About Apartment List

Apartment List is rethinking renting from the ground up: agentic search, personalized matching, guidance a renter can trust. Core is where all of that reaches a renter. It's our largest product surface, spanning ApartmentList.com, mobile web, and native iOS and Android, and it's where the company's biggest bets have to hold up on a real device in a renter's hand. This role leads that surface.
This is a hands-on seat. You'll work with product and engineering to decide what Core takes on, then make it yourself: design it, prototype it in code, and hand engineering something they can build from. You'll make the case for where Core goes next, too. We hire on what you've shipped and the bar you hold everyone else to.

The Job

Lead Core, end to end

• Lead the renter experience across web, mobile web, and native iOS and Android. You're accountable for its coherence, quality, and direction.
• Balance maintenance and invention. Core carries real traffic and real revenue, so you improve what exists as much as you build what's next, and you know which one a given week calls for.
• Set the craft bar: visual, interaction, and systems. Create the patterns and standards other senior designers calibrate against.

Build AI-forward

• Prototype in Cursor and Claude Code until it's functionally real, not just clickable. Wire it to our actual components, variables, and tokens so engineering builds from your prototype instead of starting over. Engineering drives architecture, performance, and the merge.
• Make AI a default part of how you work. Form a point of view on what's working and fold new tools into your process the week they land.

Lead through influence

• Bring a point of view on where Core should head, grounded in renters, data, and taste, and get senior product, engineering, and executive partners behind it.
• Find problems nobody handed you. Use qualitative and quantitative research and experiments to decide what's worth building, and change your mind when users tell you to.
• Mentor without managing. Raise the level of every designer you work with through critique, pairing, and example, and finish what you start.

What makes you right for this

Must Haves

• 10+ years designing digital products, owning ambiguous, cross-functional problems with minimal direction.
• You build with AI in real work. You've shipped working prototypes or production code with tools like Cursor or Claude Code, and you can say what the AI got right, where it fell short, and how you validated it.
• You've shipped on both web and native mobile, and you think mobile-first.
• Your work has scaled beyond you. A framework, pattern library, starter kit, or standard that other designers or teams adopted. We look at scope, not title.
• Craft you can show: Figma fluency (auto layout, components, variables, systems), plus visual design, typography, interaction, and motion that others copy.
• You act without being told: you spot problems, decide, follow through to resolution, and know when to say no.

Nice to have

• A two-sided marketplace at real scale.
• Partnering directly with C-suite leaders on product direction.
• A side project taken from idea to launch

Here's the Pay Range:
At Apartment List, we carefully consider a variety of factors to determine compensation for each position, including the role, level, and work. The CAN Total Target Compensation (TTC) for this position is:

• Zone 1: $184,000 - $223,000 TTC (including $162,000 - $196,000 base salary) + equity
• Zone 2: $165,000 - $200,000 TTC (including $145,000 - $176,000 base salary) + equity

This reflects the compensation target for new hire salaries for the position across all CAN locations. Please note, the compensation details provided do not include benefits and perks that we offer. 
We also rely on market indicators along with considering your work location, job related skills, experience and relevant education and training, to determine compensation that is fair and competitive for you. Apartment List will consider paying compensation near the higher of the range in exceptional circumstances, where candidates have the experience, credentials or expertise that would warrant such consideration. It is always our goal to hire exceptional talent and we would be happy to share more about compensation during the hiring process.