Principal Product Designer

About Customer.io

Over 9,000 companies — from scrappy startups to global brands — use our platform to send billions of emails, push notifications, in-app messages, and SMS every day. Customer.io powers automated communication that people actually want to receive. We help teams send smarter, more relevant messages using real-time behavioral data.

About the role

Hi, my name is Matt W, VP of Product & Design at Customer.io , and I'm looking for a Principal Product Designer. Principal Product Designer is the highest individual contributor design role at Customer.io . This person shapes the design vision for the company and influences how design is practiced here — through their own craft, through the standards their work sets, and through the partnerships they build with product and engineering leadership.

Customer.io is in a transformational moment: executing against a strong current product while redesigning what the product is and how it's experienced by a new generation of builders. This role has to straddle both — delivering quality and coherence in what exists today while driving the vision for where things go.

This is not a management role, but it's a leadership role in the fullest sense. Their influence is felt company-wide — in the product, in the culture, and in who we hire.

About you

You have a fully formed point of view on how AI changes what software means — for the people who use it, the people who build it, and the agents that increasingly operate it. You have the conviction to put that view to work across a product and an organization. You lead through clarity and example, give candid feedback that improves the work, and operate with humility and curiosity even outside your own expertise.

What we value

Leads through clarity and example, not control. You shape culture through your own practice — not top-down direction.

Candid craft feedback. You give feedback that improves the work, even when it's uncomfortable.

Humility and curiosity. You operate with openness, especially in areas outside your expertise.

Amplifying others. You raise the impact of people across the whole company — not just the design team.

Bias for craft. You stay close to the work by choice, and that proximity is how you lead.

Some things you'll do

Shape and communicate a design vision for Customer.io 's product as a whole — the coherent, long-range picture of what excellent looks like for our customers, brought into rooms where product direction gets set

Drive the strategic direction of Pluma , our design system — architecture, evolution, deprecation decisions, and the principles that govern how it scales

Close the gap between design intent and shipped product — stay close enough to implementation to catch divergence, and fix it directly when code is the right tool

Design for builder and developer audiences — CLI-native flows, API-first onboarding, and interfaces built for people who type before they click

Lead the design of agentic and human-AI surfaces across the product — develop the philosophy and advocate for the standards

Partner with product and engineering leadership on product strategy — bring design into the conversation before direction is set, not after

Develop and advocate for Customer.io 's AI product design philosophy as a framework the whole team builds from

Lead design review for major initiatives and bring accountability for quality and coherence across what ships

Develop Staff designers through direct mentorship, critique, and the clarity of your own example

Contribute to hiring and calibration — assess candidates with conviction and help the team develop a shared language for what excellent looks like

What we're looking for

10+ years of product design experience with a portfolio demonstrating design vision and organizational impact, not just individual craft

Track record of shaping design direction at the company level — influenced what gets built and why, not just how it looks

Designed for developer and builder audiences — CLI, API-first onboarding, or infrastructure-native products

Developed point of view on AI and agentic product design — has shipped AI-native interfaces and can articulate a philosophy on interaction models for agentic and delegated use

Contributed to a design system at the strategic level — shaped what it should be and shouldn't be, and advocated for those decisions over time

Operates with influence without authority — track record of aligning product, engineering, and exec leadership around a design direction without a management title

Has raised the craft bar at an organizational level — through critique culture, standards, and the example others internalize

Executive-level communication — connects design decisions to customer impact, product differentiation, and business outcomes

B2B SaaS depth — understands complex, data-heavy products and has opinions about where the interaction model breaks

Compensation & Benefits

We believe in transparency. The starting salary for this role is $245k-$276k USD , depending on experience and subject to market-rate adjustment.

We know our people are what make us great, and we're committed to taking great care of them. Our inclusive benefits package supports your well-being and growth, including 100% coverage of medical, dental, vision, mental health, and supplemental insurance premiums for you and your family . We also offer 16 weeks of paid parental leave, unlimited PTO , stipends for remote work and wellness, a professional development budget, and more.

See full benefits here →

Our Process

No gotchas, no trick questions — just a clear, human process designed to help both of us make an informed decision.

30 minute call with Recruiter

45 minute call and portfolio review with Hiring Manager

30 minute call with cross-functional partner

60 minute design case call with members of the design & tech team

All final candidates will be asked to complete a background check and employment verifications as part of our pre-employment process.

Customer.io recognizes the stifling impact of systemic injustice on diverse communities. We commit to using our influence to increase inclusion and equity within the tech industry. We strive to build an inclusive team culture, implement bias-free hiring practices, and develop community partnerships to expand our global impact.

Zoom is the only video conference platform that we use, virtual interviews will be conducted using the video capability (i.e., not via the chat), and offers will be extended in writing on official Customer.io letterhead. Please be vigilant in all of your job search activity, and if you have any questions, please contact [email protected] .

Join us!

Check out our careers page for more information about why you should come work with us! We believe in empathy, transparency, responsibility, and, yes, a little awkwardness. If you're excited by what you read — apply now.