Lead Product Designer (NYC Hybrid)
Kalepa
Salary undisclosed
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Description
About Kalepa:
Insurance is a $7T global industry built on professional labor: underwriting, claims, pricing, operations, and distribution. Kalepa is building AI that can perform that work.
We create professional-grade AI systems for insurers: software that can read, reason, decide, and act inside real workflows and operate over long-time horizons. Kalepa begins by augmenting professionals with the tools to succeed at their jobs. That earns us the right to learn from real decisions, capture decision traces, and automate what can be automated successfully over time.
Our products are already in production with leading insurers, driving measurable outcomes and expanding across functions. The opportunity is far broader than any single workflow: to build the AI operating system for decision-making across insurance. For people who want to work on AI that matters, in a sector where correctness, trust, and real-world impact count, Kalepa is just getting started.
Kalepa is backed by leading investors such as IA Ventures and Inspired Capital, and our team brings experience from Facebook, Palantir, Google, Amazon, McKinsey, Mastercard, and Uber.
Our Values (This is important):
Many organizations have a dusty list of corporate values that no one ever follows. Kalepa is not one of those companies. Our values are designed to unlock the potential of our employees.
Success at Kalepa is bred from five core principles:
- Hustle and Determination - We hire people who take full ownership of their craft and relentlessly pursue excellence with speed and determination. We choose the hard problems and do not give up. This is the foundation of how we work and how we win.
- Deliver Customer Impact - We're obsessed with customer impact. Every feature, every line of code, every decision is measured against one question: does this help insurers make better decisions? If it doesn't drive speed, accuracy, or profitability for our customers, we don't build it.
- Meritocracy - We're building something exceptional, and that requires exceptional people and ideas. We have a high bar but we reward excellence with rapid growth. If you're the best at what you do, you'll thrive here.
- Transparency - We value honest, transparent communication over politics. We challenge ideas, not people. We say what needs to be said, even when it's hard. This is how we solve problems fast and find the truth.
- Experiment Relentlessly - Many of the problems we face have never been solved before. We tackle them by testing quickly, measuring rigorously, and iterating until we find the path forward. Speed of learning is our advantage.
In addition to our NY office, we have remote employees speaking 10+ languages across the globe. But we invest in bringing our people together both for regional meetups and global offsites (2021 - Playa Del Carmen | 2022 - Rome | 2023 - Buenos Aires | 2024 - Lisbon | 2025 - Cartagena).
Kalepa’s culture isn’t for everyone, and that’s ok. But for the people who are a fit, they can’t imagine working elsewhere.
About the role:
Salary range: $190 - 245K USD*
We’re looking for a talented and versatile Lead Product Designer to join our team and help improve the new experiences of our platform. You’ll own complex, cross-cutting problems, shape what we build as well as how it looks, and raise the bar for design quality across the team. You’ll collaborate closely with our current Lead Designer, product managers, and engineers to bring polish, clarity, and structure to complex workflows. This role reports to the Head of Product.
What You’ll Do
- Lead design for the platform’s most complex, cross-cutting problems, from discovery and research through delivery and iteration.
- Turn ambiguous problems and new business areas into clear product direction, partnering with product, client success, and sales to balance user needs and business goals.
- Design data-dense workflows that help underwriters find what matters and act on it with confidence.
- Define how AI shows up in the product: how we communicate confidence, surface sources, and keep underwriters in control of decisions.
- Establish scalable patterns so the platform can grow across new lines of business without fragmenting the experience.
- Use AI and rapid prototyping tools to move quickly from idea to validated concept.
- Raise the design bar across the team through critique, mentorship, and shared standards.
About You
- 7+ years of experience designing digital products for B2B, data-rich, or productivity tool companies.
- Experience working in a rapidly scaling, ownership-mentality startup environment.
- Experience designing AI-driven tools.
- Experience taking an existing platform and helping to generalize and scale the user experience to support new and expanding workflows.
- A strong portfolio showcasing your ability to simplify complexity, design thoughtful UIs, and apply clear interaction patterns.
- Systems thinking, with experience shaping and contributing to design systems.
- Strong visual design skills and attention to detail—particularly in information hierarchy, interaction, and layout.
- Excellent communication and collaboration skills—you’re proactive, responsive, and eager to get feedback.
- Curious and adaptable—you enjoy solving ambiguous problems and growing your skills in the process.
Bonus Points For
- Experience working with MUI (Material UI) or similar design systems.
- InsurTech, FinTech, or other highly-regulated industry experience.
- A technical background or interest in how things are built.
*The salary range listed is an estimate and will vary based on a variety of factors. Final compensation will be determined during the offer stage based on relevant experience, performance during the interview process, and geographic location, and may therefore differ from the posted range.
About this role
Kalepa is building AI systems that automate professional work across insurance—a $7T industry where decisions matter. As Lead Product Designer, you'd own the user experience for complex workflows that help underwriters leverage AI while staying in control. This means designing data-dense interfaces, defining how AI surfaces confidence and sources, and establishing patterns that let the platform scale across new business lines without fragmenting.
You'd work closely with the Head of Product, a Lead Designer, product managers, and engineers to turn ambiguous problems into clear direction. The work spans discovery and research through delivery, with heavy emphasis on simplifying complexity, designing thoughtful information hierarchies, and using rapid prototyping to validate concepts quickly. You'd also raise design standards across the team through critique and mentorship, shaping how the platform evolves as it grows.
This role suits someone with 7+ years designing B2B, data-rich, or productivity tools—ideally with startup experience, AI-driven product work, and a track record of generalizing platforms to support new workflows. Strong systems thinking, visual design skills, and the ability to communicate clearly across disciplines are essential. If you've worked in regulated industries like InsurTech or FinTech, or have a technical background, that's valuable. The salary range is $190–245K, and the position is full-time and hybrid in NYC, though Kalepa supports remote work globally.
How this employer is doing
solid
- Hiring Mentioned
- Recently Raised Funding
In the news
Kalepa hires ex-Palantir leader as product chief, FinTech Global
Pay for this role
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