Director, UX

LaunchDarkly

6d•$204,500 - $330,700

About The Position

LaunchDarkly is seeking a UX leader to oversee design for the Foundation pillar, which focuses on how new developers discover, try, and adopt LaunchDarkly. This includes the self-serve motion, trial experience, onboarding, activation, and packaging comprehension. As the UX Pillar Lead for Foundation, you will be part of the product triad, managing a team of 5 to 7 UX designers. The role addresses a critical activation challenge where a significant percentage of developers who try LaunchDarkly do not connect an SDK or engage with key differentiating features. The team has a defined strategy to address this, and this role requires strong design leadership to ensure its success, leveraging an implicit understanding of developer experience. This position is ideal for someone who wants to lead execution against a clear direction rather than build an organization from scratch.

Requirements

10–12+ years of experience in product design, UX, or a closely adjacent discipline (design engineering, developer experience, or frontend engineering) with a focus on design quality and user outcomes.
Proven track record managing and developing a team, with direct reports who have grown, taken on more scope, or been promoted.
Experience as the UX voice in a product triad, co-owning roadmap direction with PM and Engineering.
History of defining and enforcing a quality bar on a team's work.
Domain fit: experience designing for or leading designers on developer tools, self-serve B2B SaaS, or products with an engineering user base.
Strong communication skills, including presenting design strategy to leadership, advocating for users under pressure, and providing constructive feedback.

Nice To Haves

Experience leading UX designers directly is the strongest signal; engineering leadership with deep design practice and domain fluency is also considered.
Understanding of developer experience implicitly.
Belief that design leadership is a craft, not a title.
Ability to hold a high bar on quality and make a compelling case for it.
Energized by activation UX.
Perceived as a peer by engineering and PM counterparts.
Preference for problems with clear evidence behind them.
Understanding of how developers experience products from the inside (e.g., used SDKs, worked on design systems, built alongside engineers).
Systems thinking approach, understanding connections between different product areas and experience seams.

Responsibilities

Lead UX strategy and design quality for the Foundation pillar, focusing on the trial experience, activation flows, onboarding, and packaging surfaces.
Ensure all shipped work from the Foundation pillar meets the established UX quality bar.
Maintain current design capacity planning, including scoping, estimating, and sequencing work for accurate delivery visibility.
Act as a co-owner of product direction within the Foundation triad, bringing user evidence, design perspective, and experience strategy to prioritization.
Advocate for users in roadmap conversations, ensuring user feedback is considered before commitments are made.
Manage and develop a team of 5–7 UX designers, providing specific, actionable feedback for growth.
Run and participate in UX critique sessions, fostering a critique culture within the design team and the wider organization.
Lead cross-pillar design coordination for surfaces spanning Foundation, Experimentation, Guardian, and AgentControl, resolving experience seams.
Partner with the Head of UX on hiring, organizational planning, and quality standards for the broader UX function.