Principal Designer
New York, NYFull-time$220–260K/yrPosted 1 day agoStill listed 1 day ago
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At a glance
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Job overview
Modern Life is seeking a hands-on senior individual contributor to own design across its product, brand, and marketing. The designer will set standards, direct specialty contractors, and shape collaboration with product and engineering. The role focuses on delivering high-quality work and building a foundation for a future design team, using AI-native tools to prototype and improve complex insurance workflows.
Skills & qualifications
Skills
Qualifications
Full job description
Life insurance is a complex and consequential purchase that impacts hundreds of millions of Americans. With our powerful and integrated digital tools, expert support, and leading insurance products, we empower advisors to better serve their clients, grow their businesses, and bring the future of the industry to life. We are a high-growth, AI-driven brokerage backed by $35M from top-tier investors, including Thrive Capital (major investors in OpenAI, Stripe, Instagram, Spotify, Slack, and SpaceX), New York Life, and Northwestern Mutual. Join a passionate team of product-minded technologists and insurance professionals who are at the leading edge of a massive industry. Make a tangible difference in people's lives and help deliver our mission to help everyone protect what matters most through advanced technology and tailored advice. This is a hands-on, senior individual contributor role. As our only designer, you'll own design across Modern Life's product and brand, set the standards, and direct a bench of specialty contractors. This isn't a people management role to start. For the next 6 to 12 months, the focus is doing the work at a high bar and building the foundation a future design team will grow on.
What You'll Do
- Own design end to end across product, brand, and marketing, from research to shipped work
- Set the quality bar and design standards, including our Figma library and design system
- Direct our specialty contractors (brand, illustration, graphic, UI/UX): scoping, briefing, reviewing, and shipping
- Shape how design partners with product and engineering, including how we run user research
- Prototype fast with AI-native tools and push how we use them as capabilities evolve
Your Impact
- Make complex insurance workflows clear and usable for advisors and their clients
- Influence product and company direction by tying design decisions to business priorities
- Build the practices a future design team will inherit, and help shape that team as we scale
About You
- 8+ years of experience in digital product design, ideally including time as a solo designer or on a small team
- A portfolio that shows both product depth and visual and brand range
- Experience setting design standards across domains, not just executing within them
- Comfortable directing contractors and working without a design leader above you
- Based in NYC and open to working from our SoHo office, in person hybrid 4 days a week
Bonus Points
- Experience with complex B2B, fintech, or insurance workflows
- Prior design leadership experience and a preference for hands-on IC work
220000 - 260000 USD a year
Competitive equity package included
How this job compares
Set against the 2,029 open Product Designer jobs on Olive Jobs, counted November 7, 2026.
- Pay
- This posting$220–260K/yr
- New York median$160–215K/yr297 salary ranges
- US median$150–216K/yr1,505 salary ranges
This range's midpoint, $240K, is 30% above the New York median midpoint ($185K) — in the top quarter of Product Designer salary ranges in New York.
- Openings
- Olive Jobs lists 387 open Product Designer jobs in New York and 2,029 across the US. 11% of them nationwide are listed as remote or flexible.
- Experience
- This posting asks for at least 8 years of experience; Product Designer postings that state a minimum ask for 5 years at the median (1,628 postings).
- Education
- 447 of the 2,029 open Product Designer jobs (22%) ask for a bachelor's degree or higher.
Counted across the open, public US postings on Olive Jobs on November 7, 2026. Pay medians are the middle values of the low ends and of the high ends of postings that list both ends of a range in the same cadence (a yearly salary or an hourly rate); a range's midpoint is halfway between its ends. Pay and experience figures resting on fewer than 20 postings are left out.
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