Job description

At Lapel, we believe the most hospitable companies win. We're building the data, infrastructure, and tools that help customer-facing teams understand every customer and act on that insight at scale throughout the entire customer lifecycle. Most internet businesses want to treat customers well, but their tools work against them. We’re building the layer that makes every interaction feel personal again: unifying context, coordinating action, and closing the gap between intent and experience. It’s a technically ambitious challenge spanning data infrastructure, AI, and systems design – with a deeply human outcome: helping software companies serve people better. We call it hospitality at scale. We’re well-funded, backed by top-tier investors, and already working with exceptional companies, from fast-growing startups to large enterprises. We’ll share more details when we talk. ABOUT THIS ROLE This is a design role for someone who thinks in systems and builds with code. You will own the end-to-end design of Lapel's product, from early concepts to polished interfaces, and be expected to bring both taste and technical fluency to everything you ship. WHAT YOU'LL DO - Own product design end-to-end, from zero-to-one concepts to shipped interfaces - Build Lapel's design system from scratch: tokens, components, patterns, docs - Sit with founders and engineers daily, moving from sketch to Figma to PR in hours, not weeks - Ship production-ready designs, often pairing directly with engineers in the codebase - Set the craft bar for the company and defend it as we grow YOU'LL THRIVE IN THIS ROLE IF YOU - Have 3+ years of experience owning product design at a software company - Have strong design sensibility across design systems, layouts, and interactions - Think in systems and build components that scale, not one-offs - Are comfortable writing code and actively use AI tools to bring designs to life - Are opinionated about quality, but collaborative in execution - Move fast while maintaining attention to detail and craft THE PROCESS We aim to hire with intention, respect your time, and offer feedback along the way. 1. Initial conversation (20 minutes) We'll explore your motivations, share what we're building, and answer your questions. 2. Take-home project (2–4 hours) You'll complete a short, well-scoped exercise that mirrors the kind of work you'd do here. 3. In-depth interview (60 minutes) We'll go deeper into your craft and experience. No live coding. No prep work necessary. 4. On-site visit (1–2 days) Join us in the office to review your take-home, grab lunch, and work on something real. COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS We believe great people build great companies – and we invest accordingly. - Competitive salary + meaningful early-stage equity - Full benefits: medical, dental, vision, 401(k), and commuter benefits - Generous time off: many company holidays and coordinated team-wide breaks throughout the year to focus and recharge - Office perks: lunch and dinner provided daily, in-office snacks, and health & wellness benefits - Team culture: regular off-sites, tight feedback loops, and a bias toward action WHY LAPEL, WHY NOW 1. A trillion-dollar problem hiding in plain sight. Companies spend over $1T a year on customer-facing teams and $150B on the tools meant to support them, yet every team still pieces context together across a dozen disconnected systems. We're rebuilding this from the foundation, and AI makes now the only moment it's possible. 2. The most interesting place to apply AI is where the work actually happens. Customer operations is one of the largest, most under-built surfaces in software. Every company runs on it, every team feels the pain, and the tools haven't been seriously reimagined in fifteen years. We think the next generation of category-defining B2B companies will be built here. 3. One platform, every customer-facing team. Sales, success, support, and ops all serve the same customer relationship, but each one buys a different tool to do it. Owning the foundation means the surface area grows with the company, from a single team to the entire revenue org to the whole business. That's the market, and the mission: better service at internet scale. Lapel works in person in San Francisco, five days a week, at our office on Market Street. We hire people who'd be restless anywhere else. OTHER NOTICES We are an equal opportunity employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records. Lapel Applicant Privacy Notice lapel.com

Requirements

Must-haves

It’s a technically ambitious challenge spanning data infrastructure, AI, and systems design – with a deeply human outcome: helping software companies serve people better. We call it hospitality at scale.
We’re well-funded, backed by top-tier investors, and already working with exceptional companies, from fast-growing startups to large enterprises. We’ll share more details when we talk.
Own product design end-to-end, from zero-to-one concepts to shipped interfaces
Build Lapel's design system from scratch: tokens, components, patterns, docs
Sit with founders and engineers daily, moving from sketch to Figma to PR in hours, not weeks
Ship production-ready designs, often pairing directly with engineers in the codebase
Set the craft bar for the company and defend it as we grow
Have 3+ years of experience owning product design at a software company
Have strong design sensibility across design systems, layouts, and interactions
Think in systems and build components that scale, not one-offs
Are comfortable writing code and actively use AI tools to bring designs to life
Are opinionated about quality, but collaborative in execution
Move fast while maintaining attention to detail and craft
We aim to hire with intention, respect your time, and offer feedback along the way.
Initial conversation (20 minutes) We'll explore your motivations, share what we're building, and answer your questions.
Take-home project (2–4 hours) You'll complete a short, well-scoped exercise that mirrors the kind of work you'd do here.
In-depth interview (60 minutes) We'll go deeper into your craft and experience. No live coding. No prep work necessary.
On-site visit (1–2 days) Join us in the office to review your take-home, grab lunch, and work on something real.
Lapel works in person in San Francisco, five days a week, at our office on Market Street. We hire people who'd be restless anywhere else.
Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

Nice-to-haves

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Application prep

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Keywords to mirror

aidesign systemsketchfigmadesign systemsgo

Platform: ashby
Effort: quick

Benefits

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Dental

Vision

401(K)

Wellness