Design Director

Spherical

14d•$165,000 - $175,000•Remote

About The Position

The Design Director leads design work across Spherical's projects, with primary focus on the Living Infrastructure Field Kit. You work at the intersection of strategic design and regenerative principles, guiding participatory design processes that center community knowledge and create space for collaborative intelligence. You are a hands-on leader who partners with cross-functional teams and specialist contractors to create intuitive, community-centered experiences. You balance strategic vision with present needs, innovation with accessibility, and team development with project delivery. You see things through from conception to delivery. We are invested in hiring candidates from diverse backgrounds and understand that not all candidates will meet every qualification listed. If you feel that you meet many of the qualifications, we encourage you to apply.

Requirements

7+ years leading UX, product, and/or experience design work in complex systems
3+ years leading with demonstrated organization-level strategic thinking and team development capacity
Experience with participatory design methods and cross-functional collaboration
Experience designing interfaces for environmental or spatial data products used in advocacy, civic engagement, or community decision-making
Experience creating accessible interfaces that serve diverse human abilities and contexts
Experience with client and partner relationships, including presenting design work to funders, community organizations, and non-design stakeholders
Experience managing external contractors and translating specialized content into interface design
Strong project management skills with ability to define scopes, timelines, budgets, and maintain stakeholder alignment
Healthy balance of curiosity and discernment in the use of new AI-connected tools, and a demonstrated capacity to experiment, explore, and provide recommendations on new workflows

Nice To Haves

Track record of navigating ambiguity and designing for long-term change in complex environments
Experience in game design, speculative futures, or narrative world-building
Experience bridging multiple disciplines and ways of knowing
Familiarity with living systems thinking or regenerative design principles

Responsibilities

Design experiences that are intuitive, meaningful, and honor diverse perspectives and cultural contexts
Translate complex environmental and systems data into interfaces that make information visible and actionable for community advocacy
Maintain and evolve the UI kit and design system with engineering, balancing consistency with flexibility for new platform needs
Monitor and address design quality issues and visual inconsistencies across the platform
Lead collaborative design processes that build collective intelligence and ownership
Coordinate with specialist contractors across information design, data science, game design, and other disciplines
Pursue craft with intention, attending to both functional and evocative details
Lead the organization and synthesis insights from community workshops and stakeholder sessions
Support participatory design processes that center community knowledge and lived experience
Document and synthesize user insights, experience opportunities, and interface needs
Test solutions to improve usability for different stakeholders
Engage stakeholders as collaborators, embedding community knowledge and lived experience
Present design strategy and progress to partners and community stakeholders
Guide project planning within real-world constraints and resource realities
Measure design impact to ensure solutions support human and ecological wellbeing
Define and track design success metrics
Anticipate potential direct and indirect effects of collective design decisions to steer the work toward desired outcomes
Provide functional direction, management, and expertise for your team
Build a collaborative team culture aligned with studio values and regenerative design principles
Support team members' growth in strategic thinking and leadership capacity
Help shape and tend to studio culture through honest communication, engaged caring, and accountability
Balance workload and coordinate across functions
Manage hiring, staffing, and budgets for internal team and external contractors
Define project scopes and manage consultant partnerships
Lead design for the Living Infrastructure Field Kit as primary focus
Contribute to Spherical Lab initiatives, including coding experiments, data visualizations, and immersive productions, as opportunities arise
Bridge disciplinary perspectives across projects, integrating design with research, development, and production work