Principal Product Designer

Established in 2021, Independence Pet Holdings is a corporate holding company that manages a diverse and broad portfolio of modern pet health brands and services, including insurance, pet education, lost recovery services, and more throughout North America.

We believe pet insurance is more than a financial product and build solutions to simplify the pet parenting journey and help improve the well-being of pets. As a leading authority in the pet category, we operate with a full stack of resources, capital, and services to support pet parents. Our multi-brand and omni-channel approach include our own insurance carrier, insurance brands and partner brands. 

Clarus is a pioneering pet health technology company on a mission to transform the future of pet healthcare. We are dynamic entrepreneurs improving pet health by providing trusted and transparent information across the entire pet health landscape. Join us in shaping a smarter, healthier future for pets everywhere. 

Role Overview 

We’re hiring our first Principal Product Designer to own product UX and UI end‑to‑end across our AI-powered claims automation platform. This is a deeply hands‑on IC role that also serves as a player-coach. You’ll personally ship complex workflows, mentor two contract designers, and partner with an external agency on brand applications. You’ll establish our research practice, design system, and design ops, and be the principal design voice for product strategy. 

What you’ll do 

Craft & systems 

• Establish and lead end‑to‑end product design processes 

• Design and own UX for multiple SaaS products 

• Create our first design system and scale it across all products. 

• Translate brand foundations from our agency into product‑ready patterns 

• Develop and lead user research to gather quantifiable, actionable insights 

• Establish key metrics from research to drive UX strategy 

Leadership & collaboration 

• Mentor and direct two contract designers; review work, set quality bars, and guide priorities. 

• Partner with product, engineering, and data to align on problem framing, requirements, and sequencing 

• Collaborate with our external agency on brand system, marketing surfaces, and cohesive product storytelling. 

• Establish user research operations 

• Set up design ops that scale with the team. 

• Drive UX strategy and alignment across the organization 

What you’ll bring 

Must‑have 

• 8-10+ years in product/UX design; at least 3 in senior/staff/principal IC roles owning complex workflows. 

• Experience mentoring contractors or leading small design pods as a player-coach 

• Expertise in workflow/enterprise SaaS design (B2B/B2B2C), driving clarity in high‑ambiguity problem spaces. 

• Experience with user research and rapid prototyping 

• Strong systems thinking, can design for multi‑stakeholder journeys 

• Proven track record building design systems and research practices from zero‑to‑one. 

• Excellent communication; executive‑ready reasoning; strong collaboration with PM/Eng/Data. 

• Tools: Figma, FigJam; analytics such as Pendo. 

Nice‑to‑have 

• Experience in pet health, insurance, insurtech, or fintech startups 

• Experience creating designs for regulated industries 

• Content design experience 

• Experience working with external agencies 

#LI-DNI

All of our jobs come with great benefits including healthcare, parental leave and opportunities for career advancements. Some offerings are dependent upon the location of where you work and can include the following:

• Comprehensive full medical, dental and vision Insurance
• Basic Life Insurance at no cost to the employee
• Company paid short-term and long-term disability
• 12 weeks of 100% paid Parental Leave
• Health Savings Account (HSA)
• Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA)
• Retirement savings plan
• Personal Paid Time Off
• Paid holidays and company-wide Wellness Day off
• Paid time off to volunteer at nonprofit organizations
• Pet friendly office environment
• Commuter Benefits
• Group Pet Insurance
• On the job training and skills development
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP)