Creative Design Manager

Plaid • San Francisco, CA

4d

About The Position

Plaid's Creative Design team is responsible for bringing the Plaid brand to life across all channels and surfaces. This team, which includes brand designers, production designers, and presentation designers, collaborates closely with Product Design within a unified design organization that reports directly to the CEO. The creative studio within this team drives visual consistency, quality, and velocity across marketing channels, owning creative execution for performance marketing, paid social, webinars, tech talks, and organic content. They partner closely with Growth Marketing, PMM, Comms, and external agencies to achieve these goals. The Creative Design Manager for the Creative Studio team will coach and uplevel the craft of the design team, lead creative direction and execution across marketing surfaces, and manage the pipeline and prioritization of marketing requests. They will also build and implement scalable systems for Figma templates and production tooling, manage external agencies and contractors, and partner with Brand and Growth Marketing leads on campaigns. A key aspect of the role is upholding and evolving Plaid's refreshed brand across all marketing channels and contributing to the overall creative direction and culture of the organization.

Requirements

• 9+ years of professional design experience in brand, visual, or marketing design
• 5+ years managing brand designers, production designers, or both
• A portfolio showing consistent, high-craft execution across multi-channel marketing work
• Strong understanding of brand and performance marketing creative (paid social, display, email, landing pages)
• Proven ability to work as a player/coach — giving direct feedback while staying close to the craft
• Experience building scalable systems, templates, and self-serve creative tooling
• Experience briefing, managing, and scaling work with external agencies and contractors
• Proficiency with modern efficiency tools — Claude, Figma Buzz, Jitter, Runway, Magnific, or similar
• Strong communication skills and a track record of effective cross-functional partnership

Nice To Haves

• Background in B2B SaaS or fintech
• Experience directing/prompting animation, illustration, video
• Comfort interpreting creative performance data and translating it into better work

Responsibilities

• Coach, review, and uplevel craft across a team of brand designers, production designers, and presentation designers
• Lead creative direction and execution across all marketing surfaces — paid, social, webinars, and campaigns
• Work with Design Ops to manage pipeline and prioritization of incoming marketing requests
• Build and implement scalable systems of Figma templates, production tooling, and creative standards
• Manage external agencies and contractors across production design, creative, and presentation
• Partner with Brand and Growth Marketing leads to concept, plan, and ship campaigns end-to-end
• Uphold Plaid's refreshed brand across all marketing channels and find the right moments to help it evolve
• Contribute to Creative Design leadership — shaping process, culture, and creative direction across the org

Benefits

• Plaid is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and values diversity at our company. We do not discriminate based on race, color, national origin, ethnicity, religion or religious belief, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, sexual stereotypes, age, military or veteran status, disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. We also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state, and local laws. Plaid is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities in our recruiting process. If you need any assistance with your application or interviews due to a disability, please let us know at [email protected]. Please review our Candidate Privacy Notice here .

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed