Lead Product Designer, Growth

Job Description:

Location: San Francisco, CA or San Mateo, CA (In-office preferred)

About Rakuten Rewards

Rakuten International oversees 7 businesses with over 4,000 employees globally. The brand is recognized for its leadership and innovation in e-commerce, digital content, advertising, entertainment and communications, bringing the joy of discovery and access to more than 1 billion members across the world. Our teams deliver on the company's mission to delight merchants and customers through innovation, optimism, and teamwork.
Rakuten Rewards is a leading e-commerce company that enhances the way people shop by offering Cash Back, deals and rewards from more than 3,500 merchants. Founded in 1999, Rakuten has grown to become the go-to shopping destination for consumers, having paid out nearly $2 billion in Cash Back to its 15 million members. The company also operates ShopStyle, a leading fashion discovery destination, and Cartera Commerce, a top rewards platform for airlines and banks. For more information, visit www.rakuten.com.

Job Summary

The Lead Product Designer, Growth will own the design of the core product experience across the member journey for Web, iOS, and Android. This role sits within the Product & Design organization on the Growth Team, reporting to the Sr. Manager of Product Design, and is central to company strategy this year.
The Growth Tribe architects the end-to-end member journey from Acquisition through Retention. Within it, the Activation Squad adapts the experience based on where a member is in their journey -- reinforcing value at each stage, reducing friction between purchases, encouraging store discovery, and driving early adoption of App and Extension. The opportunity for impact in this role is significant.
As a design team, we operate at the intersection of high craft and high impact. We rely on research to de-risk solutions, experimentation to measure what works, and AI to enhance creativity and amplify the impact of our work. We encourage designers to use AI freely in their process and to help shape new ways of working with this emergent technology.
 

Key Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end design and set the design direction of Rakuten’s core member experience across Web, iOS, and Android, from problem framing through shipped product

• Define foundational UX patterns and interaction standards that scale and uplift craft

• Drive research and competitive analysis to uncover pain points and validate solutions

• Shape squad-level vision, influence product direction through compelling presentations, and build stakeholder buy-in

• Collaborate cross-functionally with product managers, engineers, and UX writers; communicate design rationale clearly and make pragmatic tradeoffs with engineering

• Navigate complex stakeholder dynamics across multiple teams, driving alignment and maintaining momentum

• Contribute informally to design culture through critiques, knowledge sharing, and helping raise the bar across the broader design org

• Leverage AI tools and Claude Code to rapidly build interactive prototypes that validate UX concepts early, reducing reliance on engineering cycles for exploratory work

• Embrace AI-assisted workflows across research synthesis, ideation, and iteration, bringing a modern, tool-forward approach to the design process

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree (or equivalent) in Human-Computer Interaction, UI/UX, Graphic Design, or a related discipline

• 6+ years designing digital products (Web and iOS/Android) in close partnership with Product and Engineering

• Portfolio demonstrating end-to-end product design with clear evidence of process, decision-making, and measurable outcomes

• Demonstrated experience setting design direction for large product areas and driving cross-functional alignment

• Proven ability to establish design frameworks that address complexity at scale

• Proficiency with design and prototyping tools, e.g., Figma, Adobe Creative Suite, InVision, Framer

• Excellent communication skills, an engaging presentation style, and strong visual storytelling

• Experience navigating complex stakeholder dynamics and leading without formal authority

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in e-commerce, loyalty, consumer growth, or activation-focused product work

• Familiarity with experimentation frameworks and working alongside Analytics to define success metrics

• Active use of AI tools as part of a design workflow, ideally including AI coding tools for rapid prototyping

• Experience setting AI strategy or workflows for a product team

• Experience in a mid-to-large scale company where design has a clear seat at the table and is expected to influence strategy

#LI-EP1

Five Principles for Success
Our worldwide practices describe specific behaviors that make Rakuten unique and united across the world. We expect Rakuten employees to model these 5 Shugi Principles of Success.

Always improve, Always Advance - Only be satisfied with complete success - Kaizen
Passionately Professional - Take an uncompromising approach to your work and be determined to be the best
Hypothesize - Practice - Validate – Shikumika - Use the Rakuten Cycle to succeed in unknown territory
Maximize Customer Satisfaction - The greatest satisfaction for our teams is seeing their customers smile
Speed!! Speed!! Speed!! - Always be conscious of time - take charge, set clear goals, and engage your team

At the time of posting, Rakuten expects the base compensation for this role to be within the range shown below. Individual compensation will vary based on job-related factors, including the skills, qualifications, and experience of the successful candidate as well as business need and geographic location. The successful applicant for this role will be eligible for discretionary bonus, health, vision, dental insurance, 401k matching, PTO, Volunteer Time Off (VTO), and other employee benefits as the company implements.

USD $132,082.50 - $226,820.00 annually