Staff Product Designer

About Medium

Medium is one of the world's most influential writing platforms, connecting millions of readers with ideas that matter. We're a small, dedicated team that cares deeply and takes real ownership of the problems we tackle, moving fast while building something that lasts. Our actions and decision-making are guided by four principles: Humans First, Deepen Understanding, Orient for Impact, and Ladder Together.

Design is a vital discipline at Medium. We have a long, visible history of raising the design bar for reading and writing on the internet. We continue to believe that by radically redefining the experience of reading and writing online, we foster humans-first spaces that showcase individual voices and stories.

Today, Medium is a profitable and independently-funded company. This has enabled us to embark on a new era that requires us to think big and explore uncharted territory. If you want to join and shape the future of reading and writing with urgency, care, and play, come help us build what’s next!

The Role

At Medium, designers and engineers work across the full range of the product development process. We’re looking for someone who lives and breathes reading and writing, not just someone who’s designed a lot of software. As a Staff Product Designer on the team, you’ll report to the Director of Product Design and work on multiple projects from ideation to launch.

As part of a product team, you’ll orient your work towards high-impact opportunities. You’ll execute on product strategy by pitching what gets built, shaping its scope, and planning how it gets done. You will own and create high-quality design work that transforms those priorities into simple, intuitive solutions that you ship alongside your team.

As a member of the design function, you’ll collaborate with engineering to uphold a quality bar with your design instincts, visual design sensibility, attention to detail, and taste. With your design teammates, you are someone who welcomes feedback, isn’t precious about your work, and elevates everyone’s impact through collaboration.

As a Median, you’ll be someone who embodies our operating principles and demonstrates empathy and resilience. You’ll demonstrate empathy for our users, to build a platform and products they’ll love. As a teammate, you’ll demonstrate empathy for your coworkers, to contribute to a workplace we love, and the resilience to be able to take feedback from anywhere, consider it gracefully, and fold it into your thinking and work.

What You’ll Do

• Collaborate closely with other engineers, designers, and leadership to translate product strategy and complex challenges into well-defined product initiatives.
• Own and execute high-quality designs, interactions, and prototypes that distill a product vision into tangible experiences for our users.
• Leverage AI design tools and workflows effectively to create artifacts that explore and validate new ideas, features, and interactions.
• Contribute to our design system to ensure a cohesive and scalable visual language across the product.
• Conduct user research to uncover pain points and opportunities, using insights to inform design decisions.
• Represent the design team by upholding a high design bar, working with your teammates to make thoughtful, intentional decisions at every step.

What You Have

• 7+ years of experience designing products in a fast-paced environment working closely with engineering, design, and product teammates to develop the strategy and rationale for features.
• An outstanding portfolio with presentable case studies of your best work, showcasing a foundation in typography, interaction and visual design, and idea generation for work you’ve shipped.
• The ability to tackle complex challenges and transform them into simple, intuitive experiences.
• The ability to change altitude from design details to big picture thinking, while maintaining a high pace of execution and quality bar.
• An understanding of design systems, including an understanding of how and why the field has evolved and a point of view on what comes next.
• A learning and growth mindset. We’re a small team. Our shape and process will evolve and change many times over the next few years. We strive to continuously improve, iterate, and integrate what we learn—from our work and each other.
• Excellent written, verbal, and storytelling skills. We are a reading and writing company, after all!

Interview Process

We go through the same interview steps for all Product Design candidates to instill equity in our hiring process. Our process is designed to learn as much about each candidate, as well as to give candidates a way to learn about what it's like to work at Medium. Topics will range from previous work experiences, problem-solving, and collaboration approaches, to technical skills.

1. First-round phone call with a Medium recruiter.
2. 30-minute phone call with the hiring manager.
3. 60-minute portfolio presentation with a cross-functional panel of people you’d work with. We ask that you present 2 case studies of your best work that convey why you want to join Medium, plus 1 adjacent mini case to share other design skills or work you think make you the right fit.
4. 45-minute realtime design collaboration exercise with a member of the product design team.
5. 1:1 interviews with peers and leaders at Medium:
   1. 30 minutes with an engineer on the hiring team.
   2. 30 minutes with the VP of Product and Design.
6. Wrap-up call with recruiting.

Benefits

In addition to the new experiences you'll pick up, here's what else you'll enjoy by working at Medium:

• Working with a fully distributed team: We’re fully remote and have teammates across the U.S. & France
• Healthcare benefits covered at 100% for employees and 80% for dependents
• Generous parental leave policy
• Twice a year company off-sites
• Mental health support through Spring Health (or find a provider through Rula or Kaiser Mental Health Network)
• Financial wellness support through Northstar
• Stipends for co-working, professional development, wifi, and a one-time home office bonus
• Unlimited PTO and standard company holidays
• A discounted Medium membership

Why Medium

At Medium, inclusion, diversity, and equity are core to how we work and what we build. We believe a more inclusive team creates a better product—one that’s intuitive, thoughtful, and serves a wide range of users. We strive to foster a supportive, fun, and challenging environment where people from all backgrounds can thrive.

We welcome applicants from all walks of life and strongly encourage those from historically underrepresented groups to apply. Our hiring process is built to ensure fairness and equal opportunity for everyone. Even if your experience doesn’t match every requirement, we’d still love to hear from you—your perspective and passion matter more than checking every box. We actively track representation across our hiring pipelines and hold ourselves accountable to building inclusively.

Learn more about our mission, operating principles, and culture:

• Yes to a diverse community
• Be part of a better internet
• Medium Rules
• Operating Principles

Read about our story here.

Read our guidance on AI use for candidates. We believe human ideas have the power to change how people think, for the better. That belief shapes how we hire. We use AI tools ourselves, but we’ve thought carefully about where it adds value and where it gets in the way of something important.