The hard problem first: engineers ship fast on AI, and design has to keep pace without quality slipping. Few teams have solved this well. Doing it is the core of this role, and the reason it exists.

What we're building

Human and AI shoppers both expect more from product content: richer imagery and video, machine-readable data, available online and beyond. Brands and retailers need that data as content to be accurate, complete, and live everywhere, automatically. That is Syncle.

We're a B2B SaaS business at €3M ARR, with a stable platform and 500+ customers including L'Oréal, KICKS, Bosch and Elkjøp. We're backed by Vendep Capital and Ampli Ventures. In April 2026 we launched a new product surface that reshapes the brand and retailer content workflow: more automated, more configurable, reaching markets we couldn't serve before.

Our product sits behind a login, so you can't explore it from the outside. We'll walk you through it properly during the process, so you see the real case in detail.

The role

This is a founding design role. We're posting it as Senior Product Designer because that is the level we're hiring at, but in practice you are our founding designer. We've had designers, but never a real design function. We've been an engineering-led product team, design reacted to decisions rather than shaping them, and craft never had an owner. You change that. The Head of Product, Head of Technology, and the CEO are behind giving design real standing, so you build the function, not fight for permission.

You own the product experience end to end. The canvas is dense B2B software: dashboards, configuration, data mapping and syndication, not a consumer app or a marketing site. The craft is making complex workflows feel obvious. You report to the Head of Product and work day to day with the product managers and our engineers. The product and engineering team is around a dozen people. For now you are the design function, and that is the appeal.

What you own

• The product experience. The customer-facing interface, end to end. Your first and biggest job is the new core product: deliberately rough today, used by every customer we sign. Taking it from crude to genuinely good, and building the process around it, is the work.

• The design system. In decent shape, but not yet built for the AI era. Own it and push it further, set the standards.

• The design-to-build interface. Engineers ship quickly with AI tools. Handoff works today, but not at the pace rising velocity demands. Keeping design and build in sync, fast and without losing fidelity, is yours to solve. It’s the hardest part and hopefully the most rewarding.

• User understanding. Product owns the business and the problem space, but not how the product looks and feels. You run your own research and talk to customers directly, rather than being handed conclusions or notes.

What we're looking for

• Product and design judgment. You make strong calls independently and connect design to outcomes. You ground ideas in reality: the rare skill is making concepts feasible and worth building, not just wild.

• AI-native craft. Fluent in Figma and today's AI design tools, but tied to none. The tool stack is up to debate. What counts is output: working, high-fidelity prototypes engineering can build straight from. You direct AI toward your vision and quality, not generic output.

• An independent operator. You own research, craft, system, and process, and set the standard as you go. No design manager needed.

• A founding mindset, earned in practice. You've built in genuinely unstructured places, a startup or similar, where ambiguity energises you. This is not a fit if your background is purely large companies with the lanes are already clear.

Why this role

Most design roles mean joining a function that already exists. Here you in practice build it, and choose what it's built with on a setup nobody is wedded to. Real autonomy and real trust. We measure outcomes, not activity. We're direct, low ego, and we take the work seriously without taking ourselves too seriously. We believe the quality of what we build comes down to how we treat each other.

What you'll get

Compensation reflects the role and the experience you bring, plus meaningful equity. The offer is ownership: design's first proper seat at Syncle, and room to grow into leading the function. Plus healthcare, lunch vouchers, and a Helsinki office on Bulevardi with breakfast and a gym.

We're hybrid. Most work can happen anywhere, but design depends on close contact with other team members, so we'd want you around often enough for that, with no fixed schedule. You'd be based in Finland, ideally the Helsinki region, though that last part isn't a hard requirement. We work in English, and the team is roughly half Finnish, half international, so you won't need Finnish to fit in.

How to apply

We can't sponsor visas or relocation right now, so you'll need an existing right to work in the EU and Finland.

Send us:

• Your LinkedIn

• Your portfolio or a work example

• A short note, but not a formal cover letter. Write like you would an email. Tell us how you actually use AI in your design work today, what you can show us (repos, prototypes, writing, demos, portfolio), and why this role fits where you are right now.

We value shipped work over polish. Side projects on GitHub, demo-stage things, markdown summaries: those count far more than an AI-generated cover letter. We hire on evidence and judgment, not a year count.

The process is short: a first conversation with the Head of Product, a session walking through your work and how you think, a round with a future team mate or two, then a round with senior leadership. We judge craft on your own examples, not free work on our problems. We're interviewing through August, with finals in September. The right person matters more than the calendar.