Design Lead in San Francisco

About the Team OpenAI’s mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. Our product teams work across research, engineering, product, data, and design to bring OpenAI’s technology to people and businesses around the world. Design plays a critical role in making powerful AI intuitive, useful, and trustworthy. We hold a high bar for quality and build experiences that earn users’ confidence, while moving quickly and learning from real-world feedback. We favor early validation and continuous refinement over waiting until every detail is perfect. About the Role We’re looking for a Product Design Leader to shape how startups, small businesses, and growing teams discover, adopt, and unlock lasting value from Codex and ChatGPT. You’ll lead design across the B2B growth journey, creating experiences that turn the potential of AI into meaningful, everyday impact for this user base. This role is a mix of team leadership and hands-on design execution. You’ll lead and develop a small team of designers, contribute directly to high-impact projects, and help set the standard for impactful, simple, user-centric experiences. You balance exceptional craft with momentum, creating a culture where the team launches, learns, and improves quickly. You already use tools such as Codex to extend what you can build. As a leader, you help designers strengthen their judgment, confidence, and influence through clear and actionable feedback. You’re also a highly effective cross-functional partner who brings people together, navigates ambiguity, and builds alignment through clear communication and collaborative problem-solving. Codex is on an extraordinary trajectory, and this role offers a rare opportunity to work across both sides of the product: the consumer experiences through which people first discover and adopt our technology, and the business experiences that help teams use it together. You’ll bring a high bar for craft, strong product judgment, and comfort using data to guide decisions without losing sight of the human experience. This role is based in our San Francisco HQ. We offer relocation assistance to new employees. In this role, you will: Lead design for growth experiences across Codex and ChatGPT for our Business users. Manage, mentor, and develop a small team (2–5+) of product designers, creating a culture of craft, ownership, candid feedback, and high performance. Operate as a hands-on design leader, taking on select projects and contributing directly at important moments. Set a high bar for product quality across interaction design, visual craft, systems thinking, content, and end-to-end experience. Partner closely with product, engineering, data science, research, and go-to-market teams to shape strategy and execution. Design and improve experiences across discovery, onboarding, activation, engagement, collaboration, conversion, and retention. Use quantitative data, experimentation, research, and qualitative insights to identify opportunities and evaluate outcomes. Translate complex and rapidly evolving AI capabilities into clear, approachable experiences for people with a wide range of technical expertise. Move fluidly between long-term product vision and fast, iterative execution. Help define what AI-native growth experiences should look, feel, and behave like. You might thrive in this role if you: Have a portfolio demonstrating exceptional product thinking, interaction design, and visual craft across complex, shipped products. Are a player-coach who enjoys developing other designers while remaining close to the details of the work. Have managed product designers, or are a senior design leader who has meaningfully mentored others, led complex initiatives, and raised the quality of a broader team. Can coach designers to move quickly while maintaining a high bar for clarity, coherence, and craft. Are fluent in using AI as part of how you explore, prototype, communicate, and create. Are comfortable working with data and experiments, and can balance quantitative signals with research, judgment, and design intuition. Possess strong product judgment and can connect user needs, business goals, and technical possibilities. Can turn ambiguous, fast-moving problems into a clear vision and actionable direction. Communicate clearly and can align teams around a compelling product narrative. Are excited to rethink established patterns and invent interactions that feel native to AI. Thrive in highly collaborative environments and enjoy partnering closely with engineering, product, research, and data teams. Care deeply about building products that are useful, trustworthy, and worthy of users’ time. Direct experience in growth design, developer products, or people management is welcome but not required. We’re open to experienced design managers as well as exceptional senior individual contributors who have demonstrated strong mentorship, leadership, and team-level impact. About OpenAI OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. We push the boundaries of the capabilities of AI systems and seek to safely deploy them to the world through our products. AI is an extremely powerful tool that must be created with safety and human needs at its core, and to achieve our mission, we must encompass and value the many different perspectives, voices, and experiences that form the full spectrum of humanity. We are an equal opportunity employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other applicable legally protected characteristic. For additional information, please see OpenAI’s Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement . Background checks for applicants will be administered in accordance with applicable law, and qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment consistent with those laws, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act, for US-based candidates. For unincorporated Los Angeles County workers: we reasonably believe that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship with the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of a conditional offer of employment: protect computer hardware entrusted to you from theft, loss or damage; return all computer hardware in your possession (including the data contained therein) upon termination of employment or end of assignment; and maintain the confidentiality of proprietary, confidential, and non-public information. In addition, job duties require access to secure and protected information technology systems and related data security obligations. To notify OpenAI that you believe this job posting is non-compliant, please submit a report through this form . No response will be provided to inquiries unrelated to job posting compliance. We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made via this link . OpenAI Global Applicant Privacy Policy At OpenAI, we believe artificial intelligence has the potential to help people solve immense global challenges, and we want the upside of AI to be widely shared. Join us in shaping the future of technology.

