Product Design Lead - Turbo

About Turbo

Turbo is an US-based, embedded product design studio for venture-backed startups. We work as a fractional in-house design team: shipping real product, fast, at the quality founders need to raise and retain. Clients include Jeep, StockX, KICK and Ramp.

The Role

This is a player-coach role, not a manager-only role. You own the design function, manage the team, and still run senior-level client work yourself. You set the quality bar by example as much as by direction, creative authority, people manager, and practicing senior designer, all at once.

Full-time. 40 hours/week. Fully remote.

US Eastern Timezone Availability (Ideal candidates are comfortable collaborating during late morning to early evening UK hours)

What You'll Own

Senior IC work

Lead active client engagements end-to-end at a senior level
Model the quality standard you hold the rest of the team to
Step into any active project when bandwidth or quality demands it
Work fluently in Figma and AI-native tools (Claude, Cursor, Codex) to design and build software

Creative direction

Develop the visual direction, interaction principles, and reference treatments for each client after kickoff
Run team alignment at the start of each engagement to pull collaborative input into the concept
Own the concept framework the tools, prompts, and refinement process that produce Turbo's POV on a new client's product
Present creative direction directly to clients; be the design voice in the room

Design quality & process

Review and approve every deliverable before it reaches the client designers submit 24 hours before any review; you review in Figma, comment, and approve for presentation
Own the quality gate: nothing ships to a client without your sign-off
Scope client feedback after reviews directional feedback moves forward; fundamental direction changes get flagged and routed to ops
Own the design-to-dev handoff so design intent survives implementation

Team leadership

Directly manage 6+ product designers across active client engagements
Assign work, balance workload, and make sure no designer is siloed or overloaded
Run weekly designer syncs; lead growth conversations and skill development
Hold the team to the Turbo-quality bar
Own hiring recommendations and onboarding as the team scales

Client & cross-functional

Join client kickoffs and establish the design team's role and approach from day one
Own design-specific client relationships be the voice clients trust on craft
Handle design escalations before they reach the founder
Partner with the PM on timeline feasibility and flag when scope and delivery pace are misaligned
Provide design scoping input that feeds into proposals

What This Role Does Not Own

Sales, ops, project management: that's Head of Operations
Day-to-day client comms and timelines: that's the PM
Business development and new client relationships: that's the founder
Final hiring decisions: that's the founder, with your strong input

Who You Are

7+ years of product design, with experience leading other designers
Senior craft in Figma; fluent with AI-native design and build tools
Comfortable presenting and defending design directly to founders and execs
Player-coach mindset you lead by doing, not by delegating
High bar for quality, low tolerance for politics

Why Join Turbo

Real product, real founders. Every engagement ships. Your work goes live.
Embedded, not at arm's length. You operate inside the client's product team, not as an outside vendor.
No politics, no egos. Small team. Senior people. Clear ownership.
Fully remote. Work from anywhere as long as you can take calls.
Growth. You'll shape the team and the standard as Turbo scales.

How to Apply

Submit an application here

P.S. no recruiters.

Turbo

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Product Design Lead