Lead Product Designer at Allocate in Palo Alto, CA

About Allocate

Allocate is rebuilding private market investing for RIAs and family offices. Our platform brings together curated fund and co-investment opportunities, institutional-grade infrastructure, and the tracking, analytics, and administration tools clients need to model and manage exposure across venture capital, private equity, private credit, and other private asset classes, all within a data-rich digital experience.

About the Role

We're looking for a Lead Product Designer I to shape the next phase of design at Allocate, a leadership-track role combining project ownership, cross-functional influence, and early people management.

You'll lead projects end to end, coordinate across squads, and partner closely with PMs, engineers, and stakeholders to ship experiences that feel distinctly Allocate while holding up under real engineering constraints. You'll also raise the quality bar and help junior designers grow.

Private markets are a genuinely complex space, funds, co-investments, capital calls, distributions, portfolio reporting, full of nuance and unexplored design problems. The right person is energized by that. You want to understand how it all actually works, because great design comes from deeply understanding the problem, not just polishing the interface.

We care as much about how design gets done as what ships. Our team uses Figma, Claude, Cursor, and Magic Patterns to move fast from idea to interactive prototype, validate with stakeholders and users, and reduce engineering risk before development starts. You should already be comfortable working this way, or excited to lean in.

Why This Role Matters

Design is where Allocate's complexity becomes either clarity or friction. A great interface isn't polish on top of the problem, in a space this nuanced, it's the difference between a client trusting the platform with real capital and bouncing off it. And your impact compounds: in the quality bar you set, the design system you strengthen, and the designers who level up with you in the room.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead design for initiatives end to end — research, UX, UI, prototyping, and handoff.
• Build interactive prototypes in Figma, Magic Patterns, or with Claude/Cursor when code is the fastest path — validating ideas, aligning stakeholders, and pressure-testing flows before engineering invests heavily.
• Coordinate design across squads: run design syncs, manage dependencies, keep projects moving.
• Collaborate closely with PMs, engineers, and stakeholders to define problems, shape solutions, and deliver high-quality work.
• Develop real working knowledge of private markets and client workflows so decisions are grounded in understanding, not assumptions.
• Use AI-assisted tools thoughtfully for research synthesis, exploration, and prototyping — so you spend more time on the parts that require judgment, taste, and craft.
• Identify user- and system-level opportunities to improve usability, performance, and consistency.
• Improve how the team works: design systems, tooling, and process.
• Mentor designers (IC2 and below) through feedback, reviews, and 1:1 coaching.
• Support recruiting and begin operating as a hiring manager for junior design roles.
• Communicate design decisions clearly, framing the work in terms of user value and business outcomes.

Who You Are

• 5+ years in product design with increasing responsibility over time.
• You've led projects and/or squads through full design cycles, discovery to delivery.
• Genuinely curious about complex financial topics — excited to learn fund structures, deal flow, portfolio reporting, and how money actually moves, even if you're not an expert yet.
• Comfortable building interactive prototypes (ideally Figma and Magic Patterns) and willing to use Claude and Cursor for code-backed prototypes when that's fastest. Not an engineer, but you stay unblocked by code more often than not.
• Pragmatic and experiment-friendly: multiple options, early validation, evidence-led.
• Strong systems thinking and a track record of scalable, maintainable interfaces.
• Strong collaboration with engineers, PMs, and stakeholders — clarity and flexibility both.
• Experience with design systems and component libraries.
• Strong communication and storytelling, 1:1 and in front of larger groups.
• Experience mentoring or managing junior designers, even informally.
• Familiarity with fintech or private markets is a strong plus.

Details Reports to: Product Design Lead Location: Palo Alto, CA / New York, NY / Remote Compensation: Base Salary of $175K-$215K, plus performance-based bonus, equity, and comprehensive benefits. Benefits: Medical, dental, vision, responsible time off (RTO), 401(k)

Allocate is an equal opportunity employer. We value diversity of thought, background, and experience. Why This Is Worth Your Time

This is the role for someone who wants to set the design standard at a company building something new — leading the work, shaping the system, and growing the team while turning one of finance's most complex corners into something people actually want to use.