Director, Interior Design

MN Custom Homes • Bellevue, WA

5d • Onsite

About The Position

The Interior Design Leader is responsible for elevating design excellence across the organization. This role ensures all interior designs achieve high levels of aesthetic quality, technical accuracy, customer desirability, and business viability. The position leads the creation and stewardship of scalable selection systems, including capsule collections, kits-of-parts, guardrails, and standards, that integrate buyer insights, field feedback, and market expectations. The Interior Design Leader partners closely with the Architecture Design Leader and cross-functional teams to create beautiful, livable, profitable homes aligned with company strategy.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in interior design or a related field required.
• NCIDQ certification preferred.
• 10+ years of residential interior design experience, with a focus on luxury single-family homes.
• 5+ years leading interior design teams in the residential construction or homebuilding industry.
• Strong command of: Interior design principles and luxury residential aesthetics Material and finish specifications Housing code compliance (local & national) Construction documentation and trade coordination Procurement and sourcing processes
• Proficiency with design visualization and selection software.
• Proven experience influencing executives and leading cross-functional initiatives.
• Strong understanding of cost drivers and value-engineering techniques.
• Ability to develop a 1 to 3-year functional strategy aligned to company objectives and translate organizational priorities into clear roadmaps, OKRs, and team-level performance expectations.
• Skilled in leading significant change initiatives using structured change management practices, including communication planning, milestone tracking, and feedback loops that keep teams informed and engaged through transitions.
• Demonstrated ability to identify, develop, and sponsor emerging leaders within the function; builds coaching capacity in direct-report managers so leadership capability compounds across team layers.
• Ability to break down silos by partnering across departments on shared objectives, and to understand how functional decisions ripple across the broader organization before acting.
• Skilled in setting the emotional tone for the organization, creating conditions where honest feedback flows in both directions, and responding to team health issues before they become systemic.
• Ability to own functional budgets, OKRs, and operational metrics with full accountability; proactively communicates status and surfaces risks to executive leadership without waiting to be asked.
• Knowledge of industry trends, competitive landscape, and emerging technologies; uses data to improve functional performance and positions the team to build capabilities needed 3–5 years out.
• Ability to position themselves as a resource rather than a decision-maker for everything; delegates broadly, invests time in developing the leadership team, and creates organizational conditions (structure, culture, resources) that let others do their best work.

Nice To Haves

• Master’s degree preferred.
• Deep understanding of luxury residential design, including how interior design, architecture, procurement, and construction interrelate.
• Experience working directly with homeowners to solicit input and feedback and address key needs and expectations.
• Strong interior design portfolio demonstrating aesthetic judgment, technical capability, and systems thinking.
• Experience developing reusable design assets, standards, or scalable selection libraries.
• Ability to balance feasibility, desirability, and viability in all design decisions.
• Ability to provided elevated aesthetic, experiential, and technical design quality across all projects.
• Ability to deliver an improved customer satisfaction, lovability, and alignment with luxury buyer expectations.
• Demonstrates a consistent use and adoption of reusable design assets, modules, and standards.
• Able to create a positive impact on margin performance through efficient design systems, use of technology and AI, and smarter design decisions.
• Able to create a reduction in plan defects and design-related rework through systemized design standards.
• Strong understanding of residential construction, critical path order, building codes, and trade coordination.
• Familiarity with Revit or BIM-based workflows; experience supporting Materials & Details migration a plus.
• Hands-on experience working with homeowners a plus.
• Excellent communication and storytelling skills; able to articulate design intent clearly.
• Ability to lead through influence with a low-ego, coaching-first approach.
• Demonstrates a strong executive presence.

Responsibilities

• Translates product strategy into interior design standards, capsule collections, kits-of-parts, and reusable selection systems.
• Defines and refines distinct capsule identities with clear stylistic parameters, ensuring collections remain differentiated, cohesive, and aligned with target buyer demographics.
• Provides creative direction that translates conceptual vision into actionable, executable design standards and minimizes downstream reinterpretation.
• Establishes clear design rationale, material strategies, and architectural alignment early in the process to support stronger decision-making and reduce rework.
• Grounds design decisions in local market and buyer-based reasoning rather than one-off preferences.
• Ensures capsule collections maintain integrity over time by evaluating reselections, vendor substitutions, and field-driven changes against original design intent.
• Builds a coherent, repeatable MN Interior Design Language.
• Delivers luxury-grade, cohesive interiors that translate the exterior expression into interior spaces and resonate with buyers.
• Ensures homes are holistically designed: interiors, architecture, materials, lighting, and spatial planning working together as a cohesive experience that meets target buyers’ lifestyle needs.
• Drives elevated, timeless design solutions rooted in strong architectural thinking, restraint, proportion, and materiality rather than trend-chasing.
• Maintains high standards for detailing, composition, and execution so design intent translates successfully from concept through construction.
• Designs research questions and engage buyers and agents to test new ideas and validate key hypotheses.
• Uses buyer insights, market comps, and lifestyle data to guide design direction.
• Partners with Procurement to strategically source capsule collections.
• Improves margins via standardization and value engineering.
• Ensures designs meet customer needs while conforming to project budgets.
• Leads “Design-to-Value” work to determine high-impact features.
• Implements AI-enabled workflows across selection tools, visualization, and digital libraries.
• Drives simplification and automation of ID deliverables, including migration to Revit and related technologies, to improve coordination, speed, accuracy, consistency, scalability, and reduce downstream errors.
• Partners with Architecture, Procurement, Construction, Land Acquisition, Sales, Home Experience, and Marketing teams to align design goals.
• Champions clear ownership and accountability structures across cross-functional teams.
• Represents design intent in design reviews, cross-functional decisions, and executive discussions.
• Ensures alignment between design systems, operational constraints, and customer expectations.
• Builds a culture of creative partnership where design cohesion is a shared outcome, not a downstream hand-off.
• Leads a team of designers (approximately 5-8) with a mentorship mindset: actively developing and inspiring designers through coaching, technical guidance, collaborative critique, and strategic involvement rather than task delegation.
• Fosters an environment where designers contribute ideas, build category ownership, and strengthen cross-functional confidence with Architecture, Procurement, Construction, Land Acquisition, Sales, Home Experience, and Marketing.
• Provides clear, timely, and actionable feedback that helps designers grow both creatively and technically.
• Builds trust through transparency, consistency, and clear communication, ensuring teams understand priorities, expectations, and the reasoning behind key design decisions.
• Establishes clear expectations, accountability structures, workflows, and development pathways.
• Identifies and helps recruit strong design talent aligned with organizational needs.
• Participates in all employee lifecycle activities including but not limited to: interviewing, onboarding, training, mentoring, conducting weekly 1-on-l's, just-in-time coaching, disciplinary actions, performing regular performance reviews, and offboarding.

Benefits

• 100% covered employee premiums for medical and dental self-coverage
• 100% employer-paid life insurance
• 100 % employer-paid long term disability insurance
• Paid medical and family leave
• Critical illness insurance
• 401(K) with generous company match, no vesting schedule, and access to professional financial advisors
• Lifestyle reimbursement account
• 20 days of PTO & 9 holidays
• New iPhone for your personal and business use
• Free onsite parking
• Company paid events
• Complimentary snacks & beverages

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director