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Salary: USD 280,000 - 310,000 / annual
Linktree is seeking a Principal Product Designer to lead and grow a team of senior individual-contributor designers. This is a player-coach role where you'll manage, coach, and develop a small team (3–5+) of senior designers while staying hands-on with design work, personally owning some of the hardest or most ambiguous problems.
You'll set design vision and craft standards for your area, partner closely with Product, Engineering, and Marketing leaders, and be accountable for both the quality of your team's work and your own contributions. As a member of the Design leadership team, you'll help define how Linktree scales design as the company grows. This role is positioned to grow into a broader leadership remit over time.
Key responsibilities include:
- Lead, manage, and develop a small team of senior IC designers, creating a culture of craft, ownership, candid feedback, and high performance
- Personally own and ship design work on the highest-leverage or most ambiguous problems
- Set design vision and craft direction for your area, ensuring quality and consistency
- Partner with Product, Engineering, and Marketing leaders to align design with business priorities
- Own hiring and team composition for your area
- Establish and evolve craft standards, critique practices, and design operating rhythms
- Represent design in cross-functional forums, translating design work into business impact
- Balance individual craft contribution with management, modeling the standard you expect of the team
Linktree is a creator platform used by 70+ million people, including major brands like Adidas, TikTok, the UN Environmental Program, the NFL, and artists like Sabrina Carpenter and Olivia Rodrigo. The company has offices in London, Los Angeles, Melbourne, and San Francisco, with flexible remote and hybrid work options.
QUALIFICATIONS:
- 10+ years of design experience, including prior experience managing and growing individual contributors (managing managers is a plus, but not required)
- Genuine player-coach — hands-on and excellent at the craft, energized by both doing the work and developing others
- Proven track record of shipping high-quality design within a consumer product or creator/marketplace platform
- Strong craft judgment and ability to provide feedback that meaningfully elevates team work
- Demonstrable proof of using AI as part of how you explore, prototype, communicate, and create
- Demonstrated ability to hire, coach, develop, and retain strong individual-contributor designers, especially at the senior level
- Experience partnering with Product, Engineering, and Marketing leaders
- Proven ability to translate ambiguous business problems into clear design direction
- Comfort balancing personal craft work with team leadership, with good judgment on when to do versus delegate
- Excellent written and verbal communication
