Why this role exists
Travel is personal, even when it's for work. Somewhere along the way, it started to feel transactional. Optimized for cost, bound by rules, and when things go wrong, you're on your own. Serko.ai is built to change that. It's an AI travel assistant that remembers how you like to travel, lets you change your mind without penalty, and proactively monitors for disruptions so you can travel with confidence. It's a new type of travel product that accounts for your life, not just your itinerary. We've built the beta. Now we need you to come build the rest with us.
Who should apply
You've done 0-to-1 before and you want to do it again. You want autonomy and have the ambition to own a major scope end to end, from strategy to execution. You're comfortable with ambiguity and you're drawn to problems that don't have established patterns yet. You have the taste to know when something is right, not just done. You want the speed of a startup with the stability of an established company behind you. And you measure design by outcomes, not output.
What you'll own
The traveller experience, end to end. You'll shape what an agentic travel product feels like. Nobody has settled that yet. This is a hands-on IC role. You'll design and ship the work yourself, set the craft bar by example, and drive outcomes directly. Today Serko.ai is in closed beta on desktop web; you'll build onto that foundation, bring it to native mobile, and help us dream big as we scale.
Requirements
What you'll do
Strategy & Direction
- Own the UX Strategy: Define the end-to-end traveller journey, tying design decisions directly to business outcomes and product vision.
- Influence at the Table: Partner cross-functionally with Product, Engineering, and Data to drive high-impact decisions in ambiguous space.
Design & Craft Excellence
- Build End-to-End: Lead discovery through delivery to ship world-class UI, UX, and CX across web and mobile.
- Scale the System: Define and govern reusable components, design systems, and accessibility standards to maintain quality at scale.
- Guard Execution: Collaborate with engineering to bridge design intent and implementation, maintaining an uncompromised quality bar.
AI & Future-Facing UX
- Design Intelligent Workflows: Build intuitive AI-augmented experiences—including agentic flows, conversational interfaces, and personalization.
- Drive Trust & Legibility: Make complex AI interactions feel natural, transparent, and effortlessly intuitive for users.
- Supercharge Productivity: Leverage modern AI tools to accelerate your own workflow from rapid prototyping to pattern generation.
Leadership & Ownership
- Operate with Autonomy: Take full accountability for the traveller experience with high trust and minimal oversight.
- Elevate the Team: Raise the collective craft through constructive critique, capability building, and mentorship as the team grows.
What you'll bring
- Strategic and systems-level. Proven ability to shape product direction, influence roadmap decisions, and align multi-disciplinary stakeholders around a coherent customer vision.
- End-to-end craft. A strong portfolio of complex digital products shipped end to end across UX, UI, and CX, with deep design-systems experience.
- AI-native instincts. Track record designing AI-powered or data-driven products (conversational interfaces, personalisation, recommendation systems, or agentic experiences) with a feel for making intelligent systems transparent and trustworthy.
- Expert tooling. Fluency in Figma and the modern toolchain, UX research, interaction design, information architecture, and accessibility (WCAG), with comfort using data to validate decisions.
- AI-forward practice. You actively build AI tools into your own workflow and collaborate closely with engineers to hold design integrity through delivery.
Benefits
At Serko, we aim to create a place where people can come and do their best work. This means you’ll be operating in an environment with great tools and support to enable you to perform at the highest level of your abilities, producing high-quality and delivering innovative and efficient results. Our people are fully engaged, continuously improving, and encouraged to make an impact.
Some of the benefits of working at Serko are:
- A competitive base pay
- Medical Benefits
- Discretionary incentive plan based on individual and company performance
- Focus on development: Access to a learning & development platform and opportunity for you to own your career pathways
- Flexible work policy
- The pay range is between $180,000 - $240,000 USD as a base salary offering annually along with a short term incentive bonus scheme driven by performance.
Skills Required
- Experience building 0-to-1 products and owning major scope end-to-end
- Proven ability to shape product direction and influence roadmap decisions
- Strong portfolio of complex digital products shipped end to end across UX, UI, and CX
- Deep design-systems experience and ability to define/govern reusable components
- Track record designing AI-powered or data-driven products (conversational interfaces, personalization, recommendation systems)
- Fluency in Figma and modern design toolchain
- Expertise in UX research, interaction design, information architecture, and accessibility (WCAG)
- Comfort using data to validate decisions and collaborating with engineering and data teams
- Experience designing for web and native mobile and bridging design intent to implementation
- Capacity to elevate team craft through critique, mentorship, and capability building
What We Do
Serko is a New Zealand technology company focused on corporate travel and expense management. Its solutions simplify business-travel booking and administration, connecting travelers throughout the journey. The company’s Zeno platform enables users to book and manage flights, accommodation, and rental cars while handling expenses and supporting travel-policy compliance. Serko serves organizations seeking integrated, efficient tools for managing corporate travel programs.
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