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KAYAK, part of Booking Holdings, is the world's leading travel search engine serving billions of queries across its platforms. The company operates a portfolio of global metasearch brands including momondo, Cheapflights, and HotelsCombined.
You will own the design direction and UX/UI pattern system across KAYAK's mobile apps, serving as the technical design lead across three teams: Apps Meta, Apps Retention, and Mobile Design Systems. This is a senior individual contributor role with manager-level scope—you set and enforce design quality standards, drive planning and discovery across teams, and influence product roadmap through design rationale, without directly managing people.
Key responsibilities include: establishing and maintaining design direction and UI consistency across three product teams to ensure a cohesive user experience; setting the quality bar for all apps design output and holding teams accountable for both quality and velocity; running planning and discovery for multi-team initiatives; partnering with the Director of Product for Apps and product managers on core initiatives; leading native craft across iOS and Android, including resizability, foldables, and platform-specific features like Material 3 Expressive and Liquid Glass; designing the approach for integrating AI features into the mobile experience; driving brand differentiation work for portfolio apps like momondo; and elevating other designers through critique, shared standards, and reusable patterns.
Required qualifications: 10+ years in product design with a portfolio of shipped, high-impact mobile work at consumer scale; deep native expertise across iOS and Android with mastery of Apple HIG and Material Design; track record of raising design quality across a discipline through standards, critiques, or systems; experience driving design direction across multiple teams and influencing without authority; experience building or evolving mobile design systems; strong Figma skills and fluency with AI-assisted design tools (Claude Code, Cursor); comfort using data and research to set direction and measure outcomes.
Desirable: experience managing or leading designers; design vision driven across teams tied to measurable outcomes; formal design education (BA, BFA, MFA) or equivalent practical experience.
The role requires 3 days per week in the Berlin office. KAYAK offers 6 weeks paid vacation plus birthday day off, up to 20 days remote work annually, paid parental leave, company-paid mental health support (SpringHealth, Headspace), no-meeting Fridays, development dollars, leadership development, travel discounts, and a range of workplace benefits including free lunch twice weekly, public transportation subsidies, and bike leasing.
