At Apartment List, we’re transforming how people rent—making it smarter, easier, and a lot less frustrating. Our platform has already matched over a 1.4 million renters with their next home, while helping properties fill units with the right residents. Backed by strong growth and a big vision, we’re building the future of renting—and inviting bold thinkers to help us shape it!

Design the Future of Renting: With Systems Thinking, Craft, and Curiosity

At Apartment List, we’re not just designing better products; we’re rethinking the experience of renting from the ground up. As a Staff Product Designer, you’ll lead high-impact work across complex problem spaces, shaping elegant solutions that scale and make real life easier for millions of renters.

We’re looking for a Staff Product Designer with deep product intuition, systems-level thinking, and refined craft, who is excited about the role AI can play in shaping thoughtful, human-centered experiences. You’ll be part of a small, collaborative design team, working closely with product, engineering, research, and data. In this role, you won’t just make things look good. You’ll help decide what “good” actually means, and reinforce it through patterns, principles, and a high quality bar.

This is a hands-on, high-leverage IC role reporting to our Head of Design.

Here’s what you’ll do as part of the team:

Lead product design from problem framing through polished execution, with clear hypotheses and measurable outcomes
Design scalable, user-centered solutions across surfaces, thinking in systems, not screens
Collaborate closely with engineers to ensure design-to-code alignment and build feasible, modular components
Leverage AI tools to rethink how we design and ship, using them to speed up exploration, critique, content creation, and synthesis across the product lifecycle.
Advance our design system in partnership with engineers, balancing consistency with flexibility
Prototype ideas quickly and at various levels of fidelity to unlock thinking and drive alignment
Facilitate workshops, critiques, and collaborative sessions that energize and unblock
Mentor other designers through thoughtful feedback and modeling high craft standards

Here are the skills and experience you’ll need to be successful:

Staff-level experience: 8+ years designing and shipping consumer or platform products across mobile, desktop, and web, ideally with experience working on a two-sided marketplace.
AI-native mindset: You think of AI as part of the product development system, not just a design aid, and use our AI tooling to strengthen design-to-code workflows and cross-functional execution.
Hybrid craft skills: Strong interaction, visual, and motion design skills, with a love for rapid prototyping and iterative execution.
Comfort with ambiguity: You excel in loosely defined problem spaces, especially emerging AI surfaces, and can simplify complex systems into intuitive experiences.
Systems thinking: Proven experience contributing to and evolving design systems that scale across teams and products.
Strong product thinking: Ability to frame problems, define success, and drive outcomes through clear communication and cross-functional collaboration.
Implementation-minded: Familiarity with front-end technologies (HTML/CSS/JS or frameworks) and a strong partnership mindset with engineering.
Highly collaborative: Proactive, inclusive partner who brings others in early and leads through influence.
Low ego, high bar: Generous with feedback, open to critique, and committed to raising the quality of the team’s work.

What Signals You’re the Right Fit

You have a curious mind, and genuinely want to learn about the problems you solve
You talk about how you think, not just what you shipped
You bring engineers and PMs into your success stories
You’ve explored AI tools and understand where they help (and where they don’t)
You’re excited by the idea of teaching and learning with peers
You care deeply about quality, clarity, and thoughtful decision-making

Why You’ll Love It Here

At Apartment List, we:

Make magic in the move by designing experiences that feel smart, personal, and radically easie
Have unapologetically high standards for craft, clarity, and impact
Use speed to our advantage by reinventing how we design and ship with AI, delivering quality quickly and iterating fast.
Dare to diverge, welcoming new ideas, tools, and perspectives
Are proudly remote-first and deeply invested in DEI, learning, and long-term growth

Here's the Pay Range:

At Apartment List, we carefully consider a variety of factors to determine compensation for each position, including the role, level, and work. The US base salary range for this position is:

Zone 1: $131,000 CAD - $159,000 CAD TTC (including $117,900 CAD - $139,920 CAD base salary) + equity
Zone 2: $118,000 CAD - $143,000 CAD TTC (including $106,200 CAD - $125,840 CAD base salary) + equity

This reflects the compensation target for new hire salaries for the position across all US locations. Please note, the compensation details provided do not include benefits and perks that we offer.

We also rely on market indicators along with considering your work location, job related skills, experience and relevant education and training, to determine compensation that is fair and competitive for you. Apartment List will consider paying compensation near the higher of the range in exceptional circumstances, where candidates have the experience, credentials or expertise that would warrant such consideration. It is always our goal to hire exceptional talent and we would be happy to share more about compensation during the hiring process.

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Req ID: R474

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