Product Designer - Project-Based Contract

About Horizon Labs

Horizon Labs is an Australian AI and digital engineering consultancy. We help businesses modernise platforms, build production software and embed AI into the way products and teams operate.

We’re looking for an experienced Product Designer to join Horizon Labs on a project-based engagement, working alongside our product and engineering teams on major client transformation programs and startup AI projects.

This isn’t a role producing concepts that get handed over to engineering. You’ll work directly inside the delivery team, taking product problems from discovery through to working software in production.

The role

You’ll own product design end-to-end across an assigned client project, working directly with client stakeholders, product leaders and engineers.

You’ll be responsible for discovery, user flows, interaction and interface design, prototyping and design QA through to release.

A major part of the role is establishing design systems that work in code - giving our engineers a clear, reusable system to build against.

This is a hands-on delivery role. We need someone who can embed quickly, understand complex problems, make decisions, prototype rapidly and ship.

What you’ll do

• Own product design from discovery through to production
• Translate complex business requirements into intuitive product experiences
• Work directly with client stakeholders and facilitate design and discovery workshops
• Work alongside engineers through refinement, stand-ups, build reviews and releases
• Create working prototypes to validate product decisions before engineering investment
• Establish and evolve practical design systems spanning Figma and code
• Define design tokens, components, variants, states and accessibility behaviours
• Use Storybook, Figma and component mappings to bring design and engineering closer together
• Apply generative and agentic AI across exploration, prototyping, research synthesis and content
• Design to WCAG 2.1 AA
• Maintain design quality through implementation and production release
• Create documentation and systems that engineering teams can continue to extend

AI-native product design

AI isn’t an occasional tool at Horizon Labs.

Our engineers build with AI, and we’re looking for a designer whose production workflow has evolved in the same direction.

That might mean creating functional prototypes in code rather than static mock-ups, rapidly exploring multiple credible design directions, synthesising research with AI, generating realistic prototype content, or creating design systems that constrain the interfaces generated by coding agents.

We’re less interested in which AI tools you use than what you’re able to produce with them and the judgement you apply to the output.

What we’re looking for

• 6+ years’ product design experience, with a strong track record designing software that has shipped
• Strong end-to-end product design capability
• A demonstrably AI-native design workflow
• Advanced Figma skills, including components, variants, variables and prototyping
• Strong design systems experience
• Understanding of design tokens, Storybook and modern front-end development
• Ability to work closely and credibly with software engineers
• Strong client-facing and stakeholder communication skills
• Consulting, agency or complex project delivery experience
• Practical experience applying WCAG 2.1 AA
• Ability to join an established project and contribute quickly

Experience designing AI-enabled or agentic products, building design-token pipelines, conducting user research independently or working directly with front-end code would be highly regarded.

The engagement

This is a project-based contract engagement, aligned to the delivery lifecycle and requirements of assigned Horizon Labs client projects.

Location: Remote within Australia; Melbourne preferred

Commitment: Full-time project engagement

Hours: AEST/AEDT business hours

Start: By agreement

Work rights: Australian work rights required

Engagement structure can be agreed with the successful candidate based on their circumstances.

Why Horizon Labs?

You’ll work on meaningful transformation projects where design sits directly alongside product, engineering, data and AI.

We’re looking for designers who enjoy shipping as well as presenting, want direct access to the people making decisions, and are excited about how AI is changing not only the products we build, but the way those products are designed and engineered.

Apply with your portfolio and examples of how you’re using AI in your actual product design workflow today.