Senior UX/UI Designer

Have you shipped enough real products to know which design decisions actually matter and which are just a matter of taste?

Do you get satisfaction from building a design system that other people can use without asking you questions?

Can you sit in a client call, hear a half-formed request, and leave with a clear problem statement everyone agrees on?

Do you enjoy making other designers better — reviewing their work, unblocking them, raising the bar without taking over the file?

Are you comfortable defending a design decision to an engineer, a founder, and a user in three different ways?

If you're nodding along, keep reading.

Commutatus is a digital product studio trusted by startups, corporates, and social organisations worldwide. We build platforms with speed, structure, and strategy. We work with diverse organisations, including AIESEC, Rajasthan Royals, Gehna India, Toyota Connected India, Hispanic Star by We Are All Human, Tech to the Rescue and others. Catalyst, our own product-building framework, allows us to build and deploy products in days, rather than weeks or months. At the heart of it are our components, pre-designed & developed, that are used and updated as we add more projects into our repertoire.

We're looking for a Senior UI/UX Designer to own the design end-to-end for our most complex engagements, setting the direction, building the systems that maintain consistent quality, and mentoring the designers coming up behind you.

This is a senior individual contributor role with real leadership scope. You'll be the design lead on your projects and the person 2–3 junior and mid-level designers look to for guidance. You won't be managing headcount or writing performance reviews; you'll be raising the standard of the work.

At a product level

• Own design end-to-end on multiple concurrent projects — discovery through handoff and post-launch iteration
• Translate ambiguous business goals into a design strategy, then into flows, wireframes, and high-fidelity screens
• Build and maintain design systems that scale across products and teams — tokens, components, documentation, governance
• Set and defend design direction with clear reasoning, not just strong opinions
• Design for the full state space: edge cases, error states, empty states, loading, permissions, offline
• Plan responsive and adaptive behaviour across breakpoints and platforms from the start
• Run lightweight research and usability testing, and turn findings into concrete design changes
• Define what "good" looks like for a project and hold the work to it through review

At a leadership level

• Mentor 2–3 junior and mid-level designers — review their work, unblock them, and help them grow deliberately
• Run design critiques that are useful, specific, and safe to be wrong in
• Set and document design standards, file conventions, and handoff expectations for the team
• Lead client-facing design conversations: present work, absorb feedback, and steer scope without losing the user
• Partner with PMs and engineering leads on scoping, feasibility, and sequencing
• Make the call when there isn't consensus, and explain the reasoning afterwards
• Give feedback directly and receive it without defensiveness

At a craft level

• Advanced Figma — variables, component APIs, complex auto layout, interactive prototypes, branching, library publishing
• Keep files clean enough that someone else can pick them up cold
• Produce specs and annotations that engineers can build from without a follow-up meeting
• Stay current on how well-built products actually solve problems, and bring that back to the team
• Share what you learn: — writeups, teardowns, internal sessions

• Strong portfolio of shipped products, with clear articulation of your role, the constraints, and the outcomes
• Demonstrated ownership of a design system — not just using one, but building, documenting, and maintaining it
• Excellent written and verbal communication; you can make a design argument in writing
• Sharp visual craft: — layout, typography, colour, hierarchy, spacing, motion
• Ability to break down vague, contested problems into clear flows and sequenced decisions
• Comfort working directly with clients and senior stakeholders
• Fluency with engineering constraints — you know what's expensive to build and why
• Experience mentoring or leading other designers

Bonus points

• Experience designing for multiple industries or in an agency/studio setting
• Motion design, micro-interactions, or prototyping in code
• Familiarity with no-code tools like Webflow, Framer, or Squarespace
• Ability to leverage AI tools effectively within the design process
• Experience defining and tracking design metrics

• Real ownership — you set the direction, not just execute someone else's
• A front-row seat to product building across multiple industries
• Collaborative teams that value clarity and craft
• Trust-based culture with genuine autonomy
• Room to shape how design works here, not just how it looks
• Supportive, friendly team

• 3+ years of UI/UX design experience, with at least 1 year at a senior level
• A portfolio demonstrating end-to-end product work and clear design thinking
• Evidence of design system ownership
• Experience mentoring or guiding other designers
• Comfort working in a fast-paced, structured, client-facing environment