[Remote] Staff Product Designer, TuneLab

Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Eli Lilly and Company is a global healthcare leader headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, focused on making life better for people around the world. They are seeking a founding Product Designer for Lilly TuneLab, an AI/ML platform aimed at providing biotech companies with drug discovery models. The role involves owning the product's design and user experience, ensuring it meets the needs of biotech partners while navigating the complexities of a large organization.ResponsibilitiesClarify the problem spaceLive close to biotech users. Learn their workflows, their pain, and the gap between what the AI can do and what they actually needDefine—and keep sharpening—who we’re building for, what they’re trying to do, and where existing tools fall shortRun lightweight discovery: interviews, prototypes, working sessions. Test what’s worth building before engineering commitsTranslate findings into clear product direction. The team should leave a discovery cycle knowing what to build next and whyBe the strongest user voice on the team. Push back when the spec is wrongDesign the productOwn how the product works and feels—flow, interaction, and visual craftShip working design. You sweat the empty states and the error states; you don’t hand off pixels and walkBuild the design system that lets a small team move fast. Opinionated where it pays, lightweight where it doesn’tPair tightly with engineering. Prototype in code or close to it when that gets the answer faster than a Figma fileLift the teamMentor designers and design-adjacent peers as the team grows. Make them better at the job, not just better at this productPartner with the Engineering Manager and product on hiring as the team expands. You sell the role and you hold the barSet the practice—how we research, how we critique, how we ship. What you do becomes the team normOperate effectively inside a large companyNavigate enterprise infrastructure, security, and compliance requirements without disrupting development progressWork with Lilly’s internal capabilities and partners to leverage what already exists rather than rebuild itRepresent design in conversations with external biotech partners when it matters. You can speak credibly to a head of computational biology, a product lead, or a CTO on the other sideSkillsBachelor's degree in Design, HCI, or a related field8+ years as a product designer, with a track record of shipping software that real external customers used and relied onDemonstrated experience operating as a senior or staff designer on a small team—not just as a senior designer on a large onePortfolio that shows your work end-to-end – from framing the problem to shipping the craftQualified applicants must be authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis. Lilly will not provide support for or sponsor work authorization or visas for this role, including but not limited to F-1 CPT, F-1 OPT, F-1 STEM OPT, J-1, H-1B, TN, O-1, E-3, H-1B1, or L-1Strong product design fundamentals across interaction, information design, and visual craft. You have an opinion about each layerYou take a fuzzy problem from research to flow to ship-quality interface without losing the threadYou build design systems that earn their keep. They accelerate the team; they don't become the projectYou can hold a technical conversation with engineers—about feasibility, tradeoffs, and what's worth buildingYou know how to find the real problem. You're as comfortable running a customer interview as a critiqueYou ask 'what problem are we solving?' before 'how do we design it?'You bring a point of view to discovery, not just data. You synthesize what you hear into a direction the team can act onYou can sit with ambiguity long enough to understand a problem, without letting it dragYou've worked in environments where the roadmap wasn't fully defined and the team was small, and you thrivedYou create structure and process when needed, but you know when to skip itYou take ownership broadly. If something isn't working, you fix it rather than wait for someone elseHands-on with AI tools in your design work—prompting, prototyping with code or AI assistance, pulling LLMs into research synthesisYou bring new tools and methods into the team rather than waiting for them to arrive. Your toolkit isn't fixedYou stay curious about AI/ML capabilities themselves—what the models can do, where they're heading—and that curiosity shows up in your design workYou lead with judgment. You don't need a senior title to set directionLow ego, high standards. You'll learn from someone who knows the area better, and you'll push back firmly when you don't agreeYou communicate clearly across technical and non-technical audiencesExperience in life sciences, pharma, biotech, or health tech—especially if you've designed for scientists, researchers, or cliniciansBackground designing B2B SaaS or developer toolsPrior experience at a startup, or as an early designer in an internal startup within a larger companyExperience as a founding designer, or as one of the first designers on a product that found usersBenefitsFull-time equivalent employees also will be eligible for a company bonus (depending, in part, on company and individual performance).Lilly offers a comprehensive benefit program to eligible employees, including eligibility to participate in a company-sponsored 401(k); pension; vacation benefits; eligibility for medical, dental, vision and prescription drug benefits; flexible benefits (e.g., healthcare and/or dependent day care flexible spending accounts); life insurance and death benefits; certain time off and leave of absence benefits; and well-being benefits (e.g., employee assistance program, fitness benefits, and employee clubs and activities).Company OverviewWe're a medicine company turning science into healing to make life better for people around the world. It was founded in 1876, and is headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA, with a workforce of 10001+ employees. Its website is https://www.lilly.com.