Lead Product Designer @ AI-powered Personal Growth Startup at Conscious Talent

Role: Lead Product Designer Location: Los Angeles, CA Salary/Compensation: $160k – $200k + equity ABOUT OUR CLIENT: Our client is an AI-powered journaling and personal development application that's changing how people understand themselves. 500,000+ downloads, 20,000+ paying customers, $2.5M ARR, backed by top-tier venture investors with a $6M seed round. POSITION OVERVIEW: They're looking for a Lead Product Designer to take the torch from their CEO (a career product designer) and own the end-to-end design vision. This is bleeding-edge work: designing AI experiences that don't fully exist yet, grounded by real user research and validated by leading academic institutions. They need someone who builds, not just draws. If prototyping experimental AI interactions excites you more than polishing existing patterns, keep reading. KEY RESPONSIBILITIES: - Take the torch on product design vision and strategy across the client's core experience - Explore and define novel AI-native UX patterns, then ground them in technical feasibility and real system constraints - Build functional prototypes, not just mockups. Comfort with TypeScript/React is a plus. - Collaborate directly with engineers, the CEO, and co-founder to map product requirements from nebulous ideas to shipped features - Run a rigorous design process: brainstorms, mood boards, research, ideation, prototyping, testing, iteration. You bring structure, not wait for it. - Build out and maintain the design system as you go - Lead design reviews and critique across the team - Shape how AI is used within the design workflow itself, thoughtfully and intentionally QUALIFICATIONS: - Senior product designer (6-10 years) with a portfolio that shows range, craft, and taste. Unfinished projects count if they show how your mind works. - Design engineer mindset. You're comfortable prototyping concepts, not just drawing them. Bonus if you can write front-end code. - Zero-to-one experience. You've built something from the ground up at a startup, not just executed briefs at a big company. You have the battle scars and the intuition. - Strong conceptual design chops. They need someone who produces work that makes them say "whoa, they never would have thought of that." Mechanics alone aren't enough. - Strong systems thinker who can zoom from information architecture to interaction details to pixel-level craft - Organized and process-driven. You know how to go from nebulousness to concrete: brainstorm → mood boards → review → prototype → iterate. No black boxes. - Growth mindset above all. Hungry, optimistic, willing to do what it takes. They reward people who grow with them. - Excellent communicator who can articulate design rationale clearly to engineers, PMs, and founders. Can manage stakeholders and create clarity in ambiguity. - Personal connection to self-reflection, therapy, or personal development. Their target users are therapy-fluent, and they need a designer who intuitively understands that world. ON AI IN YOUR WORKFLOW - They want someone who uses AI tools thoughtfully to move faster, explore more, and reduce busywork. Not someone who outsources their thinking to it. The best designers right now are using AI to amplify their taste and judgment, not replace it. They'll ask about this. WHAT THEY OFFER: - Compensation & Benefits - Competitive salary: $160K – $200K base - Equity package (0.25–0.5%+). They flex for the right person. - Location - LA-based preferred. - Remote-friendly for the right person, with willingness to visit LA for planning weeks. WHY JOIN NOW: - 20,000+ paying customers and growing. Real product-market fit in mental health and personal growth. - Designing for one of the most interesting problems in AI: building technology that truly understands a person - Small team, big impact. Your work ships and gets used by real people changing their lives. - Work directly with the founding team and engineers. No layers of process between you and impact.