Director of Design

Ellevation•Boston, MA

3d•Hybrid

About The Position

Ellevation Education is seeking a Director of Design to lead their design function and contribute to their goal of becoming the premier ELD solution. This role reports to the Chief Product & Technology Officer and is part of the R&D Leadership team, working as an equal partner with Product and Engineering. The Director of Design will be instrumental in evolving the company's offerings from point solutions into an integrated ELD platform, focusing on defining the user experience. The role involves leading a team of four product designers (with potential for two more hires) across four product domains, with a key challenge being the integration of compliance, instruction, and assessment tools into unified workflows. The ideal candidate will possess strategic thinking, the ability to scale design craft, influence peers, and demonstrate strong recruiting and people leadership skills, with an emphasis on building belonging and delivering through others.

Requirements

8+ years managing Product Designers.
Track record of building resilient teams, growing talent, and developing leaders.
Clear communicator who can articulate design decisions to non-design audiences.
Ability to earn trust through framing trade-offs.
Raises the bar on craft, gives honest feedback, pairs with designers on hard problems, and sets a clear standard for what good looks like.
Bias to action: tests ideas, iterates on what ships, doesn't get stuck debating.
AI-fluent: has a developed perspective on AI in design craft, builds LLM-assisted workflows, teaches others.
Designs with empathy for users unlike themselves and brings diverse perspectives into the process.

Nice To Haves

Enterprise SaaS builder background, with experience delivering for both key decision-makers and end-users.
Personally goes to the source on user research and brings the team along.
Thinks in systems and creates coherent experiences across workflows rather than isolated features.
Loves to win with great people.
Builds influence across functions, shares credit broadly, brings out the best in others.

Responsibilities

Lead the design function at Ellevation Education.
Serve on the R&D Leadership team as an equal partner with Product and Engineering.
Define the user experience for an integrated ELD platform.
Lead and mentor a team of product designers.
Connect compliance, instruction, and assessment tools into unified workflows.
Recruit and develop design talent.
Build belonging within the design team and deliver through others.
Ensure designers participate meaningfully in upstream shaping and downstream delivery.
Set and pursue team goals for craft, systems, and AI fluency.
Calibrate on performance and resource allocation across Product, Engineering, and Design.
Expand the team's capacity through hiring and mentorship.
Define healthy collaboration patterns from shaping through delivery.
Drive adoption of Backpack as a competitive advantage.
Conduct user research and bring the team along.
Create coherent experiences across workflows.
Build influence across functions and share credit broadly.