Head of Experience
Full-time and Remote (EMEA/East Coast)
ABOUT POOLSIDE
In this decade, the world will create Artificial General Intelligence. There will only be a small number of companies who will achieve this. Their ability to stack advantages and pull ahead will define the winners. These companies will move faster than anyone else. They will attract the world's most capable talent. They will be on the forefront of applied research, engineering, infrastructure and deployment at scale. They will continue to scale their training to larger & more capable models. They will be given the right to raise large amounts of capital along their journey to enable this. They will create powerful economic engines. They will obsess over the success of their users and customers.
Poolside exists to be this company: to build a world where AI will be the engine behind economically valuable work and scientific progress. We believe the fastest way to reach AGI lies in accelerating software development itself, by reshaping the developer experience with agentic systems, coding assistants, and the frontier models that power them. We deploy these systems directly into the development environments of security-conscious enterprises.
ABOUT OUR TEAM
We were founded in the US and have our home there, but our team is distributed across Europe and North America. We get our fix of in-person collaboration (and croissants) in Paris each month for 3 days, always Monday-Wednesday, with an open invitation to stay the whole week. We also do longer off-sites once a year.
Our team is a multidisciplinary blend of research, engineering, and business experts. What unites us is our deep care for what we build together. We’re in a race that requires hard work, intellectual curiosity, and obsession; to balance this intensity, we’ve assembled a team of low ego and kind-hearted individuals who have built the special culture Poolside has. By building collaboratively and with intention, we create a compounding effect that moves the entire company forward towards our mission: reaching AGI through intelligence systems built for software development.
ABOUT THE ROLE
This is a role with three dimensions. You'll lead our design team across product and brand, setting direction and creating the conditions for a small group of senior, autonomous designers to do their best work. You'll drive 0-to-1 product thinking in greenfield, ambiguous spaces, defining what Poolside should build and how it should work. Over time, you'll shape how we show up in the world, helping us cut through the noise of the AI landscape through our public presence and community.
You'll work closely with leadership, Product and partner tightly with our Product Engineering teams.
YOUR MISSION
To define and deliver a product experience worthy of frontier intelligence, and to make sure the world knows about it.
RESPONSIBILITIES
Own product vision in 0-to-1 spaces, defining what Poolside should build and translating ambiguous problems into clear, buildable product direction.
Lead projects focused on research, experimentation, and proof-of-concepts, exploring what's next for developer tools and feeding insight back into Poolside's product direction.
Partner with leadership and engineering to make product decisions that hold up at both the strategic and the granular level.
Shape Poolside's external product presence, including our website and how developers first encounter our work.
Build the foundations of our developer marketing and evangelism function over time, helping us build community and excitement around what we're shipping.
Scale the design team as the company grows, hiring thoughtfully and keeping the bar high.
Lead and grow the design team across product and brand, providing feedback, direction, and the space for senior designers to operate autonomously.
SKILLS & EXPERIENCE
A technical background (computer science or similar) combined with a designer's identity and instincts. You think like an engineer but you're drawn to the craft of product.
Deep experience designing for developer tools specifically, not general consumer or enterprise products.
A track record of building things in your own time. You hack, prototype, and ship side projects because you can't help it.
Comfort writing code. You don't need to be shipping production code, but you need to be able to get your hands dirty.
Strong product intuition and active curiosity about what's moving in the market, particularly in AI and developer tooling.
Experience operating at multiple altitudes: from vision-level conversations with founders and leadership down into the details of a specific flow or interaction.
Proficiency with modern design tools (we use Figma, but specific tooling isn't the point).
Credibility with both designers and engineers. People on both sides of the table trust your judgment.
Experience leading senior, autonomous teams. You know how to set direction without micromanaging.
AI is woven into how you work. You spend significant time every week using AI to build, prototype, and explore, and you have strong opinions about what's good and what isn't.
PROCESS
Intro calls with our Co-Founders
Team Interview(s) with members of the design team
Team fit call with the People team
Final interview
BENEFITS
Fully remote work & flexible hours
37 days/year of vacation & holidays
Health insurance allowance for you & dependents
16 weeks of flexible, full-pay parental leave
Well-being, always-be-learning & home office allowances
Company-provided equipment
Frequent team get togethers
Diverse & inclusive people-first culture
Data Retention
Except as otherwise permitted or required by applicable law or regulation, we will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes we collected it for, as required to satisfy any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements, or as necessary to resolve disputes. To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider our statutory obligations, the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorized use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes we process your personal data for, and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means. We specify the retention periods for your personal data in our data retention policy. Under some circumstances we may anonymize your personal data so that it can no longer be associated with you. We reserve the right to use such anonymous and de-identified data for any legitimate business purpose without further notice to you or your consent. If you are offered and accept employment with Poolside, the personal data we collected during the application and recruitment process will become part of your employment record, and we may use it in connection with your employment consistent with our employee personal data policies. If you do not become an employee, or, once you are no longer an employee of Poolside, we will retain and securely destroy your personal data in accordance with our document retention policy and applicable laws and regulations.
Rights of Access, Correction, Erasure and Objection
It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during the recruitment process. By law you may have the right to request access to, correct, and erase the personal data that we hold about you, or object to the processing of your personal data under certain circumstances. You may also have the right to request that we transfer your personal data to another party. If you want to review, verify, correct, or request erasure of your personal data, object to the processing of your personal data, or request that we transfer a copy of your personal data to another party, please contact us at legal@poolside.ai . Any such communication must be in writing. We may request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and your right to access, and to provide you with the personal data that we hold about you or make your requested changes. Applicable law may allow or require us to refuse to provide you with access to some or all of the personal data that we hold about you, or we may have destroyed, erased, or anonymized your personal data in accordance with our record retention obligations and practices. If we cannot provide you with access to your personal data, we will inform you of the reasons why, subject to any legal or regulatory restrictions.
Right to Withdraw Consent
Where you have provided your consent to the collection, processing, and transfer of your personal data, you may have the legal right to withdraw your consent under certain circumstances. To withdraw your consent, if applicable, contact us at legal@poolside.ai
Changes to this Privacy Notice
We reserve the right to update this Privacy Notice at any time, and we will provide you with a new Privacy Notice when we make any updates. If we would like to use your previously collected personal data for different purposes than those we notified you about at the time of collection, we will provide you with notice and, where required by law, seek your consent, before using your personal data for a new or unrelated purpose. We may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent only where required by applicable law or regulation.
Contact Us
If you have any questions about our processing of your personal data or would like to make an access or other request, please contact us at legal@poolside.ai