Staff Product Designer - Core Canvas & AI

Figma’s platform empowers global product teams to bring ideas to life—from initial brainstorming and interactive prototyping to translating designs into production code and collaborating with AI.

As a Staff Product Designer on the Core Experience team, you will lead major design initiatives shaping how millions of creators build inside the Figma canvas. You will own foundational editor capabilities—including Auto Layout, text rendering, and direct manipulation interactions—while defining how the core canvas evolves alongside AI-assisted creation and code workflows. In this high-impact systems role, you will bridge technical complexity and visual simplicity, partnering with Engineering, Product Management, and Research to set strategic direction and craft intuitive, highly responsive design tools.

Key Responsibilities

• Core Editor Design Leadership: Lead end-to-end interaction design across core canvas workflows (Auto Layout, Text, vector tools, and canvas interactions)—from initial opportunity discovery through code-level prototyping, launch, and iteration.
• AI & Code Integration: Explore and prototype how direct manipulation, generative AI, and code environments interface on the canvas, enabling users to generate, edit, and refine designs while retaining creative control.
• Product Vision & Principles: Translate long-term editor vision into actionable proposals, interaction models, and design principles alongside engineering and product partners.
• Evidence-Based Design: Ground design decisions in user research, quantitative usage metrics, and direct observation of creative workflows to validate hypotheses and refine product strategy.
• Design Culture & Mentorship: Elevate the internal design organization by leading critique sessions, mentoring junior and mid-level designers, and establishing best practices across product pods.

Requirements

Product Design & Systems Mastery

• 8+ years of professional experience in product design, with a track record of leading complex software projects from early exploration through production launch.
• Portfolio demonstrating exceptional interaction design craft, visual polish, and a history of simplifying sophisticated technical workflows.
• Proven ability to tackle ambiguous system-level problems and shape them into elegant, user-centered solutions with clear goals.
• Direct experience researching, prototyping, or designing products with AI or emerging creative toolchains.

Collaboration & Mindset

• Structured thinking with an ability to communicate design rationale clearly to cross-functional partners and executive leaders.
• A "builder" mindset with a deep curiosity for complex systems, software development workflows, and high-precision user interfaces.

Preferred Qualifications

• Direct experience designing creative tools, canvas-based editors, node-based interfaces, or complex direct-manipulation products.
• Design/development hybrid background with experience in code-based prototyping, front-end web development (HTML/CSS/JS), or design-to-code workflows.
• Prior experience working on tools that facilitate real-time multiplayer collaboration.

Total Rewards & Workplace Culture

• Location & Flexibility: Full-time remote flexibility across the United States or hybrid out of US office hubs.
• Compensation & Equity: Base salary of $169,000 – $303,000 USD + equity compensation + annual bonus eligibility.
• Health & Family Care: Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision insurance; reproductive and family planning support; mental health benefits.
• Time Off & Stipends: Flexible PTO, paid holidays, company-wide recharge days, cell phone/home internet reimbursements, and lifestyle spending accounts.