Lead Digital Designer

True Anomaly•Long Beach, CA

19h•$135,000 - $200,000•Hybrid

About The Position

The Lead Digital Designer defines how True Anomaly’s brand lives, moves, and communicates across digital experiences. Working closely with the Head of Graphic Design, Brand & Identity, and the broader Brand & Creative team, this hands-on role leads major web, editorial, campaign, and interactive experiences. It translates brand, content, product, and business strategy into compelling digital experiences and evolves the systems, patterns, and principles that support the company’s digital expression. The primary focus is designing and evolving True Anomaly’s web ecosystem, including a new editorial publication and an interactive company website. The role combines strong visual craft with systems thinking and editorial judgment, developing creative direction within a broader framework, translating it into flexible design systems, and staying involved through build and launch. The designer also contributes to product launches, integrated marketing campaigns, social content, events, and other brand moments, considering how interactions, content, and touchpoints work together across the end-to-end experience. This is not a motion design role, but the designer should understand how interaction, animation, transitions, and responsive behavior can improve hierarchy, storytelling, and usability, and be able to concept and direct that work with motion designers and developers. Successful candidates will be located near Denver, Colorado, or Long Beach, California, for a hybrid opportunity. Applicants must meet applicable U.S. Government space technology export-control requirements or be eligible to obtain the required authorizations.

Requirements

10+ years of experience in digital, web, brand, editorial, product, or experience design, including a track record of leading complex, high-impact digital platforms and cross-functional initiatives.
A portfolio demonstrating exceptional web design, strong brand thinking, sophisticated visual craft, and final launched work; a portfolio link is required.
Experience designing content-rich editorial, brand, product, or storytelling-focused websites and digital experiences.
Strong command of typography, layout, hierarchy, image-making, responsive design, interaction design, and digital design systems.
Experience taking digital work from concept through high-fidelity design, prototyping, development, quality assurance, launch, and ongoing iteration.
Strong understanding of user journeys, information architecture, end-to-end experience design, accessibility, and responsive behavior.
Experience using user research, audience insights, analytics, or other evidence to inform design decisions and improve experiences.
Experience designing for CMS-driven publishing platforms and collaborating on content models, taxonomies, and authoring workflows.
Fluency in Figma and other current digital design and prototyping tools.
Ability to prototype sophisticated interaction and motion using appropriate tools.
Ability to concept and direct motion and interaction for the web.
Experience collaborating closely with developers and sufficient technical fluency to understand feasibility, performance, implementation, and browser-related tradeoffs.
Understanding of how accessibility testing, SEO requirements, performance constraints, and content strategy inform design decisions.
Experience presenting design vision, strategy, and work to creative leadership, business stakeholders, and cross-functional partners.
Experience directing creative partners, including agencies, independent designers, developers, illustrators, and motion designers.
Ability to work within defined budgets and schedules while protecting quality and design intent.
Strong presentation, communication, strategic thinking, and cross-functional collaboration skills.
Comfort working in a fast-moving environment where the function, systems, and workflows are still being built.
Successful candidates must be located near Denver, CO, or Long Beach, CA, for the hybrid opportunity.
Must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident, protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain required U.S. Department of State authorizations under applicable space technology export regulations.

Nice To Haves

Familiarity with creative coding or browser-based experimentation.
Hands-on motion design capability.
Experience with data visualization, 3D, generative tools, creative coding, or other emerging digital formats.
Experience in technology, aerospace, defense, automotive, industrial design, or another technically complex category.
Genuine interest in aerospace, defense, or national security; domain expertise is not required.

