Design Director

Job Description

We are open to candidates based in ET.

Companies ready to change the world come to MetaLab to create products that improve lives, reshape markets and shift culture. Design Directors at MetaLab play a pivotal role as they drive the quality of the work and nurture the unparalleled talent of our design team.

The Opportunity

As a Design Director on our most high profile accounts, you’re someone who thrives on scale and complexity, and sees opportunity in change and ambiguity. Your leadership and expertise allows you to condense complex business problems and construct strong, supported points of view. Your presentations skills are unparalleled as you use storytelling to rally cross-discipline teams around a unified vision, wowing everyone in the room. Whether it’s C-level relationship building or navigating diverse stakeholder groups, you wield your influence deftly in service of delivering memorable, game changing products. 

The Job Description

• As a hands on leader of delivery and design you’ll:
  • Guide the team to navigate complex challenges, leaning on a deep understanding of product design process, design systems, product strategy, and human-centered design practice
  • Partner with Account Directors to ensure we drive client’s business priorities and deliver value
  • Roll up your sleeves, get in the work, and provide guidance to several project teams simultaneously
  • Own the responsibility for the level of design excellence and deliver constructive actionable feedback when necessary
  • Present the work and achieve buy-in from top-level client stakeholders an skillfully navigate feedback from large stakeholder groups
  • Apply a layer of understanding about change management and service design rigor to MetaLab’s design recommendations
• Partnering with client stakeholders to ensure success of the project, you’ll:
  • Collaborate with the Partnerships team on estimations and providing a Design perspective on business development opportunities
  • Build strong relationships with key client stakeholders to understand the goals and priorities that will define success on a project
  • Become an authority with a point of view that is distinctly MetaLab, co-creating that with the rest of the leadership team on your account
  • Advocate for the best possible conditions for the MetaLab team to be successful in meeting those needs, and work to shape the project accordingly
• Being a coach, thought-leader, and shaper of the organization within MetaLab, you’ll:
  • Foster an open, collaborative, and inclusive environment for the design team
  • Collaborate with the rest of MetaLab’s leadership team to keep company engagement high
  • Alongside the VP, Design and other senior design team leaders, help drive the overall Design team’s vision and operational plan to get there
  • Advocate for the design team internally to ensure they’re set up for success
  • Vet, hire, and train new members of the design team
  • Report to a VP, Design, co-manage a +80-person design team with other Design Directors
  • Mentor our team of Design Leads—you’re a leader of leaders
  • Be active in the design community, representing MetaLab to attract new talent

The must-haves:

• Extensive experience leading product design in agency servicing large institutional clients
• Past experience in fintech/wealth, healthcare, education, or similar complex industries 
• You’ve led teams in both enhancing digital products and design systems, as well as building from scratch
• Well versed in facilitation techniques that enable groups to build clarity and alignment in a workshop setting
• Experience managing and mentoring team members
• Equally adept in leading teams in-person as remote (MetaLab is a remote-first culture)
• Based on the East Coast of North America, with ability to travel 

Equal opportunity employer

Research shows that women and other marginalized groups tend to only apply for a job when they meet every single criteria. Does this role sound like it was made for you, yet you don’t check every box? Reach out anyways!  We’re an equal opportunity employer and are dedicated to fostering an inclusive and diverse environment for employees from all walks of life.  We hire based on talent, and we’re proud of our global perspective.