Staff Design Researcher
•Twilio· 2d
🎨 Design⏰ Full-time🎯 Lead / Principal💰 $166k-208k🇺🇸 USA
2d ago
Deepgram·2 months ago
Deepgram is the leading platform underpinning the emerging trillion-dollar Voice AI economy, providing real-time APIs for speech-to-text (STT), text-to-speech (TTS), and building production-grade voice agents at scale. More than 200,000 developers and 1,300+ organizations build voice offerings that are ‘Powered by Deepgram’, including Twilio, Cloudflare, Sierra, Decagon, Vapi, Daily, Cresta, Granola, and Jack in the Box. Deepgram’s voice-native foundation models are accessed through cloud APIs or as self-hosted and on-premises software, with unmatched accuracy, low latency, and cost efficiency. Backed by a recent Series C led by leading global investors and strategic partners, Deepgram has processed over 50,000 years of audio and transcribed more than 1 trillion words. There is no organization in the world that understands voice better than Deepgram.
At Deepgram, we expect an AI-first mindset—AI use and comfort aren’t optional, they’re core to how we operate, innovate, and measure performance.
Every team member who works at Deepgram is expected to actively use and experiment with advanced AI tools, and even build your own into your everyday work. We measure how effectively AI is applied to deliver results, and consistent, creative use of the latest AI capabilities is key to success here. Candidates should be comfortable adopting new models and modes quickly, integrating AI into their workflows, and continuously pushing the boundaries of what these technologies can do.
Additionally, we move at the pace of AI. Change is rapid, and you can expect your day-to-day work to evolve just as quickly. This may not be the right role if you’re not excited to experiment, adapt, think on your feet, and learn constantly, or if you’re seeking something highly prescriptive with a traditional 9-to-5.
Note: This is a remote role based in Pacific Time, with a preference for candidates located in San Francisco.
Deepgram is the leading platform underpinning the emerging trillion-dollar Voice AI economy, providing real-time APIs for speech-to-text (STT), text-to-speech (TTS), and building production-grade voice agents at scale. More than 200,000 developers and 1,300+ organizations build voice offerings that are 'Powered by Deepgram', including Twilio, Cloudflare, Sierra, Decagon, Vapi, Daily, Cresta, Granola, and Jack in the Box. Deepgram's voice-native foundation models are accessed through cloud APIs or as self-hosted and on-premises software, with unmatched accuracy, low latency, and cost efficiency. Backed by a recent Series C led by leading global investors and strategic partners, Deepgram has processed over 50,000 years of audio and transcribed more than 1 trillion words. There is no organization in the world that understands voice better than Deepgram.
At Deepgram, we expect an AI-first mindset—AI use and comfort aren't optional, they're core to how we operate, innovate, and measure performance.
Every team member who works at Deepgram is expected to actively use and experiment with advanced AI tools, and even build your own into your everyday work. We measure how effectively AI is applied to deliver results, and consistent, creative use of the latest AI capabilities is key to success here. Candidates should be comfortable adopting new models and modes quickly, integrating AI into their workflows, and continuously pushing the boundaries of what these technologies can do.
Additionally, we move at the pace of AI. Change is rapid, and you can expect your day-to-day work to evolve just as quickly. This may not be the right role if you're not excited to experiment, adapt, think on your feet, and learn constantly, or if you're seeking something highly prescriptive with a traditional 9-to-5.
Deepgram is scaling fast and our design practice must keep pace. We're looking for a Staff Product Designer who can ship world-class work across our most critical surfaces and, over time, transform how design operates inside the company. You'll frame problems across multiple product teams — developer workflows, evaluator journeys, and the interplay between them — co-author strategy with Product leadership, and own business outcomes. Voice AI is still defining its interaction patterns. You'll be inventing, not iterating.
Your first chapter: design system evolution and the product surfaces where design impact is most needed. As you build context and the team grows, your scope expands into broader practice transformation.
You'll report directly to the Director of Product Design. This is a Staff IC role — you'll raise the bar through craft, operational thinking, and durable enablement that lets a small team deliver outsized impact. You won't have direct reports initially, but as the team grows, this role has a natural path into people leadership. You're opinionated, instinct-driven, and move decisively when the path isn't clear.
Set the standard for end-to-end design quality across high-stakes surfaces — experience-driven, enterprise-grade, AI observability, and agent interfaces — from early concepts through production
Design for the full complexity of our domain: developer workflows, API and SDK experiences, and evaluator journeys — accounting for user needs, technical constraints, and business viability
Deliver interaction design and prototypes at a level of craft that sets the standard for the team
Drive our design system from AI-ready to AI-native — embedding AI into how the team designs, generates components, and maintains systems, with measurable improvements in speed, quality, and coherence
Shape what the team needs to learn and how it learns — establishing the research practices, insight architecture, and knowledge-sharing rhythms that ensure design decisions are grounded in evidence, not assumption
Set and uphold a high bar for execution across teams — faster cycles, higher quality, greater coherence across surfaces
Elevate how the team operates — sharpening how we brief work, share insights, make decisions visible, and hold cross-team initiatives to outcomes
Partner with cross-functional leadership to shape strategy, orchestrate initiatives, and build alignment
Mentor designers and contribute to hiring — elevating craft, sharpening problem framing, and establishing the quality bar that lets us scale
Get energized by being foundational — building from scratch and defining what "good" looks like for a growing design team
Thrive in ambiguity and define the approach, not just answer the request
Want to work across B2C, enterprise, and AI infrastructure surfaces — a breadth most designers never get in one role
See design as a strategic lever for business outcomes, not a service function
Are excited by a category still defining its interaction patterns — where the work is invention, not iteration
We care more about expertise and leadership than years of experience.
Exceptional craft across UI, interaction design, and prototyping — you make technically complex surfaces feel considered, ground your direction in research insights, and use prototyping as a thinking tool
A track record of driving cross-functional initiatives that reshaped how design operates in a product organization
Deep experience building and scaling design systems, with a point of view on how AI changes the relationship between systems, components, and production code
Strong business acumen — you connect your work to measurable outcomes at every level
Experience designing for developers or technical users — APIs, SDKs, documentation, and console workflows, not just UI
People leadership potential — you may not manage today, but you influence through craft, operational thinking, and earned trust
Experience designing for real-time, latency-sensitive, or multimodal experiences — voice, streaming, conversational AI, or audio products
Comfort designing for probabilistic systems — confidence levels, fallback states, graceful degradation
Background in high-growth B2B companies with both self-serve and enterprise motions
Familiarity with AI observability, usage analytics, or API management surfaces
Experience leading design system migrations or establishing governance at scale