Staff Designer, Rapid Prototyping

Thunderbird is an open-source communication platform used by more than 20 million people around the world.

The product is developed by MZLA Technologies, a nonprofit-owned company within the Mozilla family. Its team builds privacy-focused communication and productivity tools designed to give users greater control over their data.

Thunderbird is now expanding beyond its established email application into new products across desktop, mobile, paid services and AI-powered experiences.

About the Role

Thunderbird is hiring a Staff Designer, Rapid Prototyping to help shape Thunderbolt, its emerging open-source AI client.

Thunderbolt is being developed for organizations that want greater control over their AI infrastructure, data and choice of models.

This isn't a conventional Product Designer position centered around producing mockups and handing them over to engineering.

You'll move directly between product thinking, interaction design, functional prototyping and front-end implementation, turning early concepts and user needs into working experiences.

You'll also help define how users interact with AI-powered capabilities including chat, search, research, automation and knowledge retrieval.

Turn your designs into working products with AI

This role requires designers who can move beyond mockups and prototype directly in code using AI-assisted development tools. Designlab's Vibe Coding Camp is designed to help designers turn ideas into functional digital experiences with AI-powered coding workflows.

Explore Vibe Coding Camp (affiliate link)

What You'll Do

Prototype Directly in the Product

You'll rapidly transform ideas into working experiences rather than limiting exploration to static design artifacts.

You'll:

• Build functional prototypes directly within the Thunderbolt codebase.
• Turn early concepts and ambiguous requirements into usable workflows.
• Explore product ideas through rapid experimentation.
• Determine whether prototypes should be discarded, refined or developed into production features.
• Contribute production-quality front-end code when appropriate.
• Use prototypes to help teams make better product decisions.

The role requires judgment around when to move quickly and when an experiment needs the additional quality, maintainability and robustness expected from production software.

Design AI-Powered Experiences

You'll help define interaction patterns for several emerging AI use cases, including:

• AI chat
• Search
• Research tools
• Workflow automation
• Knowledge retrieval
• Enterprise AI experiences

A major challenge will be making these systems understandable and trustworthy.

You'll consider how users experience AI behavior, including transparency, permissions, context, user control and human oversight.

AI-Assisted Development

AI isn't simply part of the Thunderbolt product — it's also part of the way you'll build it.

You'll use AI-assisted development tools to accelerate prototyping and implementation while maintaining high standards around:

• Usability
• Accessibility
• Security
• Maintainability
• Product quality

The goal isn't to generate code as quickly as possible. It's to use AI to shorten the distance between product idea → prototype → validated experience → production.

Front-End Engineering

Strong technical implementation skills are essential.

Thunderbird is looking for experience with:

• Modern JavaScript and/or TypeScript.
• Component-based front-end frameworks.
• Building directly inside application codebases.
• Functional prototypes.
• Production front-end development.
• Reusable UI components.
• Shared interface patterns.
• Design-system elements.

You'll work closely with engineers, but you'll also be expected to implement parts of the experience yourself.

Product & Interaction Design

Despite the technical nature of the position, strong design judgment remains fundamental.

You'll apply expertise across:

• Interaction Design
• UX Design
• Information Architecture
• Workflow Design
• Accessibility
• Usability
• Product polish

You'll also bring a user-centered perspective into technical discussions, particularly when product decisions affect trust, AI behavior, security or workflow clarity.

Enterprise & Responsible AI

Thunderbolt is moving toward enterprise use cases, meaning the experience must account for requirements beyond everyday consumer AI products.

You'll consider areas such as:

• Data sensitivity
• User permissions
• Administrative visibility
• Auditability
• Security
• Privacy
• AI transparency
• User control

Practical awareness of responsible AI, privacy and regulatory considerations is expected. Relevant frameworks may include the EU AI Act, Cyber Resilience Act and HIPAA, among others.

What They're Looking For

• 10+ years of relevant professional experience.
• Background in Design Engineering, UX Engineering, Front-End Engineering or technically focused Product Design.
• Strong JavaScript and/or TypeScript skills.
• Experience with component-based frameworks.
• Ability to build prototypes or production features directly in a codebase.
• Strong Product and Interaction Design judgment.
• Experience designing or building AI-enabled products.
• Experience with AI chat, search, agents, automation or similar workflows.
• Ability to turn ambiguous ideas into working product experiences.
• Strong understanding of usability and accessibility.
• Technical or product leadership experience.
• Excellent cross-functional communication.
• Understanding of AI, privacy and security considerations.
• Portfolio, case studies or shipped work demonstrating design-to-code execution.

Nice to Have

Additional relevant experience includes:

• Enterprise software.
• Developer tools.
• Productivity or collaboration products.
• Self-hosted software.
• Design Systems.
• Component libraries.
• Reusable front-end architecture.
• User Research.
• Usability testing.
• Product discovery.
• Product instrumentation.
• Rapid experimentation.
• Open-source development environments.

What Success Looks Like

You'll help move Thunderbolt from early concepts into usable, production-ready AI experiences.

Successful work will result in functional prototypes that clarify product direction, reusable patterns that accelerate development, and AI-powered workflows that users can more easily understand and trust.

At Staff level, you'll also influence what should be built, what requires further experimentation and what shouldn't progress at all.

Compensation

$155,000–$175,000 CAD

Thunderbird notes that candidates with strong skills but somewhat less than the stated experience requirement may also be considered, with level and compensation adjusted accordingly.

Benefits

Benefits include:

• Fully remote work.
• Flexible schedules.
• Annual bonus program.
• Monthly remote-work stipend.
• Professional-development budget.
• Company laptop.
• 24 days of annual PTO.
• Birthday leave.
• Year-end company shutdown.
• 9 wellbeing days.
• Quarterly wellbeing stipend.
• Health, dental and vision coverage.
• RRSP contributions.
• Paid parental and sick leave.