Director of Product and Design

Location: Remote, New York City, or Oakland, CA 

Role Type: Full-time 

Compensation: $201,250 

Reports to: Chief Impact Officer 

Visa sponsorship: Not available 

Hires remotely in: United States 

Experience: 8+ years

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Recidiviz is thrilled to be hiring a Director of Product and Design to join our team! We're a growing, fast-moving group building technology that helps government leaders safely reduce incarceration and improve outcomes for people in the criminal justice system. That's where you come in. We're looking for a product leader who is equally energized by people and strategy — someone who can set the direction, build the systems, and develop a high-performing team of product managers and product designers to do the most important work of their careers.

About us

Recidiviz is creating safer, healthier communities by improving outcomes for people in the criminal justice system. We build technology to reduce the number of people in prison and to help criminal justice leaders embrace data-driven decision-making.

Using software tools and thoughtful product design, we've been able to safely reduce incarceration and improve outcomes. We work side-by-side with leaders of the criminal justice system, people in prison and on supervision, and ecosystem partners to build a better path forward. In addition to the revenue we earn from state partners, some of the most respected philanthropists and foundations support our work.

People who succeed at Recidiviz lead with kindness and humility, assume good intent, learn from failure, and fix problems when they see them. They are excited to work arm in arm with government leadership and staff to improve outcomes. They are great listeners. They build deep relationships with and empathy for the people we work with and the people who our mission serves, even when those two groups feel at odds.

About the role

This role sits at the center of Recidiviz's ability to scale. As Director of Product and Design, you’ll lead and develop a team of experienced product managers and designers—people with years of domain expertise and a deep commitment to the mission. Your job is to make each of them sharper, more supported, and more impactful: setting strategic context, building the people systems that help them grow, and creating the conditions for them to build products that actually get used on a daily and weekly basis. You'll report to the Chief Impact Officer and serve as a key partner on product direction, team health, operational standards, and organizational strategy as Recidiviz scales nationally. Some travel to our state partners, internal team gatherings, and offsites is expected.

Core responsibilities

• Own the outcomes: Drive positive correctional outcomes by expanding product-market-impact fit, building long-term organizational sustainability, and scaling what works to more states—ensuring tools deliver immediate usability and sustained weekly active engagement.
• Lead and develop a high-performing team: Manage and mentor PMs, designers, and emerging leaders. Build cohesive cross-functional rituals, streamline team operations, and drive adoption of shared UI standards to increase execution speed and state-by-state consistency.
• Build cross-functional trust: Partner closely with engineering, data science, state engagement, and marketing, coaching your team to do the same. Keep teams close to frontline staff, government leadership, and justice-impacted individuals through grounded, trauma-informed discovery practices.
• Set strategic context: Define a clear direction so every PM and designer understands where their area fits, what to prioritize, and why it matters. Partner with and coach team members as they navigate complex policy and administrative constraints, helping them land on clear roadmaps and intuitive user workflows.
• Modernize workflows and execution: Help the team stay ahead of shifts in technology by modeling AI-assisted workflows across discovery, scoping, and prototyping—accelerating delivery speed without sacrificing rigor or user empathy.

Wild success

Here are a few things you might accomplish in your first year that would demonstrate wild success in this role. Some of these will be the direct result of your work. Others will be because of the conditions you've set for a great team to do great things.

• Active adoption & impact: Recidiviz’s product portfolio achieves deeper impact—measured by high weekly active tool usage, stronger client executive support, and steady launch momentum.
• People growth: Multiple team members have grown into meaningfully new scope—a first-time manager, a senior IC owning a harder problem, or someone who was stuck and is now thriving.
• Operational velocity: User feedback loops and reusable components are cleanly integrated into product cycles, eliminating redundant work and accelerating state deployments.

Minimum qualifications

• Deep care for the growth and wellbeing of the people you manage—you measure your success by theirs.
• 8+ years in product management or design, with at least 3 years managing a team of PMs and/or designers; you've led both senior ICs and emerging leaders and know how to get the best from each.
• Exceptional communication and relationship skills—you earn trust quickly, especially with people who have strong opinions and high standards.
• Experience coaching PMs and designers toward management readiness—you've developed future managers, not just individual contributors.
• Comfort operating in ambiguity, with the ability to help teams create clarity and momentum where little exists.
• Strong strategic instincts: you can zoom out to see the system, identify what's misaligned, and help teams make better decisions with less friction.
• A builder's mindset paired with strategic rigor—you see gaps, you close them, and you leave things better than you found them.
• Ability and willingness to travel, about one trip per quarter.

Preferred qualifications

• Experience navigating complex, multi-stakeholder environments where end users, administrative buyers, and institutional partners each have distinct needs—and where building trust with all of them is part of the job.
• Experience working in or closely with mission-driven, nonprofit, or public sector organizations.
• Personal or professional experience working with the criminal justice system.
• Experience in a high-growth startup where the playbook was still being written.
• Exposure to AI-assisted product development and the unique team dynamics it creates.
• A track record of elevating strong PM and design ICs into more strategic, senior thinkers—not just promoting people, but genuinely shaping their craft.

Compensation

Compensation is standardized based on roles and responsibilities. This ensures equitable compensation and responsible stewardship of our resources. As such, we do not negotiate compensation offers.

The compensation for this role is: $201,250.

What we offer

• Effective, extremely thoughtful colleagues, working together on a mission that matters
• 90% medical, dental, and vision insurance coverage for you and your dependents
• Flexible time off, including 20 days of PTO, 3 days of paid volunteering time, and 13 paid holidays per year
• 401(k) retirement plan with 5% company match and no vesting period
• 12 weeks of paid parental leave
• Complimentary One Medical membership (availability based on location)
• Partnership with Carrot to provide employees with inclusive fertility and family-forming benefits, as well as a small but growing number of hormonal health and gender-affirming care benefits
• Monthly ClassPass credit for personal wellness
• Free mental health support via Talkspace
• Well-located offices in Oakland and Manhattan, with the flexibility to work remotely or go into either office as you choose
• An annual company offsite and other ad-hoc gatherings
• All the exhilarating challenges and stretch opportunities of a tech startup, combined with the mission-driven heart of a nonprofit

More about Recidiviz

Recidiviz was an all-volunteer effort until early 2019, when Clementine, Andrew, and Joshua founded the organization. Since then, we've built an A-team of software engineers, designers, product managers and domain experts, from companies like Google, Apple, Dropbox, Opower, and Sidewalk Labs. Recidiviz was part of Y-Combinator's 2019 class and has received support from some of the most respected philanthropists and foundations, including Ford Foundation, Mackenzie Scott, Schmidt Futures, Arnold Ventures, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and the Mozilla Foundation.

Today, Recidiviz works with (and earns revenue from) over 20 state partners — big and small, red and blue — and touches over 46% of the country's incarcerated population. We have helped to get hundreds of thousands of people out of the criminal justice system, safely and equitably.

To learn more about how we do what we do, check out our 2025 Year in Review, read some press coverage, or watch our TED Talk.

An important note

Lasting change is always built on diversity. Recidiviz recruits, employs, trains, compensates and promotes regardless of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, disability, age, veteran status, ancestry, citizenship, marital status, gender identity and all protected status as required by applicable law. We consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. If you have a special need that requires accommodation, please let us know in your application. Even if you don't think you meet all the criteria above, drop your resume, and we'll take a look — you might be great for another role or another time!