Senior Staff Product Designer, Core

About Apartment List

The Job

Lead Core, end to end

• Lead the renter experience across web, mobile web, and native iOS and Android. You're accountable for its coherence, quality, and direction.
• Balance maintenance and invention. Core carries real traffic and real revenue, so you improve what exists as much as you build what's next, and you know which one a given week calls for.
• Set the craft bar: visual, interaction, and systems. Create the patterns and standards other senior designers calibrate against.

Build AI-forward

• Prototype in Cursor and Claude Code until it's functionally real, not just clickable. Wire it to our actual components, variables, and tokens so engineering builds from your prototype instead of starting over. Engineering drives architecture, performance, and the merge.
• Make AI a default part of how you work. Form a point of view on what's working and fold new tools into your process the week they land.

Lead through influence

• Bring a point of view on where Core should head, grounded in renters, data, and taste, and get senior product, engineering, and executive partners behind it.
• Find problems nobody handed you. Use qualitative and quantitative research and experiments to decide what's worth building, and change your mind when users tell you to.
• Mentor without managing. Raise the level of every designer you work with through critique, pairing, and example, and finish what you start.

What makes you right for this

Must Haves

• 10+ years designing digital products, owning ambiguous, cross-functional problems with minimal direction.
• You build with AI in real work. You've shipped working prototypes or production code with tools like Cursor or Claude Code, and you can say what the AI got right, where it fell short, and how you validated it.
• You've shipped on both web and native mobile, and you think mobile-first.
• Your work has scaled beyond you. A framework, pattern library, starter kit, or standard that other designers or teams adopted. We look at scope, not title.
• Craft you can show: Figma fluency (auto layout, components, variables, systems), plus visual design, typography, interaction, and motion that others copy.
• You act without being told: you spot problems, decide, follow through to resolution, and know when to say no.

Nice to have

• A two-sided marketplace at real scale.
• Partnering directly with C-suite leaders on product direction.
• A side project taken from idea to launch

Here's the Pay Range:

• Zone 1: $222,000 - $269,000 TTC (including $195,600 - $237,000 base salary) + equity
• Zone 2: $205,000 - $249,000 TTC (including $181,000 - $219,000 base salary) + equity
• Zone 3: $189,000 - $229,000 TTC (including $166,000 - $201,000 base salary) + equity

• Competitive Compensation: Including annual salary, pre-IPO stock options, and other financial compensation (if applicable)
• Medical, Dental, and Vision Coverage: 100% of premiums covered for you AND all of your dependents
• Unlimited Flexible Time Off: Unlimited FTO in addition to 12 company holidays per year, quarterly “recharge” days, and a week-long holiday break
• Home Office Reimbursement: To cover home office furniture and supplies, monthly home internet, and monthly cell phone (if applicable)
• Health & Wellness Reimbursement: To cover monthly gym membership or other qualifying expenses
• Parental Support: Generous parental and family leave, fertility benefits, and employer-sponsored stipends towards family forming services
• 401k Plan: To support you in your individual retirement goals
• Homeownership & Mortgage Savings: Access exclusive mortgage rates up to 1% below retail lenders and free 1:1 expert guidance.
• Team Events: Frequent team-building events, fun team off-sites, and bi-annual company meetups
• Commitment to DEI: To prioritize Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion within our workplace and to stay true to our values and mission
• Mentorship and Training: To get you onboard quickly, learn new professional skills, and invest in your career development
• Impact and Visibility: To expose you to and provide the opportunity to work on highly strategic initiatives that will transform the business
• Encouragement and Empowerment: To explore and adopt new technologies and drive meaningful decisions and outcomes
• At Apartment List we believe that everyone deserves a home they love AND a career they love. We strive to build a diverse team that is a reflection of the people we serve; this is made possible through our commitment to fostering a culture of diversity, inclusion, equity, and connectedness.