Product Design Team Lead

About Peppr

Peppr gives independent restaurants the POS and ordering solutions built for how they actually work. We focus on solving real problems owners face every day, from managing the dinner rush to driving more sales through digital channels. Running a restaurant is hard enough without fighting your technology. That’s why we handle setup and launch, so restaurants can focus on their guests and grow their business faster. Join us on our journey to transform the restaurant experience, one transaction at a time.

About the role

We are looking for a Founding Design Lead to join our early-stage Restaurant SaaS startup and build the foundation of our global design function. You will lead a cross-border design team and personally drive key product design work for our SaaS suite, which includes POS, Online Ordering, Website, Loyalty and AI-driven tools for restaurants. You will define our design system, workflows, and culture from the ground up, while collaborating closely with product and engineering teams in both the U.S. and China.

This role requires strong product sense, hands-on design skills, and the ability to communicate fluently in both English and Chinese Mandarin across time zones and cultures.

What You’ll Do

• Lead & Build: Recruit, mentor, and manage a high-performing cross-border design team (U.S. & China).

• Design System & Process: Establish the company’s design principles, system, and workflow standards to support rapid iteration and scale, actively follow up on design results, regularly review and evaluate, and continuously improve design efficiency and quality.

• Hands-on Product Design: Personally own and deliver end-to-end design for key product experiences.

• Cross-functional Collaboration: Work closely with product, engineering, and marketing teams to ensure user-centric and consistent design outcomes.

• User Research & Localization: Engage directly with U.S. restaurant operators, offer insight into the restaurant business and American catering merchants, analyzing and proposing effective design solutions based on merchant needs and business data.

Basic requirements

• 6+ years of experience in product design, with systematic knowledge of design theory

• 2+ years of experience in team management or design leadership roles, proven ability to lead small teams and still contribute hands-on design work.

• Strong portfolio demonstrating B2B SaaS product design.

• Proficiency in Figma and modern design collaboration tools.

• Excellent communication and collaboration skills in both English and Chinese.

• Based in or willing to relocate to the Los Angeles area.

Preferred qualifications

• Experience establishing a design system or brand foundation from scratch.

• Professional experience or thorough understanding of the restaurant/hospitality industry

• Experience with AI or conversational interface design (voice/chat).

• Experience utilizing user interviews, desktop research, etc to conduct user research and to perform analysis to deeply understand the needs of the US hospitality industry and merchants

• Have in-depth research on the operating behavior of mobile and PC users, be able to use design to guide user behavior, have exceptional experience perception capabilities, and continuously optimize product experience

• Strong communication and project management skills