Scan window: August 3–9, 2026. Act Now entries expire by August 15.
This Week's Allocation
Three move types. Your daily three should draw from all of them.
Compete — a posted role with a candidate pool assembling. What you control is speed and positioning precision.
Resolve — an open question about timing or pipeline stage is blocking your next step. The message is how you find out.
Shape — no posted role. Something moved in the org, and there is a reason to be known before a req exists.
This week is Resolve-heavy, and that is not a weak week. At Director+ and Staff level, postings at these companies routinely sit in states you cannot price from outside: intake, quietly filled through referral, or paused. A direct question to a named person costs you one message and returns better information than another hour of scanning.
The specifics: Freshworks has a CPTO starting tomorrow, and that Shape window is days. Adobe's Marketing Ideation role has a pipeline-stage question only a direct message will answer. HackerOne and Babylist carry unresolved questions forward from last week's queue. Headway is the clean Compete signal: five days old, direct pillar match, named contact who has publicly asked people to reach out.
Send the Freshworks message Monday. Nothing else in this queue decays as fast.
Recommended daily mix: 1 Compete + 1 Resolve + 1 Shape. Once Freshworks is out, swap in a second Resolve.
Act Now
Headway — Staff Product Designer, Provider CRM | Compete
What changed: Staff Product Designer, Provider CRM posted roughly five days ago. Jake Poses, VP of Product, publicly invited people to contact him about design openings. His org has hired 25 people in four months, 11 of them designers.
Why it matters: A healthcare provider CRM at a company scaling its design function fast. Thermo Fisher is your direct proof here: pharma, regulated, $20M+ margin, 100% partner adoption. TinyFish supplies current agentic AI credibility for the provider-intelligence surfaces a CRM like this will need.
Confidence: High. Public posting, public invitation, named executive route. Window: Days 5–12. Hot. Move this week.
Move:
- Who: Jake Poses, VP of Product, about 17 months in role, reports to the CEO. His team states its bar as "craft and velocity are both our love language." Roland Tiangco, Director of Provider Product Design, sits closer to the mandate but has no confirmed public LinkedIn URL.
- Warm path: Cold. Poses's post is an open door; treat it as one.
- Opening message: "Jake — your team's framing of craft and velocity as co-requirements is what caught my attention on the Provider CRM role. I led the design of Thermo Fisher's mySupply (pharma supply chain, $20M+ margin, 100% partner adoption in 12 months) and am currently Head of Product at TinyFish, building enterprise AI agents in production. My portfolio at junochen.com includes agentic AI work — Brand Pulse, Carrier IQ — the kind of provider-facing intelligence surfaces a CRM like this would need. Would welcome a conversation about what you're building for providers."
- What not to say: Skip Alibaba and enterprise scale. Headway is buying craft velocity, not organizational architecture.
Tier Playbook: Read growth-stage platform AND healthcare/regulated playbooks before outreach. The company is growth-stage; the domain is healthcare provider workflows. Poses's team screens for speed and craft. The interview will test whether you understand high-consequence provider decisions.
Freshworks — CPTO Day 1 | Shape
New addition to scan set. Freshworks is not on your target list and does not clear Watch on the company rubric; post-IPO stage and thin equity upside pull the score to roughly 7. This is a relationship contact, not a pipeline entry. The value is Shiroor and the timing.
What changed: Ryan Manning starts as CPTO tomorrow, August 10, reporting to CEO Dennis Woodside. The announcement covers product, technology, and engineering. Design is not mentioned.
Why it matters: Kedar Shiroor, SVP of Design and Research, leads design at Freshworks today. Whether design reports into Manning's org or stays independent is being decided this month. Shiroor's public framing of AI design as "shaping behavior and judgment" aligns closely with your Trust Is the New Interface essay.
Confidence: Moderate. CPTO start date confirmed. Design reporting line unconfirmed from public sources. Window: Days 1–7 of Manning's tenure. Two weeks out, the org-chart lines are drawn.
Move:
- Who: Kedar Shiroor, SVP of Design and Research. Joined 2025. Stated priority: AI that is "trustworthy and useful from the first interaction."
- Warm path: Cold.
- Opening message: "Kedar — your framing of AI design as shaping behavior and judgment rather than arranging screens describes a problem I've been working through publicly. I published 'Trust Is the New Interface' in June on the five handoffs where agentic systems earn or lose user trust, and I'm currently building enterprise AI agents in production at TinyFish. My Agentic Labs portfolio at junochen.com shows what this looks like in practice — Brand Pulse, Carrier IQ, Retail Velocity. I'd welcome a conversation about where Freshworks' design challenges are headed as the AI product matures."
