About Hilo by Aktiia
High blood pressure is the world’s most common disease, causing 18M deaths each year. At Hilo by Aktiia, our vision is a world where no lives are lost or damaged from the effects of high blood pressure. Our mission is to make this a reality by developing tech to help people control their blood pressure.
We are a venture-backed scale-up company, having raised over $96M from investors in Europe and the United States. Our technology - rooted in 18 years of research at the Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology (CSEM) - is the world’s only medically accurate, continuous blood pressure monitor that is cuffless in daily life in the consumer space. Validated through extensive clinical trials and CE Marked as a Class IIa medical device, our solution is now available in 12 countries. We are a hybrid/remote-first company, with Headquarters in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, united by our passion for impact and innovation.
Role Overview
We are looking for a hands-on Head of Design to define the craft, taste, and quality bar for Hilo across our wearable device, mobile app, web experience, and wider customer journey.
This is not a role for someone who has moved away from the tools. We need a senior design leader who is still highly fluent in Figma and the latest design tools including AI workflows, comfortable shaping critical product work directly, and able to raise the standard of design through both execution and leadership.
Hilo is a wearable health product, so the role requires a designer with a genuine love of physical products, hardware experience, materials, tactility, and the relationship between device and software. You do not need to be an industrial designer, but must have a strong point of view on what great hardware product experience looks and feels like - even if that is your own very subjective view.
We are looking for a taste-maker: someone with excellent judgement, strong opinions, and the ability to define what “good” looks like across the organisation — from app flows and design systems to device behaviour, onboarding, calibration, motion, typography, hardware interaction, and customer trust.
Core Responsibilities1. Hands-On Product Design
You will remain close to the craft and actively contribute to the most important product experience work.
You will:
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Work hands-on in Figma to shape, refine, and improve key product flows.
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Design and critique mobile app, web, onboarding, device setup, calibration, subscription, insights, and retention experiences.
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Translate complex health and device behaviours into simple, clear, trustworthy user experiences.
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Partner closely with product and engineering to move from rough problem spaces to polished, buildable design.
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Raise the quality of interaction design, visual design, motion, typography, layout, hierarchy, and detail across the product.
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Ensure design decisions are not only attractive, but usable, coherent, scalable, and grounded in user needs.
2. Wearable Device & Hardware Experience Taste
You will help define how Hilo feels as a physical product, not just as an app.
You will:
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Bring a strong appreciation for wearable devices, hardware, materials, form factor, tactility, comfort, and daily use.
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Shape the relationship between hardware and software: pairing, calibration, charging, LED/device states, battery, firmware updates, errors, sync, and device management.
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Contribute a clear point of view on what makes a health wearable feel premium, trustworthy, calm, and useful.
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Partner with hardware, firmware, product, brand, and engineering teams to ensure the physical and digital experience feels joined-up.
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Help Hilo avoid becoming “just an app attached to a device” by treating the whole system as the product.
You do not need to be an industrial designer, but you do need to care deeply about industrial design.
3. Design Systems & Product Craft
You will own and evolve the design system that allows Hilo to move faster without losing quality.
You will:
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Build, maintain, and improve scalable Figma libraries, components, patterns, and documentation.
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Establish clear standards for UI, interaction, motion, accessibility, content hierarchy, and responsive behaviour.
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Ensure our design system supports both speed and craft - evolving it from our current refactoring program.
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Improve design handoff quality for engineering.
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Bring best practice in modern Figma workflows, including variables, components, prototyping, libraries, branching/versioning where appropriate, and efficient design operations.
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Use AI tools intelligently to accelerate ideation, exploration, prototyping, research synthesis, and design iteration.
4. Taste-Making & Quality Bar
You will be the person who helps the company understand what good design looks like.
You will:
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Set a high bar for design quality across the organisation.
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Give clear, constructive, high-judgement feedback to designers and cross-functional teams.
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Make design principles tangible through examples, critique, references, and clear decision-making.
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Bring a strong point of view on what Hilo should and should not feel like.
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Help the company develop better taste around digital product, hardware experience, interaction quality, and customer touchpoints.
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Protect the product from fragmented, inconsistent, or low-quality experiences.
This role requires someone with conviction, but not ego. You should be able to explain your taste, defend quality, and bring people with you.
