Director, Product Design - AI in Experience Design

Capital One•McLean, VA

12d•$230,400 - $286,900•Onsite

About The Position

The Experience Design (XD) team at Capital One is at the forefront of enriching our customers’ digital and physical experiences, and we are passionate about creating memorable, meaningful product experiences that build the Capital One brand with humanity and drive business advantage and innovation. We champion a thriving environment of collaboration, authenticity and healthy critique, in which we honor diversity of thought, create a culture of belonging, and elevate one another. If you’re a creative innovator who embraces an environment where you can experiment, learn, and change banking for good, we’d love to hear from you. Role Expectations The role will work closely with our XD top of house team, including the SVP, Chief Design Officer and their Senior Leadership Team. This Director will be responsible for building and owning the roadmaps across AI tooling, AI-enabled design process evolution, and AI-centric talent upskilling across Design at Capital One. With a destination-backed mindset, this leader will play both a strategic role in defining the vision of how Design works with AI and also be a player-coach role model for day-to-day implementation. Operating at the intersection of high-level strategy and hands-on execution, you will partner with Senior Executives across the Product, Engineering, and Design landscape across the experimentation and adoption curve in AI, and focus on building a roadmap that balances bold, big-picture thinking with immediate, actionable milestones. The mission is twofold: to establish a definitive future vision for AI integration and to act as a catalyst for accelerating AI adoption across the Experience Design organization and beyond, balancing both risk and fast-paced innovation. We are looking for a seasoned design veteran who possesses the organizational rigor of a critical program lead, and maintains a deep, personal passion for AI experimentation—someone who isn't just watching the AI shift happen but is actively writing the future of design.

Requirements

At least 8 years of experience in a product design role
Expertise with AI assistants tools like Claude or Gemini, agentic development like Claude Code, state machine visualizers like Stately, XState, and assistive tools like Windsurf
Experience leading high-impact, highly complex projects from strategy through delivery to market
Experience partnering with product managers, engineers, marketing, and analytics leaders across multiple business lines to shape strategy, OKRs, roadmaps, and operating models
Experience working within an established design system
Proficiency with web and mobile technologies and platforms, navigating technology considerations and constraints to drive sound product and experience decisions
Expertise with design and prototyping tools such as Figma
Proficiency in business case development, grounding product and user experience decisions to business value
Exceptional written and verbal communication skills
Exceptional interpersonal skills and relationship building across complex organizations
Exceptional people management and development skills

Nice To Haves

10+ years of experience in a product design role
Experience leading a portfolio of work implementing AI processes and tools at scale in a design organization
Has experience in a design toolkit that spans product design, service design, and content design

Responsibilities

Building and owning the roadmaps across AI tooling, AI-enabled design process evolution, and AI-centric talent upskilling across Design at Capital One.
Defining the vision of how Design works with AI and acting as a player-coach role model for day-to-day implementation.
Partnering with Senior Executives across Product, Engineering, and Design to build a roadmap that balances bold, big-picture thinking with immediate, actionable milestones.
Establishing a definitive future vision for AI integration.
Acting as a catalyst for accelerating AI adoption across the Experience Design organization and beyond, balancing both risk and fast-paced innovation.
Driving transformative efficiency by architecting and scaling AI-driven design processes and tooling—including Claude, Gemini, and assistive IDEs—across the organization's highly matrixed environment.
Defining required workforce transformation ensuring new technical capabilities are seamlessly integrated into the operating model.
Partnering with executive leadership to bridge the gap between high-level innovation and disciplined execution to deliver measurable business value and experience excellence at scale.
Elevating the quality and maturity of the design practice at Capital One.
Overseeing and optimizing the use of appropriate tools, platforms, frameworks and design systems in collaboration with cross-functional partners.
Developing artifacts that may include vision stories, journey maps, blueprints, high-fidelity designs and prototypes.
Creating an infrastructure for design leaders to shape product direction and outcomes by leveraging deep product design expertise, user insights, and an understanding of the business.
Driving alignment with cross functional executive leaders, ensuring user needs are central to our overall strategy and enabling bold, innovative solutions to complex problems.
Recognizing and pursuing opportunities where customer needs and business goals coincide, while reinforcing with teammates and partners the importance of collecting and considering diverse customer perspectives throughout the design process.
Demonstrating a mastery of products, processes, customers, competitors and broader industry trends and applying this knowledge to predict shifts in these areas and shape how Design should engage, uncover and solve significant business challenges.
Driving cross-functional groups in thinking creatively about potential solutions, illuminating potential pitfalls and fostering shared learnings.
Building frameworks for complex decision-making that enable effective debate and accelerate getting to the right solutions.
Connecting the dots across the organization, proactively bringing together executive partners in ways that drive more coherent experiences, accelerate delivery and elevate the value of design.
Presenting work to executive leaders and stakeholders, modeling a strategic human-centered approach that integrates design frameworks, data and research insights to make the complex accessible, influence change and drive strategic direction.