Director, Product Design

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Director, Product Design based in the Canada .

This is a hands-on design leadership role with responsibility for shaping an AI-powered enterprise product from end to end.

You’ll lead the evolution of a unified platform spanning graphical, conversational, and voice experiences.

The role combines approximately 80% hands-on product design with 20% practice leadership, making it ideal for a design leader who still loves the craft.

You’ll define information architecture, establish scalable design-system governance, and raise the quality bar across the customer experience.

You’ll work closely with Product, Engineering, Sales, Delivery, Solutions, executives, and customers in an engineering- and sales-led environment.

A major part of the opportunity is building design influence where the practice has previously been under-resourced and driving meaningful organizational change.

As the design practice grows, you’ll have the opportunity to expand its scope, team, and strategic influence.

Accountabilities:

• Own the end-to-end customer experience across the full product journey, from initial sales interactions and implementation through AI-powered customer conversations and operational analytics.
• Define the information architecture for a converging product platform, establishing clear objects, terminology, navigation, and relationships across previously separate product experiences.
• Own the architecture and governance of the design system, including patterns, documented decisions, contribution models, component standards, and collaboration with engineering.
• Expand the influence of design beyond the immediate design team by partnering with Product, Delivery, Solutions Engineering, and other customer-facing teams to establish consistent, high-quality experiences.
• Build and lead rapid prototype-and-validation cycles, engaging internal users, contact center operators, customers, and other stakeholders to turn research and feedback into actionable design decisions.
• Bring product design, conversation design, and research together into a cohesive practice, defining how these disciplines collaborate and share methodologies.
• Identify high-value customer and product opportunities independently, establish priorities, build alignment, and advocate for design investments that can materially improve business and user outcomes.
• Lead design critiques, establish direction and quality standards, provide constructive feedback, develop team capabilities, and contribute to hiring and practice development.
• Communicate effectively with executives, customers, product leaders, engineers, and designers, using strong storytelling and evidence to influence decisions and drive change.
• Champion AI-native design practices, using emerging AI tools thoughtfully to accelerate workflows while maintaining high standards for product quality, usability, and human-centered design.

Requirements

• 10+ years of product design experience, with a strong foundation in interaction design, HCI, or a related discipline.
• Experience leading or growing designers, whether through formal people management or demonstrated leadership and mentorship responsibilities.
• Proven experience owning design for enterprise, operational, or complex B2B products with multiple customer touchpoints.
• Strong systems and journey-thinking skills, with the ability to design experiences that extend beyond traditional graphical interfaces into conversations, voice, workflows, handoffs, and other touchpoints.
• Demonstrated ability to influence organizational change, particularly within established teams or environments where design has previously had limited resources or influence.
• Strong product thinking and business judgment, including the ability to connect customer insights and design decisions to product strategy and business outcomes.
• Experience governing a design system, including contribution models, documentation, deprecation, standards, and cross-functional adoption.
• Ability to independently identify problems, establish priorities, make recommendations, and drive initiatives from opportunity through execution.
• Strong communication, facilitation, storytelling, critique, and executive presence, with the ability to influence without relying solely on formal authority.
• Hands-on proficiency with Figma, particularly components, variants, libraries, variables, and design tokens.
• Comfort working between design and code, with familiarity with tools such as Storybook, shadcn/ui, Tailwind, Cursor, or Claude Code considered valuable.
• Experience designing AI or conversational products, particularly non-deterministic experiences requiring thoughtful approaches to trust, failure states, correction, and recovery, is preferred.
• Experience with operational or contact center software, building a design practice, or leading designers across multiple disciplines such as product, conversation, content, or research is a plus.
• Located within a U.S. or Canadian time zone and able to collaborate effectively in a distributed environment.

Benefits

• Remote-first work environment designed around flexibility, trust, and autonomy.
• Company-wide offsites and smaller team gatherings to create meaningful opportunities for in-person connection.
• Technology and learning stipend covering areas such as conferences, books, and courses.
• Comprehensive health and wellness benefits.
• Flexible vacation time.
• Paid sabbatical after five years.
• Wellness stipend supporting physical and mental well-being.
• Competitive compensation aligned with the scope and impact of the role.
• Equity participation, providing an opportunity to share in the value created by a high-growth AI company.
• Inclusive and collaborative culture built around ownership, humility, constructive feedback, and self-reflection.