5. Design Leadership
You will lead the design team and help build a stronger design culture inside Hilo - and do this with full autonomy.
You will:
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Manage, coach, and raise the quality of the product design team.
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Create clear rituals for critique, review, design QA, exploration, and handoff.
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Help designers improve their craft, judgement, speed, and confidence.
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Work closely with Product, Engineering, Brand, Growth, Clinical, Data, and Leadership teams.
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Ensure design is involved early enough to shape product direction, not just execute requirements.
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Help create alignment across teams when product, brand, hardware, and commercial needs intersect.
Requirements
Background & ExperienceEssential Experience-
Significant experience in senior product design or design leadership roles.
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Strong hands-on product design capability, especially in mobile app and digital product experiences.
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Expert-level fluency in Figma.
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Proven experience building or evolving design systems.
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Experience leading designers while remaining close to the work.
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Strong understanding of interaction design, visual design, usability, accessibility, and product craft.
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Experience working in fast-moving product environments such as startups, scale-ups, healthtech, consumer technology, wearables, connected devices, or subscription products.
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Experience of localisation platforms such as Phrase, Phrase TMS, strings, keys.
Essential Mindset-
You are a hands-on design leader, not a design executive who has moved away from the tools.
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You have exceptional taste and a strong opinion about what good design looks and feels like.
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You care about both digital and physical product experiences.
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You love wearable devices, consumer hardware, and the details that make products feel considered.
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You are comfortable challenging weak design decisions and raising the bar.
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You can balance speed, quality, pragmatism, and ambition.
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You are excited by AI, modern design workflows, and the use of new tools to accelerate creative exploration.
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You can operate strategically, but you are happiest when strategy becomes visible in the actual product.
Non-Negotiables
The successful candidate must:
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Be genuinely hands-on in Figma.
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Have strong product design craft, not just management experience.
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Have a deep appreciation for wearable devices and hardware experience.
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Be a true taste-maker with strong design judgement.
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Be able to build and evolve design systems.
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Be up to date with modern Figma best practice, design / dev hand off and localisation platforms such as Phrase.
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Be actively exploring how AI can accelerate ideation, prototyping, design exploration, and team productivity.
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Be able to lead designers while also improving the actual work directly.
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Care about the full customer experience, from first impression to daily use, not just screens.
What Success Looks Like
Within the first 6–12 months:
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Hilo’s product experience feels more coherent, polished, and premium.
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You’re successfully helped deliver our current design and UX refactor, helping two senior product designers deliver our new design system and app experience - you’ll hit the ground running
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The app, wearable device, web experience, and customer touchpoints feel like one joined-up system.
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The design system is stronger, cleaner, and actively used by design and engineering.
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Figma files, design handoff, and design QA are significantly improved.
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The design team is moving faster with a clearer quality bar.
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Product, engineering, brand, growth, and leadership teams have a clearer shared understanding of what good design means at Hilo.
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Hardware and software experiences feel more connected, especially around setup, pairing, calibration, sync, battery, device management, and trust.
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Design becomes a visible differentiator for Hilo, not just a delivery function.
What Makes You A Great Fit
At Hilo by Aktiia, our values guide everything we do:
Move the Needle-
You focus on what truly drives impact for our customers and company.
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You use data and clarity to guide your decisions and prioritize what matters most.
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You push boundaries with bold, thoughtful innovation and hold yourself accountable for results.
Move Fast, Learn, Refine-
You work with urgency and purpose, balancing speed with high quality.
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You treat mistakes as learning opportunities, experiment thoughtfully, and iterate quickly.
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You take ownership, act hands-on, and always look for smarter, faster ways to get things done - including leveraging AI and new tools.
Team First-
You put the team above individual interests, building trust through openness and respect.
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You encourage healthy debate, challenge directly while caring personally, and stand behind team decisions.
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You act as an owner, stepping in when needed and doing what’s necessary for the team’s success.
Benefits
Why Join Us?
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Hilo by Aktiia is becoming one of the most important med-tech companies, and you can be part of this exciting story
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Work on a mission that matters: transforming cardiovascular health at global scale
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Be part of a high-impact, fast-growing, and venture-backed scale-up company
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Collaborate with a diverse, passionate, and talented team
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Competitive compensation and other benefits (depending on location)
