Design Director

McAfee, LLC • San Jose, CA

6d

About The Position

We are seeking a Design Director to lead the design vertical within Brand Creative Services. This is a player-coach role: you’ll create standout brand work while setting direction, raising craft, and coaching designers to deliver consistently excellent creative across campaigns, lifecycle, and always-on channels. Reporting to the Senior Director, Creative (Design, Concept & Copy), you will partner closely with Copy, Creative Production, and Brand Strategy to translate our brand promise into modern, distinctive, high-performing creative as we evolve and scale our refreshed brand identity. You will be central to operationalizing our design system, educating internal teams and agency partners on guidelines, ensuring best-in-class application across touchpoints, and helping the organization move faster through smarter workflows, including responsible adoption of AI-enabled design tools for rapid iteration and testing. You’re equally comfortable pushing craft-forward brand work as you are designing against performance insights, using data to refine and improve creative effectiveness without compromising brand integrity.

Requirements

• 10+ years of experience creating and leading design work across brand and marketing, with a strong foundation in craft and concept.
• Both in Agencies and Brand side and experience being a people leader.
• Proven ability to set and uphold a high bar for design quality across campaigns and always-on creative, including digital, social, paid media, and lifecycle channels.
• Excellence without ego, highly collaborative, able to work across disciplines and backgrounds, and confident presenting design rationale to senior stakeholders.
• Strong design systems and brand identity experience—able to translate strategy into scalable frameworks and clear guidelines.
• Demonstrated experience mentoring designers and leading through feedback, critique, and hands-on collaboration in a player-coach capacity.
• Growth mindset and curiosity—eager to embrace new tools and platforms (including AI-enabled workflows) to increase speed, iteration, and creative exploration.
• Experience collaborating with agencies and freelancers to flex resources based on campaign cycles; comfortable reviewing work for brand consistency and craft.
• A portfolio is required and should demonstrate strong brand systems thinking and end-end campaign design across brand and performance channels. Portfolios will be reviewed for both strength in creativity/craft and effectiveness.

Responsibilities

• Lead design concepting and execution across key brand initiatives—integrated campaigns, lifecycle marketing, product storytelling, social, web, and partner channels, delivering work that is modern, distinctive, and unmistakably McAfee.
• Champion and evolve the New McAfee design system and raise craft for the design vertical, developing strong visual systems, layouts, typography, illustration, and brand expression that scale across touchpoints.
• Partner closely with Copy, Brand Strategy, Creative Production, Growth/Lifecycle Marketing, and Product Marketing to translate briefs and insights into clear design approaches and compelling creative.
• Coach, mentor, and review work from designers, providing clear, actionable feedback, creating growth plans, and fostering a culture of excellence, collaboration, and inclusive creativity.
• Operationalize and steward our refreshed brand identity and design system—educating internal teams and agency partners, ensuring consistent application, and evolving guidelines as the brand scales.
• Balance brand-building craft with performance-minded design—using testing and channel insights (e.g., paid social learnings, lifecycle metrics) to iterate and improve creative effectiveness without compromising brand integrity.
• Partner with Creative Production to scope work, align timelines, and ensure deliverables are feasible, on-brand, and on time, supporting a healthy, scalable creative workflow.
• Champion responsible adoption of AI-enabled design tools to accelerate iteration, explore more creative routes, and improve efficiency—while maintaining quality, originality, and brand safety.
• Collaborate with external agencies and freelancers as needed, reviewing work, aligning to guidelines, and ensuring seamless integration with in-house creative.
• Be a company leader for Design by presenting and bringing along E Staff all the way up to the CMO and CEO.
• Be a people leader with more junior designers reporting into you.

Benefits

• Bonus Program
• 401k Retirement
• Medical, Dental, Vision, Basic Life, Short Term Disability and Long-Term Disability Coverage
• Paid Parental Leave
• Support and Community Involvement
• 14 Paid Company Holidays
• Unlimited Paid Time Off for Exempt Employees
• 96 Hours of Sick Time and 120 Hours of Vacation for Non-Exempt Employees Accrued Each Year

What This Job Offers

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