Hybrid Product Design Manager

at Sydecar

• Job title: Product Design Manager
• Job type: Full Time
• Experience level: Senior, Lead
• Salary: $160,000 - $180,000 per year
• Degree requirement: Bachelor's Degree
• Location requirements: Hybrid, San Francisco, United States

About the role

• Product Design Manager leading design initiatives and user experience at fintech startup. Managing a team while defining product strategy in a regulated environment.

Responsibilities

• Own and Evolve the End-to-End UX
• Lead the evolution of the entire user experience for deal leads, investors, and internal operations teams
• Personally drive design on high-impact initiatives, from discovery through delivery
• Simplify complex, regulated workflows into clear, intuitive, and experiences that create trust for our customers
• Set and maintain a high bar for design quality while operating with startup speed
• Research-Led Design Leadership
• Lead user research as a first-class input to product strategy and design decisions
• Partner closely with Product Managers to define problems, test assumptions, and validate solutions
• Act as a strong voice of the customer in roadmap and prioritization discussions as well as on specific initiatives
• Synthesize qualitative and quantitative insights into clear, actionable direction
• Design Systems & UI Foundations
• Lead the adoption and evolution of design systems, shared UI components, and design libraries
• Partner with Engineering and Product to ensure consistent implementation across the product
• Define standards, guidelines, and best practices that enable speed without sacrificing quality
• Balance systemization with flexibility as the product evolves
• Design for Impact in a Regulated Environment
• Work with SMEs to balance regulatory, compliance, and operational requirements with excellent UX
• Design systems and flows that support trust, accuracy, and clarity for investors and deal organizers
• Make confident tradeoffs when constrained, and communicate them clearly
• Use data to inform decisions and optimize for outcomes such as conversion, activation, and retention
• Build and Lead a High-Ownership Team
• Manage, mentor, and develop a team of Product Designers
• Provide direct feedback and clear direction to keep work moving forward
• Foster a culture of trust, collaboration, speed, accountability, and continuous improvement
• Help designers grow both their craft and product thinking

Requirements

• 7+ years of product design experience, including at least 2 years experience leading or managing designers
• Strong demonstration in building design teams and scalable design processes
• Exceptionally strong hands-on design skills, with a portfolio demonstrating end-to-end UX ownership and redesigns
• Deep experience leading and applying user research to drive strategy and execution
• Strong experience designing complex workflows, multi-step processes, or systems-heavy products
• Strong experience in design systems and UI libraries
• Strong preference for experience working in regulated markets, especially fintech, capital markets, or private venture
• Ability to balance compliance and regulatory needs with delivering a best-in-class customer experience
• Experience with consumer and/or SMB products strongly preferred
• Data-informed, outcome-oriented designer with a bias toward execution
• Comfortable operating in ambiguity and energized by early-stage environments.

Benefits

• Offers Equity
• Offers Bonus