Product Designer (UI/UX)

AJAIA is seeking a hands-on Product Designer (UI/UX) to lead discovery and deliver design work from discovery through prototypes. This role is built around daily AI use for research, synthesis, and prototyping, along with validation using real users before any production code begins.

Responsibilities

• Lead discovery for client engagements by interviewing the people doing the work, observing how they perform it, and identifying the gap between what stakeholders say and what actually happens.
• Apply the same discovery approach to users of AJAIA’s own product suite.
• Synthesize findings into what people need, clearly separating actual needs from stated requests and pairing each conclusion with supporting evidence.
• Translate insights into solutions using user journeys, wireframes, and prototypes that an engineer can build without needing to guess.
• Determine where human sign-off belongs within a workflow and design that checkpoint into the product, rather than adding it after the fact.
• Validate designs with real users before development starts, ensuring feedback arrives early enough to shape the build.
• Review stakeholder feature lists with evidence-based pushback when needed, and explain reasoning in a way that supports decisive action.
• Own and maintain a consistent design standard across AJAIA’s product suite so design decisions made in one engagement remain usable in later work.
• Use AI tools as a default approach to prototyping, not as an occasional experiment.
• Hand off design work in an engineer-startable state, and remain engaged through implementation to detect drift from the original intent.

Requirements

• Conduct discovery independently, including interviews, usability testing, and analysis of behavioral data.
• Move quickly from synthesis to a working prototype.
• Design human checkpoints into workflows from the start, rather than bolting them on later.
• Be comfortable facilitating discussions when the evidence points in a direction stakeholders do not expect.
• Be AI fluent, using AI daily for research, synthesis, and prototyping, with the ability to distinguish strong output from low-quality results.
• Work comfortably alongside engineers throughout the build process.
• No minimum years of experience are required; hiring is based on demonstrated work.
• Work on-site in New York, NY, with client-site travel for discovery activities.
• A bachelor’s degree is preferred and not required.

Technologies

• AI tools

Compensation

• Base salary: USD 90,000 to USD 210,000 per year, depending on experience.
• Performance bonus: up to 100% of base salary.

Benefits

• Competitive benefits.
• Performance bonus of up to 100% of base salary.

How This Role Is Expected to Work

• AI use is a core execution requirement, not optional tooling.
• AI tools are used daily to progress from interview notes to synthesis, from synthesis to wireframes, and from wireframes to clickable prototypes.
• Evaluation focuses on what is retained from that process, rather than the volume of AI-produced output.
• Staying current with design and prototyping tools is part of the job, including knowing when a shortcut needs your direct attention before users ever see it.

Nice to Have

• A public portfolio or case studies available to 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.