Senior Product Designer - Embed
- Role
- Design
- Experience
- Senior
- Employment
- Full-time
- Company size
- Startup
Open to Anywhere in EU · UTC-4…UTC+4. Set where you work from to check your eligibility.
No BS summary
Senior product designer for a remote role within EU/Ireland and GMT ±4 hours. Needs experience designing complex products, ideally B2B/API-driven, with strong research cadence, systems thinking, prototyping, and design craft. Fintech, insurance, benefits, or developer-product experience is a plus.
Core skills
Required skills
Senior Product Designer - Embed
Reporting to: CTO
Location: Remote +/- 4hrs GMT
About Kota
Kota is making insurance and retirement benefits as accessible as modern software. We have two flagship products, the Kota Platform - the world's first fully integrated benefits platform and Kota Embed - our embedded insurance and retirement product for any platform.
Our mission is to make insurance and benefits more accessible and delightful to this generation of employees.
At Kota, we combine world class engineering with a strong sense of purpose. We build extraordinary user experiences, with curiosity and craftsmanship at the core of everything we do. If you want to work with modern tech, solve meaningful problems and be part of a team that truly cares, you should take a look.
Today, we power benefits for tens of thousands of employees at Europe's most forward-thinking companies, including Carwow, Tines, Zoe, and Remote. Founded in 2022, we've raised more than €20M from leading investors like EQT Ventures, Eurazeo, Northzone, and Frontline, along with founders and executives from Workday, Remote, Personio, OpenAI, and more.
Who are we looking for
Perfect for a senior who wants to think as part of the job (not just ship).
On Kota Embed you design a surface where a sort-order decision moves real money for tens of thousands of people, where the data model is co-designed with the UI, where 6–10 stakeholders are co-present in major decisions, where constraints become design surfaces rather than obstacles, where prototypes are spec, and where the work compounds into a body of named, citable patterns rather than dissolving into ad-hoc Figma files.
At this moment this is not a steady-state senior IC role. It's a "the ground is moving and you need to own the design quality while it does" role.
You need to want that, not just tolerate it.
What we are looking for
- A designer who has worked inside a complex product (ideally B2B, double ideally it was API-driven), understands why the data model constrains the interface, and finds that constraint interesting rather than annoying.
- You've shipped something with invisible complexity. Not a marketing site, not a dashboard with toggles. You succeeded, and you can explain how you thought through it.
- Research methods at sprint cadence. 5-user tests, rapid Figma Make/Cursor/Paper prototyping, Datadog/Mixpanel log analysis, facilitating internal design reviews. You also know when to skip research and ship. The mantra: "rough data is better than no data; you can't remove uncertainty - triage it"
- Outcomes-over-outputs discipline. Lock down problem / assumptions / success criteria before agreeing to a solution.
- Systems thinking - promoting patterns to primitives. Recurring interaction surfaces become design-system components.
- UX influence work. Getting devs/stakeholders to attend usability sessions. Building and facilitating ceremonies (standups, retros, backlog grooming) so design becomes shared team context, not an isolated artifact.
- Craft fundamentals. Type, spacing, rhythm, hierarchy. The basics, worked at 400% zoom - quality and speed aren't opposites.
- Builder craft. Cursor / Claude Code comfort. Treating prototypes as spec means producing working prototypes is the design output. Closing the gap between design and engineering rather than widening it.
Things you might know about or be interested in
- Embedded financial products.
- Fintech, financial services, insurance, or benefits platforms.
- Developer product experiences, understanding of how to design for technical users and embedded/integration-heavy products.
Our values
- Have Integrity. We care deeply about our why and it won’t jeopardise our how.
- Care Deeply. Our products are our story, we look at the details, go the extra mile to delight customers.
- Own Your Ship. Ask why, do the work, get the data, solve the problem, be an owner.
- Raise the Bar. We continuously look to push past good enough. Expect more, move faster, and never stop raising your and the team’s standards.
- Play to Win. We exist because we decided to say no to the norm – now we do this everyday.
And of course.... Your employee benefits!
- Health Insurance contribution via Kota
- Access to a Workplace Pension with matched contributions up to 5% via Kota
- WFH stipend to support your home office needs
- Group Life Assurance via Kota
- Generous Paid Time Off - work hard and take the time you need
- Annual, company-wide offsite
Our Hiring Process
- Recruiter Screen: A 15-30-minute initial alignment conversation to understand f there is a match.
- Intro call: A 30-minute 1-on-1 video call. We'll discuss Kota, your background, and your approach to collaboration and design systems.
- Design deep-dive: A 60-90-minute call with our product and existing design team member to review portfolio work in detail, discuss design methodology, and work through a design systems challenge.
- Culture call with founders: Chat with founders focused on culture and product thinking.
We are an equal-opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate based on race, religion, colour, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status
What you'll do
- Design Kota Embed surfaces where interface decisions affect real money for tens of thousands of people.
- Co-design the data model with the UI.
- Navigate major decisions with 6–10 stakeholders involved.
- Turn constraints into design surfaces rather than obstacles.
- Use prototypes as specifications.
- Build named, citable design patterns rather than ad-hoc Figma files.
- Own design quality in a changing, non-steady-state product environment.
- Use research methods at sprint cadence, including 5-user tests, rapid prototyping, log analysis, and internal design reviews.
- Know when to skip research and ship.
- Lock down the problem, assumptions, and success criteria before agreeing to a solution.
- Promote recurring interaction surfaces into design-system components.
- Get developers and stakeholders to attend usability sessions.
- Build and facilitate ceremonies such as standups, retros, and backlog grooming so design becomes shared team context.
- Apply craft fundamentals including type, spacing, rhythm, and hierarchy.
- Produce working prototypes as the design output.
- Close the gap between design and engineering.
What they require
- Senior product designer who wants thinking to be part of the job, not just shipping.
- Experience working inside a complex product.
- Ideally experience with B2B products.
- Ideally experience with API-driven products.
- Understanding of why the data model constrains the interface.
- Experience shipping something with invisible complexity, not just a marketing site or dashboard with toggles.
- Ability to explain how you thought through complex shipped work.
- Research methods at sprint cadence.
- Outcomes-over-outputs discipline.
- Systems thinking and ability to promote patterns to primitives.
- UX influence work with developers and stakeholders.
- Strong craft fundamentals in type, spacing, rhythm, and hierarchy.
- Builder craft and comfort with Cursor / Claude Code.
- Preferred: Interest in embedded financial products.
- Preferred: Interest in fintech, financial services, insurance, or benefits platforms.
- Preferred: Interest in developer product experiences.
- Preferred: Understanding of how to design for technical users and embedded/integration-heavy products.
Benefits
- Health Insurance contribution via Kota.
- Access to a Workplace Pension with matched contributions up to 5% via Kota.
- WFH stipend to support your home office needs.
- Group Life Assurance via Kota.
- Generous Paid Time Off.
- Annual, company-wide offsite.
Kota is making insurance and retirement benefits as accessible as modern software through the Kota Platform and Kota Embed, an embedded insurance and retirement product for platforms.