Design Director

SRS Acquiom • Denver, CO

1d • Hybrid

About The Position

The Design Director is a strategic leader responsible for shaping and elevating the design function across our organization. This role combines visionary thinking with hands-on craft and leadership, driving innovation and ensuring a cohesive, high-quality user experience throughout our product suite. The Design Director leads a team of talented designers, providing mentorship and fostering career growth, while also setting the standard for design excellence and consistency. This role will also be an individual contributor, designing experience for our Platform and Innovation. As the owner of our design system and user research processes, the Design Director collaborates closely with product, engineering, and stakeholder teams to align priorities, optimize workflows, and maintain brand integrity. This role is pivotal in developing cross-app personas, advancing our platform vision, and ensuring that design decisions are informed by user insights and industry trends. The Design Director is empowered to make final decisions on design direction, streamline processes, and enable rapid and effective execution. With a focus on client experience, continuous improvement, and strategic planning, the Design Director ensures that our design practice not only meets but exceeds business objectives, delivering intuitive and impactful experiences for our users. This is our first hire for design leadership at SRS Acquiom, so we are looking for an experienced Design Director to join our Product team. The ideal candidate has broad experience in design, leadership, and management. This is a hybrid position based in Denver, CO. The salary range for this position is between $195k and $210k, depending on experience level.

Requirements

• 8+ years of design experience, including 3+ of those years in management and leadership
• Experience leading and managing a team of product designers
• Demonstrates executive presence, confidently representing design at the leadership level
• Portfolio demonstrating excellent visual design
• Professional and adept presence with clients and leading user research
• SaaS product experience
• Mastery of UX/UI tools such as Figma, Sketch, and Adobe Creative Suite
• Proficiency in HTML/CSS for prototyping
• Strong understanding of design patterns, systems, and accessibility/UX best practices
• Familiarity with Git or version control systems and CSS/SCSS frameworks
• Ability to work independently and collaboratively
• Strong feedback and communication skills
• Leadership in user research and usability testing, with hands-on design system contribution and mentorship

Nice To Haves

• Self-motivated and proactive
• Naturally curious and always striving to create a positive impact and experience
• Strategic thinker and problem-solver
• Collaborative and team-oriented
• Clear and concise communicator
• Empathetic and user-focused
• Friendly and approachable
• High integrity and attention to detail
• Process-minded and efficient
• Ownership mindset and urgency

Responsibilities

• Manage, lead, coach, and mentor the design team, fostering career growth and providing design-specific guidance.
• Lead by example and through empathetic coaching, setting the pace on deadlines, deliverables, and group participation.
• Own the standard of user experience and satisfaction across all applications, ensuring consistency and usability while enabling product managers to focus on value creation.
• Monitor Design industry developments and emerging technologies, shaping our design strategy to implement best practices and evolve with innovations like AI.
• Champions design as a strategic driver of software team growth, effectively articulating its value and influencing organizational priorities.
• Set the overall design direction for the company, ensuring alignment with leadership and company mission.
• Own design process and vision: Maintain and improve the overall design process and vision for the design team to ensure that high-quality designs are delivered in a timely manner while adhering to internal design systems.
• Maintain deep product and business knowledge, understanding, and unlocking how products should fit together within our Platform to drive business goals.
• Serve as a resource for designers on personas, segments, and product context, connecting them to the right resources and enabling strategic thinking.
• Own the standard of user experience and satisfaction across all applications, ensuring consistency, quality, and usability while enabling product managers to focus on value creation.
• Oversee persona maintenance and ensure designers have access to user feedback and industry insights.
• Define and align research strategies with product and business goals, leading user research initiatives and synthesizing insights to drive product decisions.
• Improve workflow navigation and user success using Pendo product usage data to get insights and leverage Pendo guides to enhance UX.
• Advocate for the pursuit of new data and metrics to inform design decisions and measure impact on product outcomes.
• Mentor other members of the Product team in crafting unbiased interview scripts, leading interviews, and compiling findings into concise presentations for key stakeholders and the executive team.
• Continuously evolve processes to optimize design function and outcomes, creating scalable workflows that reduce redundancy and improve collaboration.
• Own the design system, ensuring consistency of approach across products.
• Review and approve design system improvements or additions, ensuring scalability and alignment with department goals.
• Establish and enforce standards for file organization, documentation, and version control across the design org.
• Lead design reviews and ensure alignment with brand and project objectives. Serve as the tiebreaker on design decisions, ensuring clarity and speed in execution.
• Collaborate with product directors to align designer bandwidth and priorities.
• Coordinate with engineering on UI standards, design QA processes, and the quality of mock-ups for implementation.
• Partner with marketing to maintain brand consistency and push the brand’s visual design forward.
• Develop deep relationships with stakeholders, ensuring their needs are heard and met through clear, concise updates and effective collaboration.
• Develop relationships with clients and users, creating trust, understanding pain points, and build useful and usable experiences that meet their needs and drive towards our strategic platform vision

Benefits

• Day‑one coverage: medical, dental, and vision plans so you’re protected from the start
• A 401(k) with a 4% company match to keep your future on track
• Discretionary time off - take the time you need, when you need it
• Employer‑paid life insurance, with the option to add extra coverage for peace of mind
• Employee Assistance Programs for confidential support when life gets complicated
• Discounted pet insurance (because furry family members count, too)
• A fitness credit to back your health and wellness goals
• Pre‑tax plans for dependent care, transportation, and flexible spending

What This Job Offers

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