Senior Product Designer, Platform

About the Role

Zendesk builds customer service software that helps teams respond faster and with more care through AI-enabled tools across email, chat, social, and phone. This opening is for a Senior Product Designer on the Foundational and Core Platform team in Melbourne, where you will help shape the essential systems and flagship capabilities used by millions of people.

The position is centered on designing at the intersection of product vision and execution. You will turn complex, technical workflows into clear and scalable experiences, contribute as a senior design voice within the APAC Design organization, and help lift the overall craft standard across the team.

This role also requires a strong point of view on AI product design. You should understand how to design for non-deterministic systems, including agent behavior, tool use, streaming experiences, trust signals, and failure states. The team expects hands-on craft, including the ability to prototype with code-based, agentic tools when that is the best way to answer the design problem.

What You Will Do

• Drive design for multi-quarter platform programs, taking ownership from early problem framing through launch.
• Set direction for unclear platform challenges where the core issue still needs to be defined.
• Create AI-native interaction patterns for workflows, tool integrations, streaming or partial states, and transparency or trust experiences.
• Build prototypes in code with agentic IDEs such as Claude Code, Cursor, or similar tools when static mockups are not enough.
• Convert dense technical systems and complicated workflows into elegant platform experiences that can scale.
• Improve design quality through critique, collaboration, and informal mentoring of less experienced designers.
• Shape product decisions by bringing customer insight, design thinking, and systems perspective to product and engineering partners.
• Collaborate with the Design Systems team to evolve shared patterns and contribute new ones.
• Use research, journey mapping, and Jobs To Be Done methods to focus on the real customer problem.

Requirements

• At least 7 years of product design experience, preferably in enterprise software or complex SaaS environments.
• A history of defining platform-level patterns that continue beyond a single project.
• Well-formed opinions on AI-native interaction design, backed by examples of shipped work or strong design rationale.
• Comfort using code-based and agentic prototyping tools, not just visual design software.
• Practical understanding of context, prompting, tool use, evaluation loops, and the common failure modes of non-deterministic AI systems.
• Good judgment about when AI should be used and when a simpler non-AI solution is better.
• Advanced Figma and prototyping skills, plus a portfolio that shows strong visual craft and interaction design.
• Experience working in a three-in-a-box setup with Product, Engineering, and Design.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills for influencing stakeholders and explaining the reasoning behind decisions.
• Experience mentoring other designers or elevating team craft.
• Ability to work through strategic ambiguity and define the problem, not only the solution.
• Commitment to accessible and equitable experiences for a global user base.

Additional Information

Hiring manager: Abi Iyer.

Location: Melbourne, Australia.

Zendesk is an equal opportunity employer and evaluates candidates without regard to protected characteristics including race, colour, religion, national origin, age, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, marital status, medical condition, ancestry, disability, military or veteran status, or other protected status under applicable law.

The company describes its culture as inclusive and flexible, with a hybrid approach that brings people together in person at one of its offices while also allowing remote work for part of the week.

Zendesk also notes that AI or automated decision systems may be used to screen or evaluate applications, subject to company guidelines and applicable law.

Reasonable accommodations are available for applicants with disabilities and disabled veterans. Requests can be made by email to peopleandplaces@zendesk.com with the relevant accommodation details.

Zendesk reiterates its commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion and states that it is an AA/EEO/Veterans/Disabled employer.

About Zendesk

Zendesk creates software designed to bring calm to customer service and support billions of conversations for well-known brands around the world.