Associate Design Director (Contract)

Instrument

16d • $78 - $96

About The Position

Instrument is a digitally native design and technology company built to help brands unlock their full potential. Since 2005, our team of makers, thinkers, and storytellers has partnered with leading brands like Google, Nike, Uber, ŌURA, and Eventbrite to craft digital experiences that create impact and drive results.

Unlike traditional agencies, we don’t just design—we build. Our work lives at the intersection of taste and technology, powered by curiosity, thoughtful curation, and a commitment to delivering the most fitting solution for every brief. We bring this to life across three core offerings: Brand, Marketing, and Product.

As a member of our freelance network, you’ll collaborate with our teams to bring bold ideas to life—whether launching new brands, building digital products, or shaping experiences that move people. We welcome collaborators from all backgrounds and experiences who share our curiosity, creativity, and care for craft.

We believe great work comes from diverse perspectives and shared purpose. If you’re passionate about learning, experimenting, and making work that matters, we’d love to hear from you.

We’re looking for an exceptional Associate Design Director to support a leading consumer product experience—helping to evolve and reimagine a large-scale mobile app ecosystem. This role sits at the intersection of product thinking, design systems, and craft, shaping intuitive, scalable experiences that drive consistency while enabling innovation across the platform.
You’ll be embedded with the client's multi-disciplinary team, bringing strong UX perspective and systems thinking to complex, high-visibility work.

Requirements

• Proven experience as an Associate Design Director / Lead Product Designer on complex digital products
• Strong background in product design and UX, with systems-level thinking
• Deep experience building and scaling multi-brand design systems
• Expertise in Figma, including:
• Libraries and components
• Versioning + branching workflows
• Experience with design tokens managed externally (must-have)
• Familiarity with Tokens Studio (must-have)
• Strong understanding of how design systems translate into engineering and implementation
• Ability to work cross-functionally and influence at both strategic and executional levels

Nice To Haves

• Experience generating documentation using AI-assisted workflows (e.g., Figma MCP integrations)
• Exposure to engineering workflows or system implementation (without needing to directly code)

Responsibilities

• Partner with product, design, and engineering teams to evolve and scale a multi-brand design system
• Define and drive system-level thinking across the product experience—balancing consistency with flexibility
• Translate product and UX needs into scalable, reusable components and patterns
• Lead design direction with a strong POV on usability, interaction, and visual craft
• Collaborate in Figma using advanced workflows (libraries, branching, versioning)
• Contribute to or generate clear documentation, potentially leveraging AI-assisted workflows (e.g., Figma MCP + coding assistants)
• Ensure design outputs are production-ready and aligned with system standards

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director
• Education Level: No Education Listed
• Number of Employees: 101-250 employees