Lead Product Designer, Applied AI

Overview

Circle is building the world's leading all-in-one platform for online communities. We enable creators, coaches, educators, and businesses to bring together their audience with engaging discussions, live streams, events, chat, courses, and payments — all in one place, under their own brand. We are a fully remote company of around 200 (and growing) team members from 30+ countries. We seek exceptional individuals to do their best work and make a meaningful impact in their lives.

We collaborate across time zones, work asynchronously, and document a lot. We host company offsites twice a year in various locations and welcome you to explore our Careers page for more about working at Circle.

About The Role

We re looking for a Lead Product Designer for Applied AI  ll design AI-native experiences—agents that act on behalf of community managers, workflows that reduce manual work, and a copilot that helps creators run their communities more effectively. You ll work with our Applied AI engineering team to turn AI capabilities into real workflows and product experiences for our customers, and you ll own the design direction for Applied AI surfaces across Circle.

These aren t typical product design challenges. You ll make AI behavior legible, build trust in non-deterministic systems, and give users meaningful control without overwhelming them. You ll shape how creators and AI collaborate inside Circle. You ll join a design team where context is shared openly, ownership is real, and talented people are trusted to do their best work.

• Own the design strategy for Applied AI surfaces, from discovery through shipped experiences
• Provide thought leadership for Applied AI at Circle: stay on top of AI and UX trends and drive our direction
• Operate with high autonomy: identify opportunities, frame the problem, and drive from 0→1 with minimal guidance
• Collaborate with Product and Engineering on product decisions, not just execution
• Design end-to-end AI experiences—from initial concept to launch—including agents, workflows, and copilot features
• Define patterns for AI-assisted and AI-automated actions: triggering, monitoring, correcting, and building user trust
• Tackle novel UX problems around transparency, control, and error handling for unpredictable systems
• Prototype and test AI-powered flows and interactions quickly with users
• Collaborate closely with engineers using Cursor and Claude Code to turn concepts into working experiences
• Work embedded with engineering and ML teams, iterating as capabilities evolve

• Strong alignment with our values (see our career page)
• Proficient in English (spoken, written, and reading) at CEFR Level C2 / ILR Level 5
• 6+ years of product design experience with a strong portfolio showing UX and visual craft
• Experience using AI deeply in design work and the ability to explain how AI integrates into workflows
• Hands-on experience with AI-assisted prototyping tools (e.g., v0, Lovable, Cursor + Claude Code)
• Experience designing AI-powered tools, conversational interfaces, automation systems, or similarly complex products
• Strong prototyping skills with clickable, realistic prototypes
• Proficiency in Figma for high-fidelity design and collaboration
• Exceptional written and verbal communication; able to explain complex ideas and align teams asynchronously
• Comfortable designing in ambiguity and solving problems without existing patterns
• Attention to detail that results in polished, shippable work

$140,000 - $170,000 USD per year

We are hiring at a Lead level for this role; however, we may consider offering this position at the Senior level depending on a candidate s experience. In either case, the offer would fall within the published compensation range.

• Fully remote: work from anywhere in the world
• Autonomy and trust to do your job
• 35 days of PTO annually, plus a paid sabbatical after 5 years
• Generous compensation and startup equity no matter where you are in the world
• Medical coverage for you and your family, or medical reimbursement where applicable
• Parental leave
• Home office stipend
• Learning & development stipend
• Annual bonus potential for roles without…