Principal Product Designer, Customer Design Lead

THUMBTACK HELPS MILLIONS OF PEOPLE CONFIDENTLY CARE FOR THEIR HOMES.

Thumbtack is the one app you need to take care of and improve your home — from personalized guidance to AI tools and a best-in-class hiring experience. Every day in every county of the U.S., people turn to Thumbtack to complete urgent repairs, seasonal maintenance and bigger improvements. We help homeowners know which projects to do, when to do them and who to hire from our growing community of 300,000 local service businesses. If making an impact inspires you, join us. Imagine what we’ll build together.

ABOUT THE DESIGN TEAM

We're a tight-knit team of product designers, researchers, and content designers working closely with engineers and product managers to research, explore, and iterate on well-crafted user experiences that are innovative, engaging, and delightful. We collaborate regularly through design critiques, work sessions, and presentations to inspire and influence the direction of the product and company as a whole.

ABOUT THE ROLE

As the Customer Design Lead, you will own and elevate the end-to-end experience for Thumbtack's Customer platform across native and web. This is a horizontal, cross-pillar role: you will work across pods and pillars to ensure the product is cohesive, consistent, and positioned for the future — not just well-executed in any one area. You will help shape the future direction of the customer experience by identifying strategic opportunities, influencing product direction, and driving ambitious, customer-centered thinking across the organization.

You will set the quality bar for the customer experience, identify systemic gaps, establish design principles, mentor senior and mid-level designers, and drive the highest-impact strategic projects. You will operate as a strategic leader for the customer experience and business.

WHAT YOU’LL DO

• Own the end-to-end quality and coherence of the customer experience across native and web
• Shape product direction at the pillar and company level through customer insight, systems thinking, and strategic design leadership
• Identify systemic experience gaps and high-impact opportunities; drive cross-pillar projects to close them
• Establish and uphold customer design principles that guide teams in making product and quality tradeoff decisions
• Identify systemic experience gaps and drive cross-pillar projects to close them
• Produce platform-level artifacts: experience maps, north star visions, and strategic roadmaps
• Mentor senior and mid-level designers on craft and career growth

IN ORDER TO BE SUCCESSFUL, YOU MUST BRING

• 12+ years of product design experience, with significant time at principal or staff level
• Portfolio demonstrating platform-level or pillar-level design ownership, not just individual feature execution
• Deep expertise in cross-platform experience design (native + web)
• Track record of establishing quality infrastructure: design principles, quality bar or other rituals
• Strong product thinking and the ability to shape strategy, prioritize opportunities, and navigate complex business and user tradeoffs
• Exceptional mentorship and coaching skills, particularly for senior and staff ICs
• Highly effective communication skills: able to present and influence at the org and company level
• Experience partnering with research and analytics leaders to drive forward-thinking, strategic insights
• Demonstrated ability to work across multiple teams and drive alignment on ambiguous, high-stakes problems

EXPECTED SALARY RANGES

• For candidates living in Ontario and British Columbia, the expected salary range for the role is currently $221,000 - $286,000

Actual offered salaries will vary and will be based on various factors, such as calibrated job level, qualifications, skills, competencies, and proficiency for the role.

Note: Thumbtack uses AI tools to support our resume screening process. However, our Recruiting team’s expertise and judgment guide hiring decisions.

Actual offered salaries will vary and will be based on various factors, such as calibrated job level, qualifications, skills, competencies, and proficiency for the role.

Thumbtack embraces diversity. We are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and do not discriminate on the basis of sex, race, color, age, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, religion, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, marital status, military or veteran status, genetic information, disability status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, provincial, state, or local law. We also will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records, consistent with applicable law.

Thumbtack is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodation to individuals with disabilities. If you would like to request a reasonable accommodation for a medical condition or disability during any part of the application process, please contact: recruitingops@thumbtack.com.

If you are a California resident, please review information regarding your rights under California privacy laws contained in Thumbtack’s Privacy policy available at https://www.thumbtack.com/privacy/.

We put as much craftsmanship into candidate safety as we do into the hiring experience itself. While scammers may try to impersonate our team, we’ll never ask you for money, banking info, or SSNs during hiring. Check out our blueprint on how to spot the fakes. https://careers.thumbtack.com/recruiting-scams