Lead Product Designer

XOPS is a fast-growing startup building the future of observability and automation for IT operations. Our platform unifies complex system data to deliver visibility, control, and intelligent workflows across the enterprise, empowering IT teams to manage the entire employee technology lifecycle with precision. As industries embrace AI to automate cars, rockets, and even farming, IT operations remain stuck in the past, reliant on spreadsheets and manual processes. We believe it is time for a change.

At XOPS, we are pioneering autonomous IT operations, freeing teams from tedious tasks and elevating them into strategic leadership roles. Our mission is to drive operational excellence, financial stewardship, and security across the enterprise, while transforming the employee experience. We are just getting started, and we are looking for exceptional teammates to help shape the future.

XOPS is seeking a Lead Product Designer to join our team and work in our office in San Jose. In this role, the Lead Product Designer will straddle strategic leadership and hands-on design execution, creating sophisticated experiences for complex B2B workflows while mentoring junior designers and collaborating with cross-functional teams. You'll be instrumental establishing design processes that can scale with our growing organization. 

Requirements

What you will do: 

• Leadership & Strategy 

• Serve as a design thought leader, advocating for user-centered design principles across the organization 

• Partner with product management to translate business requirements and user needs into compelling product experiences 

• Establish and refine design processes that balance speed, quality, and scalability 

• Mentor junior designers and provide constructive feedback to elevate the overall design quality 

• Collaborate with engineering leadership to ensure design feasibility and quality implementation 

• Design Execution 

• Lead end-to-end design process from problem definition through research, ideation, prototyping, and implementation 

• Create sophisticated solutions for complex B2B workflows, particularly in infrastructure/system management contexts 

• Design intuitive interfaces for technical users with varying levels of expertise 

• Create high-fidelity prototypes to validate concepts with users and stakeholders 

• Cross-Functional Collaboration 

• Partner closely with product management to define requirements and success metrics 

• Work with engineering teams to ensure faithful implementation of design solutions 

• Collaborate with customer success and sales to gather insights about user pain points and needs 

• Present design concepts to executive leadership and key stakeholders, articulating design rationales clearly 

Requirements 

• 6+ years of product design experience, with at least 3 years focused on B2B SaaS products 

• Proven experience leading design for complex technical products or platforms 

• Experience working in both startup and enterprise environments 

• Strong portfolio demonstrating end-to-end product design process and systems thinking 

• Experience creating and managing design systems 

• Track record of shipping products used by technical professionals 

• Expertise in modern design tools (Figma) and rapid prototyping techniques 

• Experience mentoring junior designers or leading design teams 

Bonus 

• Background in designing for infrastructure, DevOps, IT management, or problem management platforms 

• Experience designing for technical users with complex workflows 

• Knowledge of design operations (DesignOps) principles 

• Experience with data visualization and complex dashboards 

• Familiarity with agile development methodologies 

• Background working with remote or distributed teams 

Skills & Competencies 

• Exceptional systems thinking and ability to design for scalable platforms 

• Strong visual design skills with attention to detail 

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills 

• Ability to simplify complex technical concepts into intuitive interfaces 

• Comfort with ambiguity and ability to make design decisions with incomplete information 

• Data-driven approach to design with experience in quantitative and qualitative user research methods 

• Ability to balance business requirements, technical constraints, and user needs 

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