Senior/Staff Product Designer

About Sift

Sift is the data infrastructure platform for hardware engineering teams. Sift turns high-frequency telemetry into engineering insights for mission-critical systems. Teams use Sift to build and operate rockets, satellites, autonomous vehicles, energy systems, defense platforms, and more.

Founded by former SpaceX engineers who built the tools behind Dragon and Starlink, Sift is building the data infrastructure to herald the AI era for physical systems.

About the Role

We’re looking for a Product Designer to join Sift’s Design team and own core user experiences of Sift’s platform. You’ll perform user research, design the interactions, components, demonstrate workflows in interactive prototypes that engineers will rely on every day to monitor complex telemetry from advanced hardware systems.

This is a hands-on, high-craft role. You’ll work shoulder-to-shoulder with Product Management, Engineering and Design from early problem definition through to shipped product using our design system as a foundation while pushing it forward. You’re someone who thinks in systems but sweats the details, and who is genuinely excited about what hybrid AI design workflows make possible. We’re looking for designers who are genuinely curious; willing to suit up in a spacecraft cleanroom to observe our users. If that resonates with you, we should talk.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead user research, including on-site customer visits, to develop deep empathy for how advanced hardware engineers work and what they need.

• Own product work end to end: Partnering with product management and engineering to define problems, explore solutions, validate prototypes and ship product improvements that move key metrics. Continuously innovating on work delivered, not just handoff.

• Prototype using AI tools: Claude Code, Figma MCP to build and iterate on flows and interfaces. Let AI generate coded prototypes while you guide workflows and UX quality while referencing our product design system agentically.

• Contribute to patterns and culture: Share prompts, patterns, and learnings within the design org. Participate in critiques and reviews in studio to grow a culture of collaboration and continuous improvement.

What You Bring

• 6+ years of experience in product design (UI/UX), with a strong portfolio demonstrating interaction design for complex, data-rich applications

• Storytelling skill set to help align team members around your vision and communicate the problems you’re solving.

• Genuine curiosity about or demonstrated experience with AI-assisted design workflows.

• Ability to operate across the full design spectrum: high-level UX flows, interaction logic, and pixel-level UI craft.

• Strong cross-functional communication skills; you’re comfortable presenting work, receiving hard feedback, and partnering closely with engineers and PMs

• A bias for action in fast-paced, ambiguous environments — you shape problems as much as you solve them.

Bonus Points

• Experience designing data-dense visualization interfaces — dashboards, monitoring tools, charts, or real-time data displays

• Background in or exposure to engineering, aerospace, defense, or advanced hardware industries

• Familiarity with telemetry, observability, or infrastructure tooling

• You’ve worked at an early-stage startup and know what it means to move fast without sacrificing craft

Portfolio Required

A portfolio is required to be considered for this role. We want to see your process — not just polished final screens. Show us how you think through ambiguous problems, how you work with complex data, and how your design decisions connect to user and business outcomes.

Candidates who advance past initial review will be invited to walk through 1–2 case studies with the design team.

Location

This role is hybrid in office two days a week in San Francisco, CA or Los Angeles, CA. Please apply to the location you are based in or prepared to relocate to.

Salary Range

$180,000 – $2500,000 per year, plus equity and benefits.

Eligibility:

U.S. Person Required: Must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident, or protected individual such as an asylee or refugee in compliance with ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations) / EAR (Export Administration Regulations) regulations.

We’re looking for designers who ask better questions than we do — people willing to suit up in a spacecraft cleanroom to observe our users. If that resonates with you, we should talk.

Russ Parrish — Head of Design, Siftstack