UX Product Design Lead

About the role

The Skydio team combines deep expertise in artificial intelligence, best-in-class hardware and software product development, operational excellence, and customer obsession to empower a broader, more diverse audience of drone users, from utility inspectors to first responders, soldiers in battlefield scenarios, and beyond.

Responsibilities

• Design for Trust: Lead the UX strategy and execution for our core platforms (including remote operations). You will build interfaces for autonomous flying robots that make the operator trust the job will get done, ensuring every interaction reinforces confidence, reliability, and system transparency.
• Solve Unsolved Problems: Tackle complex challenges where there is no existing playbook. You will think pragmatically and creatively to design interfaces for remote hardware sensing, 3D spatial awareness, and AI-driven missions.
• Drive the Narrative: Use exceptional storytelling to communicate user needs, frame complex problems, and align Engineering, Product Management, and Executive leadership around a unified, grounded design vision.
• Elevate the Craft: Bring an uncompromising attention to detail and craftsmanship to the team. You will build high-fidelity prototypes to test assumptions quickly, leveraging AI tools as a seamless part of your daily process to move faster and explore wider.
• Get in the Field: Go on-site with our customers to deeply understand their chaotic, high-stress environments. Bring that "ground truth" back to the studio so it informs every pixel.

Requirements

We are looking for a UX Product Design Lead who understands that trust isn't a buzzword; it's built through absolute system transparency, pragmatic workflows, and giving the operator a clear handle to grab when things get chaotic.

Qualifications

• First-Principles Problem Solver: You are an out-of-the-box thinker who loves operating in ambiguous spaces where no existing design patterns exist.
• Uncompromising Craftsmanship: A portfolio that clearly demonstrates an exceptionally high bar for visual design, complex systems architecture, and attention to detail.
• Strategic Leadership: You have a proven track record of driving design strategy at a senior/lead level, actively shaping product roadmaps rather than just taking orders.
• Fluency in Complexity: Demonstrated experience shipping products in highly technical disciplines. We want to see portfolios featuring: Robotics Controls, Avionics, Geospatial/Mapping, Heavy Data/Fleet Management, or Remote Hardware Sensing.
• AI Fluency & Boundary-Blurring: You actively integrate AI into your daily workflow, but more importantly, you are excited by how AI is blurring the traditional lines between the functional roles of Product, Engineering, and Design. You use these tools to operate as a true hybrid product thinker, leveraging AI to rapidly build prototypes, accelerate user studies, and tell a more compelling product story to drive outsized impact.
• Prototyping Chops ("You Build to Think"): You can quickly mock up interactive prototypes to prove out concepts before Engineering writes a line of production code. You also actively integrate AI tools into your daily workflow to increase velocity and explore wider.

Skills

• Deep understanding of Android-based HIG and Mobile Design Patterns for physical hardware controllers.
• Front-end coding ability (HTML/CSS/Javascript) to help bridge the gap with engineering.

Benefits

At Skydio, our compensation packages for regular, full-time employees include competitive base salaries, equity in the form of stock options, and comprehensive benefits packages. Compensation will vary based on factors, including skill level, proficiencies, transferable knowledge, and experience. Relocation assistance may also be provided for eligible roles. The annual base salary range for this position is $180,000 - $220,000. Fundamentally, we believe that equity is the key to long-term financial growth, and we ensure all regular, full-time employees have the opportunity to significantly benefit from the company's success. Regular, full-time employees are eligible to enroll in the Company’s group health insurance plans. Regular, full-time employees are eligible to receive the following benefits: Paid vacation time, sick leave, holiday pay and 401K savings plan. This position and all associated benefits are subject to applicable federal, state, and local laws, as well as the Company’s policies and eligibility criteria.

Pay

Annual base salary range for this position is $180,000 - $220,000.

Schedule

N/A