The posting
C1.ai http://C1.ai is building a horizontal identity platform
Identity is becoming the control plane for modern companies. Every organization runs on dozens—sometimes hundreds—of systems that need to answer the same basic question: who can do what, when, and why?
The old approach doesn’t hold up. It’s either IT teams duct-taping systems together, or rigid IGA tools that only work across a narrow set of HR and SSO integrations. That’s not going to cut it for the next decade.
We’re building something more foundational: a horizontal identity platform that any company—and increasingly, any AI agent—can plug into to understand and manage access. SaaS apps, infrastructure, internal tools, AI agents—if it has a concept of “who,” it should connect to us.
We’re still small, and we move fast. If you want to help build this from the ground up, you’ll have real ownership here.
THE ROLE
We're looking for a Senior Product Designer who goes deep on the problem before anyone writes a line of code, and who is excited that the line between designing and building is disappearing.
At C1, design operates upstream. You'll spend real time with customers, untangle complex identity and access workflows, explore the problem space, and figure out the best way to solve something before it ships. The output of that work isn't just mockups. It's clarity: well-framed problems, sharp reasoning about the why, and context that engineers and AI agents can build from with confidence.
AI is already part of how you work. You prototype in code when it's the fastest way to learn, you use agents to explore and validate ideas, and you're comfortable shipping small fixes and polish yourself. If you want to grow into building full features end to end, we'll support that. What we're not looking for is someone who sees AI as a threat to the craft. We want someone who sees it as the most interesting thing to happen to the craft in a long time.
You'll be joining a small, high-output design team where everyone operates with a lot of ownership and autonomy, working alongside Design Engineers who lead on implementation and design systems.
WHAT YOU'LL DO
- Own product areas from problem definition through launch and iteration, across complex enterprise workflows.
- Talk to customers regularly. Run research, join sales and support calls, and turn what you hear into clear problem statements and product direction.
- Explore widely before converging. Map flows, sketch alternatives, pressure-test ideas, and make the case for the right solution.
- Prototype at whatever fidelity answers the question fastest, whether that's a sketch, a design in Paper or Pen.dev http://Pen.dev, a Claude Design prototype, or a working build from an agentic coding harness.
- Write the context that makes good building possible: specs, decision records, and design rationale that both humans and AI agents can work from.
- Ship small UI fixes and polish directly using AI-assisted workflows, and grow toward building larger pieces yourself if that excites you.
- Contribute to our design system as a consumer and advocate, partnering with Design Engineers who own its implementation.
- Communicate the why behind design decisions clearly and publicly. We design in the open here.
YOU'D BE A GREAT FIT IF…
- You have 5+ years of product design experience, ideally on complex B2B or enterprise software.
- You're strong at the fundamentals: research, problem framing, interaction design, information architecture, and visual craft.
- You care deeply about design craft and hold a high bar. You notice the details others miss (spacing, motion, copy, edge cases, empty states) and you don't consider something done just because it works.
- Speed doesn't lower your standards. AI lets us move faster, and you're the person making sure what we ship still feels considered, polished, and worthy of the enterprises that trust us.
- You love talking to customers and are good at hearing the problem underneath the request.
- AI tools are already part of your daily workflow, and you have opinions about what works. You've used agentic tools like Claude Code, Codex, or Cursor, even if you're still building confidence with them.
- You understand that working well with AI is about orchestration: clear thinking, good context, and precise prompts. Your design process naturally produces the kind of clarity that makes this work.
- You're excited about building. Maybe you already ship small changes, maybe you've built side projects with AI, maybe you're just itching to start. Either way, you want to be closer to the code, not further from it.
- You have solid Figma experience. It's no longer our primary tool, but it's still part of the ecosystem and you should be fluent in it.
- You're comfortable with ambiguity and can bring structure to messy, technical problem spaces.
- You're a clear communicator (written, verbal, and visual) and you default to sharing work early and often.
EXTRA CREDIT
- Experience with identity, security, or infrastructure products.
- Experience designing AI-native products or agentic experiences.
- A basic working knowledge of HTML, CSS, and how modern front-end apps are put together.
Hiring philosophy
We care about both excellence and grit. You don’t need to check every single box to apply—if this feels like the kind of place you want to build, we’d like to hear from you.
c1.ai http://c1.ai is an equal opportunity employer. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or veteran status.
