Head of Design

We’re in a defining moment of an incredible journey. Come and build with us.

n8n sits at one of the most interesting UX problems in software right now: more than 80% of workflows built on n8n today involve AI agents, and the platform is in the middle of a deliberate expansion from deeply technical developers toward a broader set of builders. That tension, keeping power users happy while dramatically lowering the floor, is the central design challenge.

This is a foundational hire with a real mandate and direct exec partnership.

What you'll do

Own the quality bar

• Set a clear, consistent quality bar that the team can orient around and build toward, so great work becomes the natural output of how we design together.

• Build review processes and critique rituals that give the team a shared language for quality and the confidence to make strong craft decisions together.

• Evolve the design system and QA practices so the bar rises as the team grows.

• Dig into one of the most genuinely interesting UX challenges in the space: n8n has historically had a steep learning curve for new users. Your job is to lower that floor without losing the power that experienced builders love.

Drive design's strategic influence

• Shape product strategy, not just respond to it. Bring design thinking into roadmap conversations and help surface user problems before they become someone else's brief.

• Help lead n8n's expansion toward a broader, less technical audience, a deliberate and exciting strategic shift that design should be leading.

• Build the kind of relationships with Product, Engineering, and leadership where design is a genuine thought partner at every stage.

Build and grow the team

• Lead a team of around 14 designers today: 2 Design Leads each working with ~6 ICs, plus Design Engineering and UX Research (with more hires ahead).

• Shape the team structure, career framework, and progression paths so people know where they stand and where they're going.

• Create a culture of high standards and honest feedback, where people feel supported to do their best work and have a clear sense of what great looks like.

• Own hiring and headcount planning for the department, and help us grow without losing what makes the team good.

Build research into how we make decisions

• Establish a pragmatic, continuous research practice from the ground up. We're making our first dedicated UX research hires, so there's real room to shape this.

• Make customer insight, product data, and community feedback a live input to product decisions, so teams are building from evidence at every step.

• Connect research to the decisions that matter most: activation, adoption, retention, and helping new users find their way into n8n with confidence.

Help the team work in new ways

• Champion practical AI adoption inside the design org, from prototyping and research synthesis to design QA and workflow efficiency.

• Help the team stay curious and current as the tools, patterns, and expectations around AI products continue to evolve fast.

• Model the kind of working style you want to see: thoughtful, adaptive, and genuinely excited about what's changing.

Requirements

Must-haves

• 🧭 Product design leadership: You have managed managers, coached senior designers, and built design teams that improve both craft and business outcomes, including making hard performance calls when needed.

• 🧩 Complex product systems experience: You have led design across complex or developer-facing products where UX quality depends on deep product understanding.

• 🎨 Craft authority: You are a quality bar, not just someone who appreciates quality. You can identify great work, explain why it's great, and hold the line on standards even when it's uncomfortable.

• 📣 Strategic influence, not just strategic thinking: You have made design a co-equal in product conversations, not a downstream function. You know how to bring people with you, create debate, and drive decisions.

• 🔀 Structured problem-solving under ambiguity: You find your way into unclear problems and create a plan. You don't just ask good questions, you answer them. You move forward when there's no map.

• 🤖 AI-era product judgment: You understand the AI, automation, or adjacent tooling landscape and can turn emerging patterns into usable, trustworthy product experiences.

• 🔍 Research literacy: You know how to build research into product development so insight becomes part of how teams make decisions, not a separate artifact.

• 📊 Data-informed decision making: You use product analytics, research, and customer evidence to guide decisions instead of relying on taste or opinion alone.

• 🧱 Org design and performance management: You can design team structures, define career paths, raise expectations, and handle difficult performance conversations with clarity.

Nice-to-haves

• 🌱 Open-source or community product experience: You have worked on open-source, fair-code, community-led, or builder-driven products and understand what it means to design for a community that has strong opinions.

• 💻 Design engineering credibility: You have enough front-end or design engineering fluency to partner deeply on design system adoption and implementation quality.

• 🌍 Remote-first operating systems: You have built design rituals, critique, QA, and collaboration practices that work across distributed teams and time zones.

• 🚀 Growth surface experience: You have worked on activation, onboarding, templates, time-to-value, or product-led growth surfaces.

• ⬆️ Rising Design Manager profile: We are open to someone who has been an exceptional Design Manager and is ready for their first Head-level role, if the fundamentals are exceptional.