Head of Product Design

About n8n

n8n is an advanced open workflow orchestration platform designed for the new AI era. Our platform empowers technical teams by combining coding freedom with no-code speed, enabling faster, smarter, and limitless automation. Supported by a dynamic community and over 500 integrations, n8n is revolutionizing how systems integrate and scale ideas. Founded in 2019, our talented workforce exceeds 260 members across Europe and the US, with headquarters in Berlin. The community boasts over 650,000 active developers, over 190,000 GitHub stars placing us among the world's top 40 projects, and backing from renowned investors leading us to a valuation of $5.2 billion.

Role Overview

We face a unique UX challenge: with over 80% of current workflows involving AI agents, we aim to expand from deeply technical users to a wider builder base. This role is critical, ensuring design quality while broadening accessibility without sacrificing advanced capabilities.

Key Responsibilities

• Define and uphold a consistent quality standard to guide and inspire the design team’s output.
• Develop collaborative review processes that foster a shared understanding of quality and empower confident design judgments.
• Enhance design systems and quality assurance practices to improve as the team scales.
• Address the challenge of simplifying n8n’s user experience for newcomers without compromising power user needs.
• Shape product strategy by integrating design thinking into roadmaps and proactively identifying user issues.
• Drive the platform’s strategic expansion towards less technical audiences.
• Establish strong partnerships across Product, Engineering, and leadership to ensure design’s influential role throughout development stages.
• Lead and nurture a design team of approximately 14 members, including Design Leads, Individual Contributors, Design Engineering, and UX Research, overseeing structure and career pathways.
• Create a culture of excellence and constructive feedback, supporting high performance and clarity in expectations.
• Manage recruitment, headcount planning, and team growth while maintaining quality.
• Implement continuous and pragmatic user research practices, incorporating customer insights, product data, and community feedback directly into product decisions.
• Promote practical AI integration within design workflows, from prototyping to quality assurance and efficiency improvements.
• Exemplify adaptive and thoughtful working approaches embracing evolving AI product landscapes.

Must-have Qualifications

• Proven leadership in product design managing managers and senior designers and overseeing team performance and growth.
• Experience with complex or developer-focused products requiring in-depth product understanding for superior UX.
• Role model for design excellence with strong standards and clear rationale for quality judgments.
• Strong strategic influence, partnering as equals in product conversations and decision-making processes.
• Ability to navigate ambiguous problems through structured problem-solving and decisive planning.
• Expertise in AI, automation, or related tools, turning emerging trends into reliable user experiences.
• Competent in integrating research into product development to maintain user-centric decisions.
• Data-driven decision maker utilizing analytics, research, and user feedback rather than subjective preferences.
• Skilled in organizational design, performance management, and clear communication during challenging evaluations.

Preferred but Not Required

• Background in open-source or community-driven product design with an understanding of strong community opinions.
• Familiarity with design engineering to deeply collaborate on design systems and their implementation.
• Experience building distributed design practices across remote teams and time zones.
• Knowledge of growth areas like activation, onboarding, templates, time-to-value, and product-led growth.
• An exceptional design manager ready for a first Head of Design level role with strong fundamentals.

Diversity and Work Eligibility

n8n is committed to equal opportunity and diversity, without discrimination by any protected characteristic. Visa sponsorship is available for Germany-based candidates; applicants outside Germany must have valid work authorization. Company communication is conducted in English.

Benefits and Perks

• Competitive and fair salary.
• Equity ownership reflecting our value on empowerment.
• Work-life balance with ample vacation days (30 for Europe plus holidays; 20 vacation and 8 sick days for US).
• Comprehensive health and wellness benefits tailored to local norms including medical, dental, vision, pension or 401(k) plans, and insurance.
• Opportunities for professional growth with annual budgets for courses, events, and coaching.
• A passionate team environment with hackathons promoting creative product building.
• Remote-first culture with regular team off-sites for bonding.
• Financial support for open source projects ($100 monthly).
• Unlimited AI budget to encourage smart work and innovation.
• Transparency in company objectives and progress.

Additional Notes

Multiple postings may exist for this remote role aimed at varied geographic audiences; candidates should apply corresponding to their intended work location. Contract details will specify country-specific terms.