Associate Director, Product Design

Embark Veterinary • Boston, MA

73d • $180,000 - $210,000

About The Position

We are looking for an Associate Director, Design to drive strategy, execution, and leadership as both a player and coach. You'll shape how design empowers pet parents to turn genetic insights into everyday actions, while fostering community and long-term engagement. This role requires strong strategic thinking, creative facilitation, and the ability to synthesize complex research into clear product direction. You'll guide our design team, influence cross-company initiatives, and champion partnerships with brand, marketing, and e-commerce to oversee our design system and product ecosystem.

Requirements

• 7 years of professional design experience, with a minimum of 2 years in a leadership role.
• Track record of leading strategic discovery and facilitating collaborative problem-solving with cross-functional teams.
• A portfolio demonstrating the ability to design and ship engaging consumer experiences that deliver measurable behavioral impact.
• Experience in growth-focused product design and leading habit-forming product strategies.
• Strong communication skills, able to present design solutions and inspire confidence among executives and non-design stakeholders.
• Experience hiring, structuring, or scaling a design team.
• Familiarity with freemium or trial-to-paid monetization models and balancing engagement vs. premium value.
• Demonstrated capacity to quickly learn and design for emerging technologies, such as AI/LLM.

Nice To Haves

• Health, wellness, or science-based consumer product experience.
• DTC subscription, e-commerce, or freemium SaaS background.
• Prior startup experience.

Responsibilities

• Define and champion Embark's design strategy for personalized pet care experiences.
• Lead strategic discovery and user research to understand pain points and validate opportunities.
• Facilitate cross-functional workshops to align Product, Science, Marketing, and Engineering around user-centered solutions.
• Synthesize research findings, user feedback, and scientific insights into actionable product opportunities that drive behavioral change, engagement and community.
• Govern the design system across product, marketing, and brand touchpoints.
• Ensure cohesive user experience, brand cohesion and design quality across our product portfolio, app and web surfaces.
• Act as a player-coach: contributing hands-on design work while mentoring and guiding your team.
• Design and prototype AI/LLM-powered experiences, crafting a variety of UIs and interaction patterns.
• Work closely with Product Management and Engineering to translate designs into scalable, performant implementations.
• Partner with Product and Engineering to track key outcomes (activation, engagement, retention) and iteratively refine solutions.
• Connect insights to product roadmap decisions and business outcomes through ongoing leadership collaboration.
• Mentor, coach, and grow design talent-setting a culture of curiosity, craft excellence, and collaboration.
• Build trusted partnerships with leaders across Product, Engineering, Marketing, and Science.

Benefits

• Flexible vacation policy - take the time you need, when you need it.
• Paid parental leave - plus paw-ternity leave for new pet parents!
• Every other Friday off in the summer - enjoy those long weekends.
• Subsidized pet insurance - because our pets are family.
• Big-company benefits with a startup feel - including a 401k match, semi-annual bonus, commuter benefits, and premium healthcare.
• Competitive salaries and stock options - be an owner in what we're building.
• New MacBook Pros or Windows devices - the tools you need to succeed.
• Continuing education support - conferences, learning resources, and career growth opportunities.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Industry: Ambulatory Health Care Services
• Number of Employees: 51-100 employees