Staff Product Designer

Eli Lilly is building Lilly TuneLab to turn powerful AI models and point solutions into a coherent, scalable SaaS product for external biotech partners. In this onsite role in San Francisco, CA, you will help shape the product experience from the problem space through shipped design, partnering closely with product, engineering, and data science.

As a founding Staff Product Designer, you will set the design bar in a small team and own how the product works and feels, from discovery to implementation details. You will also represent design when it matters with external biotech partners, bringing credibility and judgment across technical and non-technical conversations.

What you’ll do

• Stay close to biotech users to learn workflows, pain points, and the gap between what AI can do and what partners actually need.
• Define and continually refine who the product is built for, what they are trying to do, and where current tools fall short.
• Run lightweight discovery through interviews, prototypes, and working sessions, testing what is worth building before engineering commits.
• Translate findings into clear product direction so the team knows what to build next and why.
• Act as the strongest user voice on the team, pushing back when specifications are off.
• Own product flow, interaction, and visual craft, including the details that make the experience feel complete.
• Ship working design and handle empty and error states directly rather than handing off pixels.
• Build an opinionated, lightweight design system that helps a small team move fast without becoming the project.
• Pair tightly with engineering and prototype in code or near it when it accelerates answers compared to a Figma-only approach.
• Mentor designers and design-adjacent peers as the team grows, improving skills beyond the boundaries of this single product.
• Partner with the Engineering Manager and product on hiring as the team expands, selling the role and maintaining the bar.
• Set the practice for research, critique, and shipping so your approach becomes the team norm.
• Navigate enterprise infrastructure, security, and compliance requirements while keeping development momentum.
• Work with Lilly internal capabilities and partners to leverage existing assets rather than rebuild them.
• Represent design in external biotech partner conversations when it matters, including discussions with a head of computational biology, product lead, or CTO.

What you bring

• Bachelor’s degree in Design, HCI, or a related field.
• 8+ years as a product designer, with a track record of shipping software used and relied on by real external customers.
• Demonstrated experience operating as a senior or staff designer on a small team.
• A portfolio showing end-to-end work, from framing the problem to shipping the craft.

Technologies

• AI/ML, AI tools, prompting, LLMs, Figma, code, federated learning, in silico modelling

Compensation and benefits

• Salary: USD 180,000 - 275,000 per yearly
• Full-time equivalent employees may be eligible for a company bonus (depending on company and individual performance)
• Eligibility to participate in a company-sponsored 401(k)
• Pension
• Vacation benefits
• Eligibility for medical, dental, vision, and prescription drug benefits
• Flexible benefits (e.g., healthcare and/or dependent day care flexible spending accounts)
• Life insurance and death benefits
• Certain time off and leave of absence benefits
• Well-being benefits (e.g., employee assistance program, fitness benefits, employee clubs and activities)

Additional information

Lilly may provide support for or sponsor work authorization or visas for this role for internal applicants only.