Lead Product Designer, Share

About Ancestry:

When you join Ancestry, you join a human-centered company where every person’s story is important. Ancestry®, the global leader in family history, connects everyone with their past so they can discover, preserve, and share their unique family stories. With our unparalleled collection of more than 65 billion records, over 3.5 million subscribers, and over 27 million people in our growing DNA network, customers can discover their family story and gain a new level of understanding about their lives. Over the past 40 years, we’ve built trusted relationships with millions of people who have chosen us as the platform for discovering, preserving, and sharing the most important information about themselves and their families.
We are committed to our location flexible work approach, allowing you to choose to work in the nearest office, from your home, or a hybrid of both (subject to location restrictions and roles that are required to be in the office- see the full list of eligible US locations HERE). We will continue to hire and promote beyond the boundaries of our office locations, to enable broadened possibilities for employee diversity.
Together, we work every day to foster a work environment that's inclusive as well as diverse, and where our people can be themselves. Every idea and perspective is valued so that our products and services reflect the global and diverse clients we serve. 
Ancestry encourages applications from minorities, women, the disabled, protected veterans and all other qualified applicants. Passionate about dedicating your work to enriching people’s lives? Join the curious.

We’re looking for a Lead Product Designer to join our Preserve & Share team — a group dedicated to helping people save, celebrate, and share the moments and discoveries that matter most. This team is focused on family memory preservation and creating experiences that make it easy and rewarding for people to connect with loved ones, both within and beyond Ancestry.

This role will spearhead the company's strategy around 'Share,' the third pillar of our mission, aiming to help our users connect with family and friends over the discoveries they've made and preserved on Ancestry. You will own the long-term vision for the future of sharing, iterating on existing features while championing net-new strategies and capabilities to bring the value of 'sharing' to life. You’ll define experiences that transform discoveries into moments of profound connection, making family history more engaging and enduring—ultimately bringing families closer together.

You’ll report to the Design Director of the Preserve & Share team and collaborate closely with peers across product, design, engineering, research, content, and marketing. Together, you’ll create experiences that encourage people to preserve their stories and share them in ways that feel personal, meaningful, and delightful.

Ancestry serves millions of customers globally. Your work will help strengthen the emotional connections at the heart of family history and create experiences that inspire people to share their stories across generations.

• Lead design initiatives from start to finish, driving consistency, quality, and cohesion.

• Shape product strategy alongside product managers and engineers, identifying opportunities to increase engagement and create moments of connection.

• Translate customer needs, qualitative insights, and quantitative data into intuitive and emotionally resonant experiences.

• Partner closely with research and customer insights teams, including direct engagement with customers, to inform design decisions that build trust and clarity.

• Bring a systems-thinking approach to design, helping connect individual features into a broader, unified experience.

• Create high-quality flows, prototypes, and polished interactions that bring ideas to life and inspire teams.

• Partner across teams to ensure experiences feel cohesive and aligned with broader customer journeys.

• Advocate for the customer across the organization, fostering a culture of clarity, empathy, and intentional design.

• Raise the quality bar through thoughtful critique, collaboration, and mentorship of other designers.

• Significant experience designing delightful consumer products, with a track record of delivering experiences that drive engagement and create customer value.

• Comfortable operating as a lead individual contributor — setting direction while remaining deeply hands-on in the work.

• Strong systems thinker who can connect customer needs with business goals and product strategy.

• Exceptional interaction and visual design skills, with a portfolio demonstrating craft and attention to detail.

• Skilled at turning complexity into simple, intuitive experiences.

• Strong storyteller and communicator, able to align stakeholders around a shared vision and influence decisions across disciplines.

• Passionate about designing products that create emotional connections and bring people closer together.

• Comfortable working in ambiguity and exploring new opportunities through experimentation and iteration.

• Experience partnering closely with product managers, engineers, researchers, and cross-functional teams.

Bonus: Experience with consumer subscription products, social experiences, storytelling products, creator tools, or products centered around memories, identity, and connection.

Why Ancestry?

Join a dedicated team working to connect millions of people with their past and enrich their futures. At Ancestry, you will play a role in pioneering legal solutions that shape the consumer genomics industry. Your contributions will help foster and protect our workforce that is dedicated to helping our customers tell their own stories, while supporting a brand recognized and trusted around the world. We offer a collaborative workplace, competitive compensation, and the opportunity to make a meaningful difference.

Compensation

Ancestry values pay transparency and equity. As a signatory of the ParityPledge in Support of Women and the ParityPledge in Support of People of Color, we are pleased to share the base salary range for this position: $130,000 - $150,000 with eligibility for bonus, equity, and comprehensive benefits including health, dental, and vision. Actual salary will depend on location and experience. We will provide detailed compensation data for a specific location during the recruiting process.

*Note: Disclosure as required by sb19-085(8-5-20) and sb1162(1-1-23).

Additional Information:

Ancestry is an Equal Opportunity Employer that makes employment decisions without regard to race, color, religious creed, national origin, ancestry, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, age, mental or physical disability, medical condition, military or veteran status, citizenship, marital status, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. In addition, Ancestry will provide reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities.

All job offers are contingent on a background check screen that complies with applicable law. For candidates who live in San Francisco, CA, pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, Ancestry will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

Ancestry is not accepting unsolicited assistance from search firms for this employment opportunity. All resumes submitted by search firms to any employee at Ancestry via-email, the Internet or in any form and/or method without a valid written search agreement in place for this position will be deemed the sole property of Ancestry. No fee will be paid in the event the candidate is hired by Ancestry as a result of the referral or through other means.