Responsibilities

Lead creative development and design of the company website, editorial publication, and other priority digital experiences.
Translate brand, audience, product, content, and business objectives into digital concepts, information architecture, user journeys, page systems, and interaction models.
Design responsive experiences from concepts and wireframes through high-fidelity design, prototyping, development, quality assurance, and launch.
Create high-fidelity interactive prototypes that communicate responsive behavior, motion, transitions, and complex user flows for implementation.
Develop a distinctive point of view for how the brand behaves online, aligned with the broader direction set by Brand & Creative leadership.
Partner with developers from project inception to explore browser capabilities and incorporate technical constraints and emerging capabilities into the creative process.
Balance expressive storytelling with clarity, accessibility, performance, usability, and audience needs.
Maintain creative quality through development, testing, and launch; review post-launch qualitative and quantitative signals and evolve experiences accordingly.
Create the design system for a new editorial publication supporting long-form journalism, technical storytelling, interviews, essays, multimedia, and evolving formats.
Partner with editorial, content strategy, communications, creative strategy, and subject-matter experts to shape story structure and reader experience.
Collaborate with editorial, content strategy, and developers on the publication’s content model, taxonomy, CMS requirements, and relationships among stories, formats, authors, and topics.
Design the complete publishing system, including discovery, navigation, archives, series, author pages, related content, search, and emerging editorial formats.
Develop flexible article templates and editorial components while preserving the distinct character of individual stories.
Use typography, pacing, imagery, data, interaction, and motion to make complex ideas understandable and compelling.
Ensure publishing systems support editorial flexibility, efficient publishing, accessibility, and long-term growth; establish scalable publishing workflows and standards.
Build and evolve reusable digital design systems covering typography, color, layout, components, interaction patterns, and motion principles.
Partner with internal teams and external collaborators to scale, refine, and evolve design across digital systems and experiences.
Ensure consistency across the company website, editorial experiences, campaigns, launches, events, and social platforms.
Create templates and reusable components that enable speed while maintaining a high creative standard; determine when to extend existing systems and when a bespoke approach is warranted.
Document systems and provide clear design direction to internal teams, developers, agencies, and production partners, escalating major brand or strategic decisions as appropriate.
Explore emerging tools and formats, including creative coding, generative design, data visualization, real-time 3D, and AI-assisted workflows, when they improve the experience.
Develop digital creative for integrated marketing campaigns and product launches, including landing pages, interactive stories, digital toolkits, social assets, and supporting content.
Partner with Product Marketing, Communications, Social, Events, and other teams to create cohesive cross-channel experiences.
Shape the digital layer of important events, demonstrations, installations, and live brand moments; adapt ideas across formats and maintain craft on flagship and faster-turn work.
Define how motion and interaction support navigation, hierarchy, comprehension, and storytelling; prototype intended behavior, transitions, and responsive states.
Collaborate with motion designers and developers to ensure motion is purposeful, performant, accessible, and faithful to design intent; use movement selectively.
Champion user research and audience understanding in creative direction, content structure, interaction design, and iteration.
Frame ambiguous problems and opportunities through strategic briefs connecting audience needs, product and business objectives, content, technology, and brand.
Present design vision, strategy, concepts, prototypes, and work in progress to creative leadership, business stakeholders, and cross-functional partners.
Work with Creative Strategy to translate company narrative, priorities, and product context into effective digital experiences.
Partner early with developers, content teams, product partners, and specialists to align creative ambition with technical feasibility and end-to-end experience needs.
Prepare design specifications, prototypes, assets, and annotations for high-quality implementation.
Review builds across screen sizes, devices, browsers, and interaction states; identify quality issues and direct refinements before launch.
Partner with content, analytics, accessibility, SEO, and performance specialists to improve experiences without independently owning those disciplines.
Build and maintain a network of digital studios, independent designers, developers, and specialist partners; evaluate them for creative fit, technical capability, execution quality, and responsible investment.
Direct agencies, independent designers, developers, illustrators, motion designers, and other creative partners while working within budgets and schedules.

Benefits

100% company-paid medical, dental, and vision coverage for employees and dependents, with HSA/HRA options.
Flexible Time Off for exempt employees.
Accrued PTO of up to 25 days for non-exempt employees.
12 paid holidays.
Parental leave.
Sick leave.
Daily catered lunch and unlimited snacks for in-office employees.
401(k) retirement plan.
Fitness reimbursement.
Dog Fridays.
Equity participation as part of total compensation.