Be an Early Applicant
Everyone deserves a home they love. We help make the search simple.
The Role
Lead the end-to-end renter experience across web and native mobile for Apartment List’s Core product. Define product direction, conduct research and experimentation, create high-quality designs and coded AI-assisted prototypes, establish reusable design systems, and influence product and engineering leaders. Mentor designers through critique and collaboration while balancing product maintenance, innovation, and business impact.
Summary Generated by Built In
About Apartment List
The Job
Lead Core, end to end
Build AI-forward
Lead through influence
What makes you right for this
Must Haves
Nice to have
Apartment List is rethinking renting from the ground up: agentic search, personalized matching, guidance a renter can trust. Core is where all of that reaches a renter. It's our largest product surface, spanning ApartmentList.com, mobile web, and native iOS and Android, and it's where the company's biggest bets have to hold up on a real device in a renter's hand. This role leads that surface.
This is a hands-on seat. You'll work with product and engineering to decide what Core takes on, then make it yourself: design it, prototype it in code, and hand engineering something they can build from. You'll make the case for where Core goes next, too. We hire on what you've shipped and the bar you hold everyone else to.
- Lead the renter experience across web, mobile web, and native iOS and Android. You're accountable for its coherence, quality, and direction.
- Balance maintenance and invention. Core carries real traffic and real revenue, so you improve what exists as much as you build what's next, and you know which one a given week calls for.
- Set the craft bar: visual, interaction, and systems. Create the patterns and standards other senior designers calibrate against.
- Prototype in Cursor and Claude Code until it's functionally real, not just clickable. Wire it to our actual components, variables, and tokens so engineering builds from your prototype instead of starting over. Engineering drives architecture, performance, and the merge.
- Make AI a default part of how you work. Form a point of view on what's working and fold new tools into your process the week they land.
- Bring a point of view on where Core should head, grounded in renters, data, and taste, and get senior product, engineering, and executive partners behind it.
- Find problems nobody handed you. Use qualitative and quantitative research and experiments to decide what's worth building, and change your mind when users tell you to.
- Mentor without managing. Raise the level of every designer you work with through critique, pairing, and example, and finish what you start.
- 10+ years designing digital products, owning ambiguous, cross-functional problems with minimal direction.
- You build with AI in real work. You've shipped working prototypes or production code with tools like Cursor or Claude Code, and you can say what the AI got right, where it fell short, and how you validated it.
- You've shipped on both web and native mobile, and you think mobile-first.
- Your work has scaled beyond you. A framework, pattern library, starter kit, or standard that other designers or teams adopted. We look at scope, not title.
- Craft you can show: Figma fluency (auto layout, components, variables, systems), plus visual design, typography, interaction, and motion that others copy.
- You act without being told: you spot problems, decide, follow through to resolution, and know when to say no.
- A two-sided marketplace at real scale.
- Partnering directly with C-suite leaders on product direction.
- A side project taken from idea to launch
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 CAN Total Target Compensation (TTC) for this position is:
- Zone 1: $184,000 - $223,000 TTC (including $162,000 - $196,000 base salary) + equity
- Zone 2: $165,000 - $200,000 TTC (including $145,000 - $176,000 base salary) + equity
This reflects the compensation target for new hire salaries for the position across all CAN 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.
Skills Required
- 10+ years designing digital products and owning ambiguous, cross-functional problems with minimal direction
- Hands-on experience building with AI tools in real work, including shipped prototypes or production code using tools such as Cursor or Claude Code
- Experience shipping products on both web and native mobile platforms
- Mobile-first product design experience
- Experience creating a framework, pattern library, starter kit, or standard adopted by other designers or teams
- Figma fluency, including auto layout, components, variables, and design systems
- Demonstrated visual design, typography, interaction, and motion design skills
- Ability to independently identify problems, make decisions, follow through, and set boundaries
- Experience with a two-sided marketplace at real scale
- Experience partnering directly with C-suite leaders on product direction
- A side project taken from idea to launch
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The Company
What We Do
For us, renting is personal — we’re a company built by renters for renters. We’re here to deliver renters a home they love at the value they deserve. Whether renters are embarking to a new city, in search of a quieter neighborhood, or making the jump to a two-bedroom apartment — we’re here to find them their perfect apartment match. We’ve made it our mission to revolutionize renting by making it a stress-free, simple, and holistic experience, connecting ready-to-move renters with compatible city living. Home is a feeling everyone should own, and we’re on a mission to help renters find it.
Why Work With Us
Want a job that makes a difference? There are over 100 million renters in the US, and at Apartment List, we strive every day to remove the hassle from renting and make the process better for every single one of them. Together, we can change the narrative around what it means to be a renter.
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