Head of Product Design

About Stellic

We’re building a future where every student can move through their education with clarity, confidence, and purpose. Our platform transforms the student experience, giving them the tools they need to make the right decisions about their degree plans, track their journey, and build an education and career path that’s truly worth it.

Stellic is a fast-growing startup backed by leading social impact investors, partnering with top institutions like Cornell, Columbia, UVA, and Ohio State to support over 1 million students across 7 countries. As we scale to serve more universities worldwide, we remain deeply committed to this mission, driven by our values, and committed to building a high-performance team that’s here to make a lasting difference on both students’ lives and higher education.

About the Role

Are you a design leader who can float easily between vision and hands-on design work? Are you passionate about crafting elegant human-centered experiences that meet the bar of a great consumer product even in the complexity of enterprise Saas? The Head of Product Design role at Stellic is an opportunity to shape the future of the student experience in higher ed. As leader of our product design team, you’ll be a core thought partner and work closely with the founders and feature squads. You are someone who can shift quickly between high level strategy and rolling up your sleeves to execute great design with the team. You’ll do this at a fast pace, high-growth, mission-driven series A startup in enterprise SaaS. We have found true product/market fit and we are now taking it to the next level.

This role is hybrid remote and located in San Mateo 3 days per week.

What you'll do:

• Lead, manage and mentor a small team of talented, passionate designers, providing guidance on projects, career development, and fostering a culture of design excellence.
• Own significant product design initiatives end to end while balancing individual contribution with team leadership responsibilities.
• Drive clarity in ambiguous problem spaces shaping the long term of design at Stellic
• Drive the evolution of our design system, processes, and best practices across the organization.
• Work closely with Product and Engineering leads as a thought partner to align design strategy with business goals and technical capabilities.
• Guide the team in tackling complex product design challenges by synthesizing business, technology, and user needs into simple, holistic solutions.
• Build and maintain strong partnerships across departments to elevate design's impact throughout the organization.
• Manage resource allocation and project prioritization across the design team while maintaining high quality standards.

What you'll need:

• 8 years of product design experience, with at least 3 years of design team management experience.
• Strong portfolio demonstrating end-to-end design leadership for complex enterprise products.
• Ability to execute on end-to-end complex design projects in collaboration with engineering and product.
• Experience building and mentoring high-performing design teams while remaining hands-on with design work.
• Track record of establishing design processes, systems, and standards that scale.
• Proven ability to lead user research initiatives and translate insights into strategic design directions.
• Excellence in visual design with the ability to guide others in creating cohesive, delightful experiences.
• Strong communication skills and experience presenting to executive stakeholders.

Why Join:

• Be part of a customer-centric team that is addressing the core issues in higher education via an expandable platform that is overwhelming loved by students and valued by administrators
• The opportunity to join at the ground level of a promising and developing organization, and build/lead a team critically responsible for its growth
• Work and learn from some of the most prominent thought leaders in higher education and SaaS
• Be part of a culture where ownership, new ideas, and creativity is celebrated
• Generous stock options in a Series A stage startup
• Flexible, outcome-based culture
• Comprehensive health insurance, with Stellic covering 99% of your premium and 75% for dependents on our base plan
• 401K and commuter benefits
• Annual international retreats in some of the most beautiful cities & towns

Compensation: $175,000 - $250,000 base salary, plus equity

Work location: Candidates must be willing to collaborate in-office in San Mateo 3 days per week as part of our hybrid work culture.

Stellic is an Equal Opportunity Employer

Our company values diversity and believes diverse teams make innovation possible. We encourage all qualified applicants from any race, color, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or other characteristics to apply.