• Velocity & Iteration: The emphasis on moving fast, shipping quickly, and iterating based on feedback suggests a culture that prioritizes progress and learning through doing.

• Radical Candor & Transparency: Explicitly mentioned as a value, this means open, honest, and direct communication, even when it's difficult, within a framework of respect.

Collaboration Style:

• Cross-functional Integration: Strong emphasis on collaboration between design, engineering, and product, suggesting a desire to break down silos and work cohesively towards common goals.

• Iterative Feedback Loops: The culture supports continuous feedback, both giving and receiving, to refine designs and processes.

• Shared Ownership: While individuals own their domains, the overall success of the product is a shared responsibility, fostering a team-oriented approach.

📝 Enhancement Note: The culture at Baselayer appears to be a blend of rigorous technical problem-solving, fast-paced startup execution, and a commitment to open communication and individual ownership.

⚡ Challenges & Growth Opportunities

Challenges:

• Designing for Complexity: Translating intricate KYB, risk, and compliance workflows into intuitive user interfaces for institutional clients presents a significant design challenge.

• Scaling a Design System: As Baselayer grows, maintaining and scaling a design system for a rapidly evolving platform requires continuous effort and strategic thinking.

• Balancing Speed and Quality: In a fast-paced startup environment, ensuring high-quality design solutions while maintaining rapid iteration cycles can be challenging.

• Integrating AI Tools Effectively: Learning to leverage AI tools seamlessly within existing design workflows to enhance, rather than hinder, the creative process.

• Cross-functional Alignment: Ensuring that design decisions are well-understood and supported by engineering and product teams, especially given the technical depth of the product.

Learning & Development Opportunities:

• Deep Dive into Fintech Design: Gain specialized knowledge in designing for regulated financial services, a high-demand area.

• Design System Expertise: Develop advanced skills in building, managing, and scaling design systems, a critical asset for growing companies.

• AI in Design Exploration: Become proficient in using emerging AI tools to augment the design process.

• Startup Growth Experience: Learn the dynamics of scaling a technology company from an early stage, which is invaluable for future career progression.

• Mentorship: Benefit from close collaboration with experienced founders and a Lead Designer.

📝 Enhancement Note: The challenges are directly tied to the role's responsibilities and the company's context, offering clear areas for skill development and professional growth.

💡 Interview Preparation

Strategy Questions:

• "Describe a time you had to design a complex workflow for a regulated industry. What were the key challenges, and how did you ensure usability and compliance?" (Focus on your process, user research, and problem-solving approach.)

• "How do you approach building or contributing to a design system? Walk us through your experience with components, variants, and design tokens." (Highlight your system thinking and attention to detail.)

• "Tell us about a project where you had to iterate rapidly based on feedback or changing requirements. How did you manage the process and maintain design quality?" (Demonstrate your adaptability and iterative methodology.)

Company & Culture Questions:

• "What interests you about Baselayer's mission to rebuild the identity layer for businesses?" (Research Baselayer's website and stated mission.)

• "How do you approach collaboration with engineering and product teams? Can you give an example of a successful cross-functional collaboration?" (Emphasize communication, empathy, and shared goals.)

Portfolio Presentation Strategy:

• Structure: Start with a brief overview of your career and design philosophy. Then, dive into 2-3 key portfolio projects. For each, clearly state the problem, your role, your process, key decisions with rationale, and the outcome/impact.

• Highlight System Contributions: Dedicate specific slides or talking points to your involvement with design systems, components, and tokens. Show examples of how you've applied them.

• Visual Storytelling: Use clear, high-fidelity mockups, user flows, and prototypes. Avoid dense text; use bullet points and concise explanations.

• Process Emphasis: Make it clear how you arrived at your solutions, not just what the solutions are. Discuss research, ideation, iterations, and testing.

• Baselayer Relevance: Connect your experience to Baselayer's domain. If you haven't designed for fintech, explain how your skills in complex systems or data-heavy applications are transferable.

📝 Enhancement Note: Preparation should focus on demonstrating not just design craft, but also strategic thinking, system design capabilities, and an understanding of the complex fintech domain.

📌 Application Steps

To apply for this Sr. Product Designer position:

• Submit your application through the provided link on Greenhouse.

• Portfolio Customization: Ensure your portfolio is tailored to highlight your experience with design systems, complex workflow design (especially in regulated industries or data-heavy applications), and end-to-end product ownership. Prepare to discuss 2-3 key projects in detail.

• Resume Optimization: Update your resume to clearly emphasize your 3+ years of UX/UI or product design experience, proficiency in Figma, and any experience with AI design tools or design systems. Use keywords from the job description.

• Interview Preparation: Practice articulating your design process, decision-making rationale, and experience with collaboration. Prepare to discuss your portfolio projects and how your skills align with Baselayer's mission and challenges. Research Baselayer thoroughly.

• Company Research: Familiarize yourself with Baselayer's product, mission, and the fintech industry. Understand their focus on business identity, KYB, and risk management to better align your responses during interviews.

⚠️ Important Notice: This enhanced job description includes AI-generated insights and industry-standard assumptions to provide a comprehensive overview. All details, especially regarding interview processes and specific team dynamics, should be verified directly with Baselayer during the application and interview stages.