Product Design Lead

About the Role

Are you ready to build a design practice from the ground up? poolOS is looking for our first dedicated design hire to establish and lead the UI/UX function across our product platform.

This is an individual contributor role where design isn't treated as an afterthought, but as a core discipline. You will collaborate closely with the Head of Product & Engineering and Founder to establish the tools, processes, and design system that will shape how we build as we scale. Over the medium term, as the product grows, this role is expected to evolve and may include overseeing additional design resources.

The Product Design Lead exists to ensure that the poolOS product is not only functionally capable but genuinely easy, intuitive, and satisfying to use.

What You'll Do

Your responsibilities are heavily weighted toward our primary product design, with a few ongoing secondary areas to keep things dynamic:

• Product Design: Own the end-to-end design of poolOS products, from user research and experience strategy down to interface design, wireframing, prototyping, and design-to-development handoff.
• Design System Ownership: Establish, iteratively build, and govern our core design system (UI component library, patterns, and standards) so our engineering team can build efficiently and consistently.
• User Research & Strategy: Plan and conduct user research (interviews, usability testing) to build evidence-based personas and journey maps, bringing a strong user perspective to our product roadmap discussions.
• Engineering Collaboration: Integrate deeply into our sprint rhythms, collaborating early on technical feasibility and reviewing implemented interfaces to keep "design drift" to a minimum.
• Brand & Marketing Design (Secondary): Maintain our external presence, including the company website, brand guidelines, and reusable market-facing collateral in coordination with the CEO and COO.

What You BringMust-Have Experience:

• 8+ years of experience in a UI/UX design role within a software product environment, with a portfolio demonstrating end-to-end ownership of product design across web or SaaS platforms.
• Demonstrated experience establishing, owning or significantly contributing to a design system, including component libraries, pattern documentation, and design standards used by an engineering team.
• Proficiency in a modern design and prototyping tool (e.g., Figma and AI tooling), including the ability to produce production-ready specifications and interactive prototypes.
• Practical experience conducting user research and usability testing, and translating findings into design decisions that are communicated clearly to a product team.
• Familiarity with front-end implementation at a conceptual level sufficient to have informed, productive conversations with engineers about component feasibility and implementation approach.
• Solid understanding of interaction design principles, information architecture, and applicable standards (e.g., WCAG 2.1 AA or equivalent).
• Demonstrated ability to collaborate effectively with software engineers during delivery, including design handoff, implementation review, and the ability to assess technical feasibility as part of the design process.
• Strongcommunication skills, with the ability to present and defend design decisions clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Proven ability to work independently, manage competing priorities, and build a design practice in an environment where limited tooling or process previously existed.

Highly Desirable:

• Experience working as a foundational designer in an early-stage product company where the design function was being established from scratch.
• Familiarity with systems like ERP, CRM, Retail Mgmt, Field Service Mgmt – particularly the design challenges of complex, data-dense interfaces used by operational and administrative users. 
• Familiarity with R&D filing and grant research and submission processes. 
• Experience designing for multi-tenant SaaS platforms, including the considerations of white-labelling, role-based access, and multi-jurisdiction user environments.
• Prior exposure to client-facing or consulting design work, including the ability to scope design deliverables for billable engagements.
• Knowledge of or interest in the pool and service delivery management, or operational software sector.

Who You Are (Key Capabilities)

• Ownership – you take end-to-end accountability for outcomes, not just tasks. You identify problems and drive them to resolution without needing to be asked.
• Pragmatism – you make sensible technical trade-offs. You know what to build, what to defer, and what not to build. You balance engineering ideals with delivery and business realities, and challenge unnecessary complexity. 
• Systems thinking – you understand that individual design decisions have implications across the product. You design with consistency, scalability, and the design system in mind, not just the feature in front of them.
• Collaboration – you work constructively with engineers, product managers, and client-facing teams. You treat implementation as part of the design process, not something that happens on top of or after it.
• Low ego – you are always open to feedback, comfortable changing position when presented with better information, and gives credit generously. You engage collaboratively across technical and non-technical teams.
• Bias to action – you are comfortable with ambiguity. You move forward with imperfect information, validate as you go, and adjusts course quickly when needed.
• User & product focus – you understand that technical work serves user and business outcomes. You design for real user workflows, not idealised ones, and treats product impact as the measure of success.
• Craft & continuous improvement – you truly care about doing great work. You invest in code quality, testing, observability, documentation, and tooling that make the platform and the team better over time.

Working Conditions

• 100% Remote: Fully remote setup, but you must be Australia-based with the legal right to work in Australia.
• Time Zone Flexibility: Standard full-time hours, with occasional flexibility required to collaborate across multiple time zones (AU, NZ, and US) for key launches or stakeholder sessions.
• Travel: Occasional travel for team offsites, anchor client engagements, or company meetings.

Ready to Transform an Industry?

If you are excited to leave a lasting impact on a growing platform that will reshape an industry, we want to hear from you. Please submit your application along with a link to your portfolio showcasing your end-to-end product design experience.