Executive Design Director

Our leadership team primarily collaborates during PST business hours, while we also have designers in Europe. This role is ideally based in EST to ensure overlap across our time zones. Candidates comfortable working on an EST schedule are encouraged to apply.

Companies ready to change the world come to Metalab to create products that improve lives, reshape markets, and shift culture. 

As Executive Design Director, you'll shape the future of creative at the intersection of brand, experience and product at Metalab. You'll define what craft excellence looks like across the organization, lead with strategic vision, and ensure brand and product design remain a driving force in our work, culture, and growth. You'll coach and elevate other leaders, steward our approach to craft, and guide both clients and internal teams through high-impact, high-visibility brand and product design engagements—while also contributing hands-on at a world-class level.

You are a systems thinker, equally brand and product minded, a strategic storyteller, and a trusted voice across disciplines. You bring deep expertise in product design, brand strategy & identity, experiential design, and organizational leadership. You know how to connect these dots to influence outcomes at scale.

At Metalab, this level of leadership isn’t just about oversight—it’s about leading by doing. You will balance leadership responsibilities with active participation in client work, collaborating with teams to set the bar for craft, execution, and strategic thinking within wider Design Leadership. By staying engaged in real projects, you’ll stay relevant in your craft, model best practices, and deliver the innovative, high-quality design work Metalab is known for.

What You'll Do

Lead by Example

Define and evolve Metalab's product and brand design vision to ensure alignment across teams and client work. Coach senior design leaders and project teams, providing clear, actionable feedback and long-term career guidance. Model creative excellence in your own work—jumping in hands-on when needed and sharing your thinking openly. You don't just direct great design; you do it. As one of the most senior contributors to the work, you bring hands-on design energy to pitches, reviews, and live work, ensuring every output reflects the highest creative standards.

Drive Design Strategy & Execution

Own design quality across the department, offering constructive and actionable feedback to uphold and uplevel creative standards. Guide strategic direction across brand and product design engagements ensuring client and business outcomes are met at every stage. Oversee, create and refine brand systems that work seamlessly into product experiences and vice versa. Push creative boundaries by integrating motion, 3D, and interaction design to create dynamic, immersive brand moments in the context of products. Lead cross-disciplinary reviews, elevating critique culture and building team fluency in storytelling, systems thinking, and craft. Partner with clients at a strategic level, helping founders and executives articulate, evolve, and scale their brands for digital-first environments.

Lead Organizational Impact

Collaborate with design leadership—including the Chief Design Officer—to influence design department direction and design operations. Partner with the Partnerships team on new business pursuits and pitch visionary design approaches. Coordinate team availability/downtime to drive showcases of our best assets to drive marketing efforts. Collaborate with design leadership to shape internal systems for hiring, feedback, and growth within the brand and product design discipline. Represent Metalab in the design community through thought leadership and speaking opportunities. Lead accounts by championing quality of work and client relationships that organically grow the business.

What You Bring

• At least 12 years of experience in brand and product design, creative direction, or digital design leadership— in a digital-first environment—with at least 2 years leading design teams at a senior director or executive level.
• Must be able to maintain at least a 4-hour overlap with Pacific Time (PST) business hours (up to 12:00 PM PST).
• A visionary design leader who inspires creative excellence, communicates with clarity, and earns client trust—balancing creative risk-taking with strategic rigor to ensure every design direction is both aspirational and grounded in business value.
• Proven ability to lead multidisciplinary teams and large-scale product-led brand engagements from strategy through execution, with a portfolio that demonstrates mastery in visual identity, brand systems, and storytelling across digital touchpoints.
• Fluency in modern design tools and emerging AI tooling and a deep understanding of how product-led brands extend through motion, interaction, and content—able to concept, design, and refine at a world-class level.
• The ability to translate complex ideas into coherent, scalable brand and product design systems—visual, verbal, experiential, technical—and direct others to execute across environments, from pixels to motion to storytelling to code.
• Experience presenting to and influencing executive stakeholders, with the ability to build buy-in through strong narratives, strategic storytelling, and meaningful business context.
• Experience working cross-functionally with product, engineering, marketing, and executive teams—bringing a systems mindset to connecting the dots across every touchpoint.
• Strong facilitation and communication skills, with the confidence and empathy to guide workshops, strategic sessions, and cross-disciplinary critique.
• Deep knowledge of design trends and the evolving role of brand, product and experience design in the digital ecosystem.
• A track record of elevating design communities through mentorship, constructive critique, and a commitment to inclusive practices and building equitable, diverse teams.
• Active engagement in the design community through thought leadership, writing, events, or speaking.
• A passion for mentoring others and shaping the future of design culture at Metalab.

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.