[Remote] Lead, Design

Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Nextdoor is an essential neighborhood network that helps neighbors, public agencies, and businesses connect around local information and community life. The Lead Designer will guide craft and people management for the Consumer Product design team while continuing to deliver hands-on design work, shape product decisions, and strengthen the design system.

Responsibilities

• Running weekly design critiques and rebuilding a healthy manager-level review process so projects of every size get rigorous feedback at the right altitude
• Establishing regular 1:1s and growth plans for a team of consumer designers, and advocating for their growth and promotion during performance review cycles
• Owning the design capacity model across seven product areas, managing a team of 5 to 6 consumer designers. Owning the capacity model and the recommendation on where design headcount goes
• Representing design's point of view in product discussions where speed and craft are in tension, starting with a key decision about how neighbors filter and navigate content in the app
• Arbitrating design-system exceptions, deciding when to say no to a one-off component that doesn't belong in our shared design system
• Shipping hands-on design work yourself on at least one high-impact area of the consumer product
• Participating in in-person Nextdoor events such as trainings, off-sites, volunteer days, and team building exercises
• Building in-person relationships with team members and contributing to Nextdoor's company culture
• This role reports directly to the EVP of Product and is the senior-most design voice in the Consumer org

Skills

• 8+ years of experience in UX design, product design, or a related field, with a strong track record of designing and shipping user-centered products
• Including experience directly managing designers through performance and promotion cycles
• A track record as a player-coach, practicing designer and people manager at once, with the discipline to protect your own IC time
• Calibrated craft judgment: you can run a crit, make a leveling call, and defend it in calibration
• Proficiency in Figma and other design tools for creating wireframes, prototypes, and high-fidelity designs
• Experience working with and contributing to design systems, ensuring consistency and scalability across surfaces
• Strong understanding of qualitative and quantitative research methods, with the ability to synthesize insights into actionable design decisions
• Comfort holding a design position in rooms with executives, backed by evidence rather than taste
• Fluency with AI-assisted design tooling and a clear sense of where it helps and where it can't substitute for human judgment

Benefits

• A meaningful equity grant for this role, with quarterly vesting; the first vest date will take place within 3 months of the start date.
• A variety of health plans, including a 100% covered employee only plan option.
• A OneMedical membership for concierge care.
• A hybrid employment model, blending an in-office presence and work-from-home experience.

Company Overview

Company H1B Sponsorship