Product Design Director, Core Product Design San Francisco, CA

Rippling gives businesses one place to run HR, IT, and Finance. It brings together all of the workforce systems that are normally scattered across a company, like payroll, expenses, benefits, and computers. For the first time ever, you can manage and automate every part of the employee lifecycle in a single system.

Take onboarding, for example. With Rippling, you can hire a new employee anywhere in the world and set up their payroll, corporate card, computer, benefits, and even third-party apps like Slack and Microsoft 365—all within 90 seconds.

Based in San Francisco, CA, Rippling has raised $1.4B+ from the world’s top investors—including Kleiner Perkins, Founders Fund, Sequoia, Greenoaks, and Bedrock—and was named one of America's best startup employers by Forbes.

We prioritize candidate safety. Please be aware that all official communication will only be sent from @ Rippling.com addresses.

About the Role

At Rippling, design is at the core of our mission to free smart people to tackle hard problems. We help teams automate the mundane, surface insights instantly, and operate with clarity and confidence. In a world of outdated, bloated legacy products, we’re building business software that’s modern, streamlined, and deeply considered.

As Product Design Director for Core Products, you’ll lead design at the heart of Rippling’s vision for how companies support, develop, and organize their people. Core Products are the essential building blocks of that vision : HR Management (compensation, compliance, services); Talent (recruiting, headcount planning, performance, surveys, learning); Benefits (administration, PEO, brokerage, flex benefits, 401k); and Workforce Management (time and attendance, scheduling, leave, time off, mobile, and chat). These are not isolated tools; they are deeply interconnected, and they set the stage for how customers experience every part of Rippling. You will define how millions of people are hired, scheduled, developed, supported, and rewarded, and how those experiences weave together into one seamless platform.

Here’s what makes this extraordinary : we are not just improving HR and workforce tools, we’re reinventing them. While competitors stitch together fragmented systems, Rippling is building the world’s first truly unified workforce management platform. One system. Many countries. Every compliance requirement. Our mission is to abstract away staggering complexity and deliver a platform our customers can run their entire business on.

This is design at its most ambitious : shaping not just features, but the architecture, patterns, and connective tissue of a unified platform. You will set the vision, scale and mentor a team of managers and designers, and deliver experiences that make the complex feel simple, the fragmented feel whole, and the essential feel effortless.

What you will do

Set the vision and quality bar for Rippling’s Core Products, making them powerful enough for admins while intuitive enough for every manager and employee

Unify workflows across HR Management, Talent, Benefits, and Workforce Management into one coherent platform with consistent patterns, policies, and experiences

Design for global scale, ensuring workflows adapt seamlessly to different markets, languages, currencies, and compliance environments

Make the fundamentals effortless, so everyday tasks like onboarding, scheduling, performance reviews, and benefits enrollment feel automatic rather than administrative

Raise the craft bar, shaping experiences that communicate trust and clarity through every interaction and detail

Build, mentor, and scale a world-class design team of managers and individual contributors, ensuring strong critique culture, sharp judgment, and a high bar for execution at every level

Partner with Product, Engineering, and cross-functional leaders to make fast, high-quality decisions and turn complex constraints into competitive advantages

Stay close to customers, translating their pain points into design priorities that improve adoption, trust, and measurable business impact

What you will need

8+ years of product design experience, including 5+ years leading design teams and at least 2+ years managing managers

A track record of bringing relentless customer focus to high-impact projects and driving strategic business outcomes through design

Strong systems thinking, with experience leading the design of integrated suites or ecosystems

Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to build alignment and influence stakeholders from individual contributors to executives

Deep collaboration experience with Product, Engineering, and cross-functional partners to drive both strategy and execution

Proven success hiring, leading, and scaling design teams at both startups and established companies

A history of developing designers and helping them grow to do the best work of their careers

Additional Information

Rippling is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive workforce and do not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, age, sexual orientation, veteran or military status, or any other legally protected characteristics, Rippling is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities who need assistance during the hiring process. To request a reasonable accommodation, please email accomodations@rippling.com

Rippling highly values having employees working in-office to foster a collaborative work environment and company culture. For office-based employees (employees who live within a defined radius of a Rippling office), Rippling considers working in the office, at least three days a week under current policy, to be an essential function of the employee's role.

This role will receive a competitive salary + benefits + equity. The salary for US-based employees will be aligned with one of the ranges below based on location; see which tier applies to your location here .

A variety of factors are considered when determining someone’s compensation–including a candidate’s professional background, experience, and location. Final offer amounts may vary from the amounts listed below.

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