Staff Product Designer in Glasgow

Chemify is revolutionising chemistry. We are creating a future where the synthesis of previously unimaginable molecules, drugs, and materials is instantly accessible. By combining AI, robotics, and the world’s largest continually expanding database of chemical programs, we are accelerating chemical discovery to improve quality of life and extend the reach of humanity.

The role involves being our first dedicated product designer to join the engineering team at Chemify, someone who thrives on complexity and is energised by making technical systems more approachable. The product surface spans AI-driven molecular design tools, robotic manufacturing workflows, scientific data systems, and operational dashboards. Your job is to make it feel inevitable: coherent, fast, and designed around how scientists actually think.

This is not a role where you will polish buttons on a mature product. You will design how humans interact with chemistry automation, working alongside software engineers, synthetic chemists, robotics engineers, and drug discovery scientists. If you enjoy evolving complex systems into highly optimised, automated experiences and are energised by working closely with scientists using cutting‑edge technologies, we would love to welcome you to our team.

Key responsibilities:

• Simplify a complex platform. You will bring coherence: a unified design language, consistent interaction patterns, and an information architecture that scales.
• Design for process, not just data. You will design interfaces that make the shift from managing parameters and results to managing intent and overseeing workflow automation feel natural, trustworthy, and in control.
• Work at the intersection of everything. Any given week might involve prototyping an AI drug design workflow, simplifying a graph visualisation, or mapping data flows with our platform architects.
• Build the design practice. You will establish how design works at Chemify: research methods, design systems, prototyping workflows, and how design integrates with our engineering and science teams.
• Contribute to team‑wide initiatives including design reviews, architecture discussions, and process improvements.

What you will bring:

• 7+ years designing complex software products, ideally B2B SaaS with technical users.
• A track record of working embedded with engineers and domain experts, earning trust quickly through listening, sharp questions, and designs that demonstrate you understood the strategic outcomes required.
• The ability to elegantly handle complexity, thinking in states, transitions, and edge cases, not just happy paths.
• Experience evolving early‑stage complexity into scalable clarity.
• The ability to own the full design process end to end, from user research and discovery through to prototyping and production.
• Comfort with ambiguity and fast iterations, prioritising learning velocity over perfection.
• High EQ: a natural team player who can improve best practices.
• A background in scientific software, lab automation, chemistry or AI drug discovery is a differentiator for us.
• Experience as the first or founding designer at a scaling company.
• Familiarity with design systems at scale.

Impact: Your design decisions affect which molecules get synthesised, how efficiently our facility operates, and whether a drug candidate moves forward. The feedback loop between your work and physical reality is unusually short.
Autonomy: Reporting directly to the VP Software Engineering, you will have real influence over how design operates across the entire platform, from day one.
Ambition: We are Series B, scaling rapidly, tackling problems at the frontier of robotics, AI, and chemistry. You will be shaping a product category that barely exists yet.