- What not to say: Do not mention Manning's appointment or speculate about reporting lines. Shiroor knows more about that than you do.
Tier Playbook: Read enterprise platform playbook before outreach.
Adobe — Staff Product Designer, Marketing Ideation (R169358) | Resolve
What changed: Guliz Sicotte, Senior Director of Design for Experience Cloud, posted publicly that her team is hiring a Staff Product Designer to build AI-native experiences for marketers. Her team is behind Project Get Savvy, where marketers assemble AI expert and audience-simulation agents for ideation and planning.
Why it matters: Get Savvy is the closest published analog to Brand Pulse: marketing teams working alongside AI agents, with the design problem sitting in making agent reasoning visible. What the message resolves is whether the pipeline has moved past intake. Sicotte's post confirms hiring authority; the Workday posting gives you nothing about stage.
Confidence: Moderate. The "my team" phrasing confirms authority. Pipeline stage unconfirmed. Window: Unknown, which is the reason this is a Resolve rather than a Compete. Send this week.
Move:
- Who: Guliz Sicotte, Senior Director of Design, Experience Cloud. She has said publicly that she values tailored applications and depth of experience over generic submissions.
- Warm path: Cold.
- Opening message: "Guliz — your team's work on Get Savvy (marketers assembling AI agents for ideation and planning) is the closest thing I've seen to the design problem I've been solving at Agentic Labs. Brand Pulse at junochen.com is a real-time brand sentiment agent for marketing teams, and I'm currently building enterprise AI agents in production at TinyFish. Is the Staff Product Designer search for Marketing Ideation still active? I'd love to share how the trust and transparency challenges in agentic marketing tools play out when you move from prototype to production."
- What not to say: Leave out Alibaba and org-building. Sicotte is hiring a maker for an AI-native product team.
Tier Playbook: Read enterprise platform playbook before outreach.
Act Soon
HackerOne — Director, AI Product Design | Resolve
What changed: The Director, AI Product Design posting carries forward from last cycle. Lifecycle stage is still the open question from last week.
Why it matters: Reports to CPO Nidhi Aggarwal, about 14 months in seat. She describes Hai as evolving into "coordinated agentic teammates" that earn trust. Your Trust Is the New Interface essay was built around that problem.
Confidence: Moderate. Aggarwal confirmed as the report-to. Posting age and pipeline stage unconfirmed. Window: The posting has been live long enough that a direct stage question is the right instrument. Send by Thursday.
Move:
- Who: Nidhi Aggarwal, CPO, about 14 months. Co-authored "Finding Fast, Fixing Slow" on the gap between AI-driven discovery and human remediation speed.
- Warm path: Cold.
- Opening message: "Nidhi — your framing of Hai as agentic teammates that earn trust is the design problem I addressed in 'Trust Is the New Interface' (June 2026, junochen.com) — the five handoffs where agent systems build or break user confidence. I have three agentic AI case studies live at junochen.com and am currently building enterprise AI agents at TinyFish. Is the Director, AI Product Design search still in early stages? I'd value a conversation about how you're thinking about design leadership for Hai's next phase."
- What not to say: Don't position yourself as manager-track. The role reports to the CPO, and Aggarwal is buying someone who will own AI product craft directly.
Tier Playbook: Read AI-native playbook before outreach.
Gusto — Head of Design, Unified Service Platform | Compete
What changed: Last week this sat third because there was no one to write to. Two named routes have since surfaced.
Why it matters: CDO Amy Thibodeau leads an 80+ person design org and published AI principles holding that businesses stay in control of consequential actions and that AI involvement stays visible. Rebecca Gimenez, Head of Service Design, owns journey-level work across onboarding, support, and handoffs. Neither is confirmed as the hiring manager for this req.
Confidence: Moderate. Named routes exist. Hiring manager identity still unconfirmed. Window: Posting is about 18 days old and crosses into the Watch-age band on August 13. Send by end of week.
Move:
- Who: Amy Thibodeau, CDO. Her published AI principles center on keeping businesses in control of consequential automated decisions.
- Warm path: Cold.
- Opening message: "Amy — your AI principles for Gusto (keeping businesses in control of consequential actions, making AI involvement visible) describe the design constraints I've worked within at Thermo Fisher (pharma supply chain, $20M+ margin, 100% adoption) and American Red Cross (disaster relief disbursement, $847K, 6 systems to 1). I'm currently building enterprise AI agents at TinyFish and have agentic AI case studies at junochen.com. Is the Head of Design role for the Unified Service Platform still active?"
