About the Role 

Ritchie Bros. is building the world’s most trusted marketplace for buying and selling heavy equipment and trucks. We’re in a pivotal chapter — consolidating multiple platforms into a unified buying experience that spans live auction, buy now, and make offer, all under one roof. We call it One Marketplace. 

We’re looking for a Staff Product Designer to lead the top and mid-funnel buyer experience — the surfaces where buyers discover inventory, evaluate options, and decide what’s worth pursuing. This is a strategy-forward, craft-driven role. You’ll shape how millions of buyers find what they’re looking for, set the direction for your pod, and bring the kind of systems thinking that connects search and discovery to the broader marketplace. 

In this role, you’ll directly mentor and lead one mid-level designer, helping grow their craft while driving the work forward together. 

What You’ll Do 

• Own design across top and mid-funnel buyer surfaces — homepage, search, browse, and bidding 

• Lead discovery work: define the problem space, identify opportunity, and shape product direction before solutions are formed 

• Drive research programs grounded in real buyer behavior — usability studies, generative research, survey design — and synthesize findings into product strategy 

• Produce work of exceptional clarity and craft: flows, prototypes, and specs that are precise enough to build from and compelling enough to align around 

• Partner with product, engineering, data, and customer insights as a co-owner of outcomes, not a downstream executor 

• Model and elevate craft standards across the team — in critique, in feedback, in the quality of your own output 

• Lead and mentor one mid-level designer: set direction, give feedback, and create space for them to grow 

• Contribute to the design system and advocate for discovery-pattern consistency across the platform 

What We’re Looking For 

Interaction Design 

You design search and browse flows that handle enormous inventory complexity without overwhelming the buyer. You think in states, edge cases, and transitions. 

Visual Design & Craft 

Your work looks intentional. Typography, hierarchy, density, and layout are tools you use deliberately — especially in high-information environments like search results and item cards. 

Qualitative Research 

You know how to get in front of buyers, ask the right questions, and turn what you hear into something a product team can act on. 

Systems Thinking 

You see how discovery surfaces connect to mid-funnel and transaction. You design components and patterns with reuse and platform scale in mind. 

Information Architecture 

You bring clarity to complex inventory structures — multiple asset types, transaction models, and listing formats — so buyers always know what they’re looking at and how to narrow it down. 

Visual Storytelling 

You can translate ambiguous discovery problems into narratives that move stakeholders to a decision. 

Presenting & Design Critique 

You run critique that sharpens work. You present to senior leadership without losing nuance. You create safety for junior designers to share early. 

Cross-functional Collaboration 

You’re a trusted partner to PMs and engineers. You bring design into the problem definition, not just the solution. 

Experience & Qualifications 

• 8+ years of product design experience, with at least 2 years operating at a staff or lead level 

• Portfolio demonstrating end-to-end ownership of search, discovery, or browse experiences at scale 

• Experience leading or mentoring other designers 

• Hands-on qualitative research experience — usability testing, generative research, survey design, or similar 

• Comfort operating in ambiguity at the problem-definition stage 

• Experience with design systems — contributing to, challenging, and knowing when to work within versus outside them 

• Background in marketplace, e-commerce, or catalog-heavy products strongly preferred 

• Proficiency in Figma; comfort prototyping at varying levels of fidelity 

Why This Role 

This isn’t a maintenance role. The discovery experience is being reimagined from the ground up. The team is small enough that your fingerprints will be on everything, and senior enough that you’ll have real peers to push your thinking.  

Ritchie Bros. is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.