Digital Product Designer

Ajaia is seeking a Digital Product Designer to lead discovery and design for client engagements and for Ajaia’s own product suite. This is a hands-on role where AI is used daily to move from research to journeys, wireframes, and build-ready prototypes, validated with real-user testing before implementation.

Responsibilities

• Run discovery for client engagements by interviewing the people doing the work, observing how tasks are performed, and identifying gaps between what teams say and what actually happens.
• Apply the same level of rigor to Ajaia’s own products by talking with users and treating the product suite as part of the discovery pipeline.
• Synthesize research into what users actually need, keeping needs distinct from requests, and provide the evidence behind each insight.
• Design solutions through user journeys, wireframes, and prototypes that an engineer can build without guessing.
• Determine where human sign-off is required in a workflow, and design that checkpoint into the product rather than adding it after the fact.
• Test designs with real users before code exists, validating direction early.
• Challenge stakeholder feature lists when the evidence indicates a different path, and explain rationale in actionable terms.
• Own the design standard across Ajaia’s product suite so design decisions are consistent across engagements.
• Use AI tools as the default for prototyping, understanding when AI-native workflows save time and when they generate output that will need rebuilding manually.
• Hand off design work in a state engineers can start from, and remain involved during build to detect and correct drift from the intended experience.

Requirements

• Conduct discovery personally, including interviews, usability testing, and analysis of behavioral data.
• Move from synthesis to a working prototype quickly.
• Design human checkpoints into workflows rather than adding them later.
• Be able to lead discussions when evidence points to outcomes stakeholders do not expect.
• Be AI fluent: use AI daily for research, synthesis, and prototyping, and be able to judge output quality versus low-value results.
• Work comfortably alongside engineers during the build.
• No minimum years required; hiring is based on the work.
• Be based on-site in New York, NY, with client-site travel for discovery work.
• A bachelor’s degree is preferred, not a requirement.

Technologies

• AI tools

Compensation

USD 90,000 to USD 210,000 per year base, depending on experience, plus a performance bonus of up to 100% of base salary.

Benefits

• Competitive benefits.

Nice to Have

• A public portfolio or case studies we can review before meeting.
• Experience designing AI-native workflows, including where a human checkpoint belongs.
• Consulting, agency, or professional services experience with concurrent clients.
• Comfort with lightweight front-end implementation.

How We Expect You to Work

• Use AI daily as a core execution requirement, including moving from interview notes to synthesis, from synthesis to wireframes, and from wireframes to clickable prototypes.
• Stay current with new design and prototyping tools.
• Know when a shortcut needs your review before users ever see it.