Principal Designer

Help make the world more hospitable. The hospitality industry is uniquely human, and it deserves technology that’s just as inspiring as the people behind it. At Mews, we’re transforming the industry with a platform that helps hotels run smarter, move faster and create better guest experiences. You’ll work with smart, curious people who care deeply about what they do. You’ll have autonomy and the trust to make good decisions and move quickly. And you’ll enjoy a real sense of purpose as you see the impact of what we’re building.

If you’re motivated by ownership, curiosity and meaningful impact, and are driven to deliver consistent high performance, you’ll feel at home here.

About the role: It’s impossible to capture every nuance of a role – especially at a rapidly growing company like Mews – but if we had to distil it into a job description, it would be this:

The design choices made at the system level right now will shape what every product tribe at Mews can build for years. This role owns that layer: the design system, cross-tribe agents and skills, research engines, and the architectural standards that make coherent design possible at scale across a division moving fast in multiple directions simultaneously.

Most Principal Designers sit inside a tribe and own a product surface. This one sits above all of them and owns the foundation they run on. The opportunity is to build something that outlasts any single project or initiative, at a point in the hospitality industry where the decisions made now genuinely matter.

What you would do:

• Build and maintain the design foundation across the division: the design system, cross-tribe agents and skills, research and discovery engines, design architecture, guidelines, and standards.
• Hold the multi-year view — write clearly about what design across the division will need that it doesn't yet have, and drive toward it with enough conviction to see it through.
• Build AI-powered agents, skills, and tooling that encode design judgment into reusable systems rather than one-off artifacts tied to a single project.
• Work with Staff Designers so that tribe-level design substrates compose into a coherent whole rather than a collection of parallel efforts.
• Partner with the VP on the most complex cross-tribe design problems — the ones that don't fit inside any single tribe's scope.
• Contribute craft feedback and calibration input into Director and Staff Designer performance reviews.

AI Fluency Level 4: In this role, that means you've shipped AI-powered systems, not just integrated AI into your own workflow. You'll be responsible for building the agentic design tooling and AI skills that the entire design division runs on — agents that encode judgment, research engines that scale discovery, and systems that other designers use without necessarily knowing you built them. You understand the underlying components well enough to make real architectural decisions about them.

For more information on AI fluency at Mews, please refer to "AI Fluency at Mews: A Comprehensive Guide for Candidates" on Confluence.

What you would bring:

• A body of shipped, high-quality design work and demonstrable taste — senior enough to be credible across multiple tribes without needing to prove it.
• Multi-year thinking and the ability to encode it into systems and agents that outlast any single initiative.
• Genuine satisfaction in cross-tribe substrate work — the problems that don't carry a team's name on them.
• AI Fluency Level 4 or the equivalent: you've built AI-powered products or systems, understand the components well enough to make architectural decisions about them, and have shipped something where AI is a core part of what it does.
• Ability to operate as a multiplier for a VP without the title or formal authority that typically comes with that level of influence.

Nice to have:

• Experience maintaining a design system used across multiple product teams at significant scale.
• Familiarity with agentic design tooling or building AI skills and research engines.

Pay Transparency at Mews: Salary ranges are provided in good faith and reflect current market conditions and internal pay structures. Final compensation may be adjusted based on funding, budget constraints, or exceptional candidate qualifications, but will remain within reasonable proximity to the stated range. This salary disclosure is provided in compliance with applicable pay transparency legislation. We are committed to equal pay practices and prohibit salary history inquiries during our recruitment process.

If the location you're applying from wasn't originally advertised for this role, salary range information is available upon request at any point during the application/interview process - your recruiter will be able to help.

What’s in it for you? Our success is powered by our incredible people, supported by benefits that help them thrive.

Global benefits: No matter where you’re based, you’ll enjoy:

• Unlimited paid holiday (yes, really).
• Participation in our company share program.
• Paid parental leave (6 months fully paid for primary caregivers, 2 months for secondary, available after one year of service).
• An annual Learning budget of 300 (and more for high performers) to support your development.
• Monthly "EDGE" time to Explore, Develop, Grow, and Elevate yourself.
• A work from anywhere policy with flexibility to work abroad for a few weeks each year.
• Relocation options, available after one year.
• Flexible, hybrid working options.
• A home office setup budget to make your workspace your own and a monthly work-from-home allowance.
• Claude tokens, so you can automate workflows and build smarter, more efficient ways of working.

Local benefits: You'll receive additional benefits that vary by location, from healthcare and retirement plans to team events, socials and other perks. Ask us about it during your interview process.

Life at Mews: We’re an equal opportunities employer. We value teams that reflect the diversity of the customers and communities we serve. Different perspectives make better ideas, stronger products and a more welcoming company.

We also believe transparency is important when deciding if you're the right fit. Mews is an ambitious, high-pressure environment of continuous learning and high standards. Success here requires resilience, adaptability and a willingness to solve difficult problems.

A few things that define how we work:

• High autonomy means high responsibility. People are expected to take ownership and drive outcomes. There isn’t a detailed playbook for everything, and that’s part of what makes the work challenging – and rewarding.
• Change is constant. We’re growing quickly and adapting as we scale. Teams, processes and priorities continue to evolve, and only people who stay curious and agile will thrive.
• We’re remote-first, not relationship-free. Flexibility is core to how we work, but strong relationships still matter. Our teams are global, so we need expert collaborators and communicators to help us move forward together.
• AI is an integral part of our processes. It’s not here to steal people’s jobs, but to amplify efficiency and productivity. We’re motivated to proactively use the technology to seek out better ways of working and share our findings with the rest of the company.

If there's anything we can do to support you during the application process, let us know. We don't discriminate on the basis of race, religion, colour, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability or any other protected characteristic.

One final thing: don't hold back. If you don't meet 100% of the criteria in this job description but you're certain you could make a big impact, apply. Everyone should have equal access to opportunities, and we're committed to providing an inclusive experience.

If Mews sounds like the kind of environment where you'd thrive, we'd love to hear from you.