What you’ll do Act as the in-house electrical lead for Midjourney Medical: own the electrical architecture of the scanner and the technical direction for all board-level design. Own complex board design end-to-end: architecture, schematic capture, layout (high-speed digital, analog/mixed-signal, power), DFM/DFT, fabrication and assembly vendor management, bring-up, and revision control. Write firmware for embedded targets (MCU/SoC): drivers, real-time control loops, safety-relevant logic, bootloaders, and field update paths. Audit and update HDL (FPGA) code for high-throughput data acquisition, timing/synchronization, triggering, and pre-processing of ultrasound and sensor data streams. Define electrical interfaces and data contracts with software, recon/ML and mechanical teams: timing budgets, clocking/sync, signal integrity, connectors/harnessing, and failure modes. Establish electrical engineering rigor: design reviews, schematic/layout review checklists, bring-up procedures, test fixtures, and documentation suitable for a regulated medical device program (DHF, traceability, change control). Mentor and grow the electrical function; select and manage external design partners where leverage is high. What we’re looking for Deep experience designing complex boards from blank page to stable revision, including high-speed digital and analog/mixed-signal domains. Strong schematic and layout skills (Altium/KiCad or equivalent) with real signal integrity, power integrity, grounding, and EMI/EMC instincts. Solid embedded firmware background in C/C++ (and Python for tooling): peripherals, DMA, interrupts, real-time constraints, and debugging on hardware. Practical HDL experience (VHDL/Verilog/SystemVerilog) for data acquisition, timing, and streaming interfaces. Track record of owning bring-up and debug on real hardware: scopes, logic analyzers, and disciplined root-cause analysis. Technical leadership: clear trade-offs, strong written documentation, and the ability to set the electrical bar for a lean, fast-moving team. Useful experience Ultrasound, imaging, instrumentation, or other high-channel-count data acquisition systems (ADC/AFE front ends, transducer interfacing, pulser/receiver design, low-noise analog). FPGA-to-host high-bandwidth data paths (10/25/100G Ethernet, serial transceivers) and deterministic multi-board synchronization. Power electronics and power distribution for complex electromechanical systems: rail architecture, sequencing, isolation, and thermal considerations. Safety-critical or medical device electronics: interlocks, isolation and leakage requirements, IEC 60601-adjacent design practice, and design controls. Manufacturing and serviceability thinking: DFM/DFT, ICT/functional test fixtures, calibration flows, yield and field-failure analysis. Building an electrical function from scratch: tooling, libraries, part standardization, ECO process, and vendor ecosystem. Familiarity with high-performance computing systems.

About the job Midjourney is an independent research lab exploring new mediums of thought and expanding the imaginative powers of the human species. We are a small, self-funded team focused on design, human infrastructure, and AI. We don't think the future should look like yesterday's software. Our design team works across research, engineering, and product to make new capabilities feel intuitive, fun to use, and deeply human. We're looking for a Design Lead to help lead that effort. You'll partner closely with our Chief Design Officer to shape the future of Midjourney's products while building and leading the product design team. This isn't a traditional management role. You’ll spend meaningful time designing, prototyping, reviewing work, and solving difficult product problems alongside your team. Most days you will be helping exceptional designers do the best work of their careers by building with them. If your favorite part of leadership is modeling what good looks like by collaborating and getting your hands dirty with your team, you’ll probably enjoy it here. What you'll do Work closely with the Chief Design Officer to shape the direction of Midjourney's products. Recruit, mentor, and lead the product design team. Stay close to the work by designing key product experiences and helping teams solve their hardest design problems. Partner closely with engineering and research to turn new tech into intuitive product experiences. Establish design reviews and operating rhythms that help the team do its best work. Ensure a coherent experience across Midjourney's growing portfolio of products. You might be a fit if You've spent the last decade designing software people love to use. You've led design teams, but you still want to be in Figma every day. You're as comfortable thinking through product strategy as you are refining a single interaction. You work well with engineers and like building things that don't have established playbooks. You care about craft and iterate until something feels right. You're comfortable using tools like Claude Code and Cursor as part of your workflow. You believe the best work comes from showing work early and often, and collaboratively iterating on unfinished work You're excited by the idea that AI requires entirely new interaction paradigms, not just new features. Work > ego Prototypes > presentations Logistics Full-time. San Francisco Hybrid. Compensation: $285,000–$350,000 + benefits To apply A portfolio is required. We care much more about what you've made than where you've worked. If this role excites you, we'd love to hear from you—even if you don't check every box.