For a design that solves the problem, not just the screen
Hire Product Designers
A screen can look finished and still fail the user at the exact step that matters, because visual polish and a working solution are not the same thing. Product designers are tested on that gap specifically, then placed to carry a design from the business problem through to something engineering can actually build.
- Profiles typically within two business days
- Replacement Assurance: If an engineer is not the right fit, a replacement from our own team starts within ten business days of your request, at no extra cost
- You interview before placement if you want to
- At least four hours a day inside your core working hours. Two hours plus a daily written handover for the US West Coast
- 14-Day Risk-Free Trial: For your first engineer on a time-and-materials engagement. Up to 14 calendar days or 80 logged working hours, whichever comes first. End within the trial and pay nothing for trial hours. Continue beyond it and those hours are billed at the agreed rate. Unpaid trial work remains ours if you stop
How we evaluate a product designer
The tasks, the signals and the onboarding, walked through by the people who run them.
90 secSample frame · video pending01Published, not promised
The assessment behind every designer we send.
The product-design bar is published, not assumed: five competencies, the exact task behind each, and the shortcut that ends a candidacy. Most interviews review a portfolio. This one asks whether a real usability problem gets solved, not just redecorated.
What we listen forWhether the design solves the actual problem, not just looks polished.
Signups are dropping at a specific step in an onboarding flow. Review the wireframe and propose your redesign approach.
- What strong sounds like
- Diagnoses what in the current step is likely causing the drop before proposing changes, tying each change back to that cause.
- What gives us pause
- Proposes a visual refresh of the step without first identifying what is actually causing users to abandon it there.
Figma · Design Tokens · Component Libraries
Usability Testing · User Interviews · A/B Testing
Design Systems · Handoff Specs · Accessibility Guidelines
FigJam · Notion · Storybook
02Who you actually meet
The bench, priced by seniority.
Three seniority tiers, priced honestly, and the engineers who fill each one today. Real names and photos take their place as soon as we can share them, and the standard stays exactly the same.
Engineer
Features scoped tightly enough to ship inside your review bar, every time.
The right first hire when your seniors already set the standard.
$2,200–2,900per month
Senior
The hard module nobody else wants to own, taken end to end.
Ownership of a surface, without adding a manager to your headcount.
$3,100–3,900per month
Lead
The workstream's decisions, made daily, so nothing waits on a meeting.
One accountable voice for a pod or initiative that can't afford to drift.
$4,200–5,300per month
Product designer
3 yrs · US East overlap
Reframed a feature request as a usability problem after user testing surfaced a need nobody had named
- Usability Testing
- Design Systems
- Prototyping
Senior product designer
6 yrs · UK + EU hours
Rebuilt a design system component library after inconsistency started slowing every new feature's handoff
- Design System Scalability
- User Research
- Handoff Specs
Lead product designer
9 yrs · EU + US split
Owns the design-to-engineering handoff standard now used across every product team in the org
- Architecture
- Design Leadership
- Stakeholder Alignment
Indicative ranges, representative profiles. Exact figures and named engineers arrive with your shortlist.
Weighing this against a freelancer, a direct hire or a marketplace? See the honest comparison
03From stated problem to first change
Four steps, each closing on evidence.
What gets tested here is design judgement against a real constraint, not a portfolio scroll. You owe nothing if the process ends before the last step.
Define the design problem
We map where the actual user or business problem sits, not just where a screen looks unfinished. The brief names that problem, not a headcount request.
A brief your leads signMatch against your product
Candidates are screened against your actual users, your design system and your constraints. Three designers who understand your product beat thirty who list tools on a portfolio site.
Three fits, not thirty CVsAssess on the real tasks
Your team can watch the wireframe-review and usability-iteration exercises directly. What shows up is design judgement, not a polished but untested screen.
Evaluation you can watchOnboard inside your process
Access, context and a first design decision scoped to a real problem in your product. Continuity cover keeps a departure from ever becoming your delivery gap.
A merged change in week one
04Evidence and proof
Designers who moved a real usability number.
Product-design proof is a usability number that actually moved after a redesign, not a mockup nobody tested. Every record here waits for written client approval before production.
Explore case studies
An onboarding flow redesigned around where patients actually dropped off.
Koru Health's patient onboarding lost a meaningful share of signups at one specific step. A product designer traced the drop to a real usability cause through testing, redesigned that step specifically, and signups through it recovered within the next release.
- Signups completing that step
- Recovered sharply
- Time to redesigned flow
- One sprint
The design system she rebuilt actually held together once we launched on three new surfaces at once.
Sample · pending client approval
Every handoff came with the edge cases already answered, which our engineers had never experienced before.
Sample · pending client approval
05Three shapes, one standard
Add a designer, a design pod, or a practice.
Most teams start with one designer working inside a product that already has users and a system. Some need a pod that owns a whole surface's design end to end. Where a product needs designing from nothing, we point you to the practice instead.
- Team extension
One named designer
A single product designer inside your direction and your reviews. The smallest commitment, and the usual way engagements begin.
- Delivery pods
A design pod
A pod with its own lead that owns a product surface's design end to end, research included. You set priorities while the pod carries delivery.
- Product engineering
The practice, not the person
When the real gap is a product designed from a blank page, not a single role filled, product engineering carries that instead.
06Straight answers
Asked before a product designer hire is signed.
01What does a product designer actually do day to day?
Turns a business problem into a design that actually solves it, tests that design against real users, and hands off work engineering can build without guessing. Most of the job is iterating on evidence, not defending the first draft.
02How is this different from a UI/UX designer?
A UI/UX designer works at the craft layer: interaction patterns, accessibility and prototyping fidelity on a specific flow. A product designer owns the broader translation from business problem to design solution, including how the whole system scales.
03Can we run our own interviews as well?
Yes, the published tasks are built to be reused directly. Several clients now run the usability-iteration exercise themselves in later hiring rounds.
04How fast can a product designer start?
A shortlist arrives within days from a bench evaluated continuously. From there, the start date mostly comes down to how quickly your side can share the design files and current research.
05Who manages the product designer day to day?
Your product leads set direction and sign off on the work. We manage everything sitting behind the designer instead, including payroll, continuity and replacement if your plans change.
06What if the product designer is not the right fit?
Raise the concern in the opening weeks and the replacement is free of charge. The specifics of the mismatch get passed to the next designer so it is not repeated blindly.
07Do your product designers use AI tools?
Yes, for generating quick variations and placeholder copy during early exploration. Every decision about the actual user problem and the tradeoffs it involves stays with the designer.
08How does pricing work for a hired product designer?
A product designer's rate reflects seniority and whether the scope covers one flow or a whole design system. The shortlist arrives with a firm monthly figure attached, billed monthly, notice-period exit, no fee for the placement itself.