Staff Product Designer, Mobile

KAYAK

Staff Product Designer, Mobile leading design direction for KAYAK's apps. Collaborating with multiple teams, enhancing app user experience and quality standards in Berlin office.

Posted 7/1/2026full-timeBerlin • 🇩🇪 GermanyLeadWebsite

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

AndroidiOS

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Own the design direction and the UX/UI pattern system across the apps surface. Navigation, mental models, and UI consistency cut across Apps Meta, Retention, and Design Systems at once, and you hold that cross-cutting direction so three teams ship one coherent experience rather than three versions of it.
Set the quality standard for apps design and hold it as a discipline, not a project. Make the bar visible where teams miss it, and close gaps across teams that you did not personally create. You are accountable for the quality and velocity of all apps design output.
Run planning and discovery for all three teams. Break multi-team, loosely defined problems into clear design direction the designers can run with.
Partner with the Director of Product for Apps and the apps PMs on core initiatives, influencing roadmap and prioritization through design rationale.
Lead native craft across iOS and Android. Set the approach for resizability, foldables, new screen sizes, and solve how KAYAK responds to platform chrome shifts like Liquid Glass and Material 3 Expressive.
Lead the design approach for mobile AI features: how we integrate AI into the apps, the UI, and the navigation around it, so it lands as a native part of the experience.
Drive the brand differentiation work for our portfolio of hero brands apps like momondo to ensure local market dominance.
Raise the ceiling for the other apps designers through critique, shared standards, and patterns they build on. Designers should get better by working alongside you and using what you establish, not only through direct mentorship.

Requirements

What you’ll need

10+ years in product design, with a portfolio of shipped, high-impact mobile work at consumer scale.
Deep native expertise across iOS and Android. Mastery of Apple HIG and Material Design, and the judgment to know when to converge and when to honor platform difference. Hands-on experience with resizability, foldables, and iPad, and a point of view on platform chrome directions like Liquid Glass and Material 3 Expressive.
A track record of raising design quality across a discipline beyond your own projects, through standards you set, critiques you ran, or systems others still use.
Experience driving design direction across multiple teams or product areas, with the ability to influence without authority.
Experience building or evolving mobile design systems and scalable patterns.
Strong with Figma, and fluent with AI-assisted design and prototyping tooling (for example Claude Code or Cursor).
Comfort using data and research to set direction and measure outcomes.
Experience managing or leading designers. This is an IC role, so it counts as a strong plus rather than a requirement.
Driven design vision across teams in a way you can tie to outcomes, not just deliverables.
Formal education in design (BA, BFA, MFA) or equivalent practical experience.

Benefits

Comp & perks

Work from (almost) anywhere for up to 20 days per year
Focus on mental health and well-being:
Company-paid therapy sessions through SpringHealth
Company-paid subscription to HeadSpace
Company-wide week off a year - the whole team fully recharges (and returns without a pile-up of work!)
No meeting Fridays
Paid parental leave
Paid volunteer time
Focus on your career growth:
Development Dollars
Leadership development
Access to thousands of on-demand e-learnings
Travel Discounts
Employee Resource Groups
6 weeks paid vacation + a day off for your birthday
Free lunch 2 days per week
Pension plan contributions
Public transportation subsidies
Bike leasing program
Monthly social events, Thursday happy hours, sports teams
An awesome office in Friedrichshain, Berlin

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Hard Skills & Tools

Product DesignMobile DesignUser Experience DesignUI Pattern SystemDesign Quality StandardsResizabilityFoldablesAI-Assisted DesignPrototypingData-Driven Design

Soft Skills

Influencing Without AuthorityMentorshipCollaborationCritique

Certifications

BA In DesignBFA In DesignMFA In Design