Senior Design Manager - Core Experiences

When Apple developed the original Macintosh, the team wasn’t simply designing a new computer. They were establishing a new vocabulary for interacting with one: windows, menus, icons, pointing, dragging, selecting. Many of those ideas existed elsewhere, but the achievement was turning them into a coherent language that people could understand and carry from one application to another. We’re at another interesting moment in the evolution of interfaces. Software can increasingly understand intent, converse, adapt, anticipate, and act on someone’s behalf. That creates an opportunity to reconsider some of the assumptions that have defined product design for decades. At Mercury, we want to do more than add AI to interfaces designed for another era. We want to thoughtfully evolve how Mercury feels to use, creating experiences that are intelligent without being inscrutable, proactive without being intrusive, and distinctly Mercury. You’ll lead the product designers responsible for some of Mercury’s core experiences and establish a point of view for how our interfaces should evolve as the possibilities of software change. You’ll work closely with Product, Engineering, and Design Systems to turn emerging interaction ideas into coherent, reusable patterns, while building a team known for exceptional product thinking and craft. Our design organization consists of 40+ people who love solving complex problems through design and are equally passionate about cultivating, guiding, and inspiring one another. Key Responsibilities: Define and evolve Mercury’s interaction philosophy, with a particular focus on how AI-native, conversational, adaptive, and proactive experiences should work across our products Set an exceptional bar for product quality across the Interfaces organization, helping teams like mobile, dashboard and our agentic product understand not only whether an experience works, but why it feels right Lead, coach, and develop a team of product designers, creating an environment where designers can take creative risks, develop strong points of view, and consistently produce exceptional work Shape product strategy alongside Product and Engineering rather than waiting for requirements to arrive. Bring design into ambiguous problems early and help teams identify the right problems to solve Stay close to the work. Use critique, prototyping, exploration, and hands-on collaboration to push ideas further and help teams turn ambitious concepts into thoughtful, pragmatic experiences Help raise the craft and product-thinking bar of Mercury’s broader Design organization, sharing frameworks, perspectives, and emerging ideas that make everyone around you a stronger designer You should: Have exceptional product taste: You have unusually strong judgment about how great software should behave and feel. You can move beyond subjective critique to articulate why an interaction works, where it falls short, and how to make it substantially better. You bring strong visual and interaction design fundamentals and inspire a higher standard of craft in others Have a strong point of view on AI-native interfaces: You think deeply about how AI is changing the relationship between people and software. You’re actively experimenting with conversational, adaptive, intelligent, and proactive interaction models and have opinions about where these patterns create genuine value and where they don’t. You don’t need to have spent your career building AI products, but you should be intensely curious about what comes next Be a craft-obsessed design leader: You’ve successfully led and developed product designers without becoming distant from the work. You know how to recognize what makes individual designers exceptional, give clear and thoughtful feedback, and create an environment where a team can experiment boldly while maintaining a very high quality bar Think about interactions as systems: You see beyond individual screens and features to the patterns, information architecture, behaviors, and principles connecting them. You can turn excellent individual solutions into reusable ideas that make the broader Mercury experience more coherent without making it formulaic Be a strategic cross-functional partner: You’re a genuine thought partner to Product and Engineering. You bring design thinking into strategy and roadmap conversations, collaborate comfortably on unfinished work, understand technical constraints, and earn trust through judgment and execution Operate independently with a strong point of view: You thrive when the problem matters but the answer isn’t obvious. You can create structure where none exists, develop a perspective with incomplete information, and move work forward without significant coaching or prioritization. You balance conviction with curiosity and pragmatism and know when a great idea is worth fighting for Experience designing AI-powered or consumer software, strong prototyping skills, close partnership with Design Systems, or deep motion and interaction expertise would all be especially relevant, but we care more about the quality of your thinking and work than checking every box. These qualifications and the role's emphasis on interaction quality, AI thinking, leadership, independence, and taste come directly from the role profile. This is an opportunity to help define the future of Mercury’s product experience. You’ll have the autonomy to develop new ideas about how our interfaces should behave, the team to turn those ideas into excellent products, and the opportunity to create interaction patterns that can ultimately influence how Mercury builds software across the company. *Mercury is a fintech company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group and Column N.A., Members FDIC. Mercury values diversity & belonging and is