Staff Product Designer (Contract)

Flex is a growth-stage, NYC headquartered FinTech company that is creating the best rent payment experience. It's hard to believe that it's 2026 and paying rent on time is expensive, inflexible, and difficult. We're here to change that! Flex enables our users to pay rent throughout the month on a schedule that better fits their finances and budget. Our mission is to empower as many renters as possible with flexibility over their most significant recurring expense. After deliberately keeping a stealth profile as we built up unprecedented investor support and an enthusiastic user base, we are looking for motivated individuals to help us keep our mission growing. Will you be a part of the team? About the Role We are seeking an experienced and visionary Staff Product Designer to serve as Flex's highest-caliber individual design contributor. In this role, you will set the bar for craft and quality across our entire product portfolio - not by managing designers, but by doing the work at a level others aspire to. You will drive design vision and strategy for the most complex, highest-impact initiatives at Flex, shaping how we build for our users and how the design function operates. Vision and Strategy • Define and articulate design vision for Flex's most critical and complex product initiatives, ensuring work aligns with business goals and resonates deeply with our users • Establish a north star for the consumer experience and drive cross-functional alignment around it • Influence product strategy and roadmap directly through the quality and clarity of your design work and perspective • Stay close to how the design industry and UX trends are evolving and bring those insights into Flex Quality and Craft • Own the design process end-to-end on flagship initiatives, from research and ideation through refinement, prototyping, and final execution • Hold a high bar for craft across everything you touch, from individual interaction patterns to our design system • Build detailed prototypes that illuminate the future of the product and help teams make better decisions • Use AI across the design lifecycle for, rapid exploration, prototyping, and front-end workflows, and model how the team can do the same Influence and Collaboration • Partner with design leadership, product, and engineering to shape the direction of complex, cross-cutting product areas • Collaborate with other designers to ensure alignment and consistency across the consumer experience • Advocate for design thinking and user-centered principles across the company at every level, up to and including executive leadership Standards and Mentorship • Establish and evolve design standards, processes, and patterns that raise the quality floor for the entire organization • Provide mentorship and craft feedback to designers across the team • Contribute foundational elements and set the standard for how the design system should evolve Key Qualifications • Experience: A demonstrated track record as a senior IC contributor on complex consumer products • Design Mastery: Deep expertise in UX/UI design with strong experience showcasing shipped work at significant scope and quality • Strategic Thinking: Ability and demonstrated experience to operate at the product strategy level, shaping direction through design • Craft: Exceptional execution skills with high attention to detail in interaction design, visual design, and prototyping • Collaboration: Excellent communication skills; able to work fluidly with cross-functional teams including product, engineering, marketing, and executive leadership • Tools and Tech: Proficiency in modern design tooling; and fluency with front-end development • AI Fluency: Comfort using AI tools across the design process for research, exploration, prototyping, and workflow improvement • Passion: Genuine interest in financial products and improving people's financial lives Compensation This is a contract position with an hourly rate of $125–$200 per hour, commensurate with experience and our internal leveling guidelines. Flex takes a market-based approach to pay and utilizes a geographic pay differential based on a cost of labor index; if you are located outside of our Tier 1 (NYC/Bay Area) markets, your rate will be adjusted to align with the market conditions of your specific geographic zone. There is potential for this engagement to convert to a full-time role, in which case compensation would be aligned to the full-time salary range and benefits for the level. Life at Flex We understand that it takes a diverse team of highly intelligent, curious, determined, empathetic, and self aware people to grow a successful company. Our HQ is located in New York City, but we have employees located throughout the US, Australia, Canada and South America. We are growing quickly, but deliberately, with a focus on building an inclusive culture. Our dynamic team has incredible perspectives to share, just as we know you do, and