- What not to say: Don't lead with Agentic Labs. Thibodeau's published priorities are trust and control in high-consequence automated decisions, so lead with the regulated and high-stakes proof.
Tier Playbook: Read growth-stage platform playbook before outreach.
Babylist — Director + Staff AI Builder | Resolve
What changed: The VP/Head of Product Design and Research, named in both postings as the report-to, remains unidentified in public sources. Emily Levada recruited for that leadership role seven months ago and has publicly championed AI-native building at Babylist. She is the best available route, not the confirmed hiring manager.
Why it matters: The AI Builder mandate (prototypes, code, production-quality interfaces) matches your TinyFish velocity and the Agentic Labs proof. Without knowing who holds the VP title, you are routing through a proxy.
Confidence: Low-moderate. Levada is a plausible route. Hiring manager unresolved. Window: Roles still posted. The Resolve question: who holds the VP title, and are these roles live?
Move:
- Who: Emily Levada, senior product leader, previously recruiting for the design leadership role these positions report to.
- Warm path: Cold.
- Opening message: "Emily — your encouragement of AI-native building at Babylist caught my attention alongside the Director and Staff AI Builder roles. I shipped 3 AI products in 3 months as Head of Product at TinyFish and have three agentic AI case studies at junochen.com (Brand Pulse, Carrier IQ, Retail Velocity). Are those AI Builder roles reporting to the design leader you helped recruit earlier this year? I'd love to learn what the AI Builder mandate looks like in practice."
Tier Playbook: Read growth-stage platform playbook before outreach. Flag as Battlecard candidate.
Watch
Capital One — Three Director mandates. Card Servicing (day 18) is mechanically hot, but the AI exposure sits behind platform governance. Accelerator (day 26) and Concierge (day 33) are aging. Escalates on a design-leadership cluster signal. Tier archetype: Enterprise platform.
Giga — Staff Product Designer, day 25, $240–260K. Enterprise voice AI agents with direct agent-interface exposure. Series A ($61M claimed) carries execution risk. Escalates if a second signal, funding or an executive hire, confirms trajectory. Tier archetype: AI-native. Flag as Battlecard candidate.
Amplitude — Head of Product Design, day 33. $317–476K total target cash. Public company, so the equity window is limited. Escalates on a repost or a hiring-manager post. Tier archetype: Enterprise platform.
Handshake — Staff Product Designer, day 10, mechanically hot. Network growth mandate, so AI exposure is workflow-level rather than core product. Comp unresolved. Escalates if a band surfaces above floor. Tier archetype: Growth-stage platform.
HappyRobot — $150M Series C announced August 4, day 5, hot funding signal. Design roles are stale at 43+ days. Escalates when new design reqs post against the fresh capital. Tier archetype: AI-native. Flag as Battlecard candidate.
Vanta — Head of Design, live. Competing publication dates (July 6 vs. June 23) put it at Watch or Ignore depending on which is right. Escalates on a repost or a hiring-manager statement confirming the search is active. Tier archetype: Growth-stage platform.
Window Status Changes
Upgraded: Gusto, Watch to Act Soon. Thibodeau and Gimenez are named routes; last week there were none.
Downgraded: Ambience, Watch to Deprioritize. Crossed the 43-day posting threshold.
Expiring: Headway's Act Now window closes around August 17. Gusto crosses into the Watch-age band August 13. Adobe's Resolve question should go out before the posting ages into staleness.
Deprioritize
Ambience — Past 43 days. Pause. Revisit only if the role reposts with new language.
Suno — Production iOS is a hard gate your published portfolio does not clear. Remove from the active queue.
Stripe Risk (London) — 40 days, London-primary. Pause. Revisit if a US-based variant surfaces.
- Headway's provider journey seams: Three distinct mandates (CRM, acquisition, client management) posted within 17 hours suggest Headway is decomposing the provider journey into separately owned product surfaces, which creates a coordination question worth asking Poses about in any conversation.
- Adobe's Get Savvy prototype: Adobe Research published a detailed account of Project Get Savvy showing marketers assembling AI expert and audience-simulation agents — study this before any Sicotte conversation because it reveals what the team has already built and where the design gaps live.
- Freshworks design-org reporting: Manning's CPTO announcement explicitly names product, engineering, and technology but omits design — whether Shiroor's org reports into Manning or stays independent will determine whether this Shape window produces a future opportunity or a dead end.
- HappyRobot's post-Series-C plans: The $150M round at a $1.2B valuation is five days old but the existing design-engineering roles are stale — watch for new requisitions in the next two weeks that would signal design investment against the fresh capital.