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Associate Director, Product Design
Contract type
Ongoing
Work mode
Remote
Experience
Lead / principal · 10+ years
Job description
Associate Director, Product Design at Parallel, a company that partners with clients to build products. The role combines hands-on product design leadership with mentoring designers and acting as a trusted design advisor to clients.
At a glance
- Work mode
- Remote
What you'll do
- Lead by doing: balance leadership with hands-on design, working alongside teams to create and ship exceptional work.
- Bring deep expertise in product design, design systems, product strategy, and human-centred design to guide and sharpen the work.
- Actively raise the bar, giving clear, specific, actionable feedback to project teams.
- Be the trusted design advisor to clients: guide them through the process, present the work, manage feedback, and build strong relationships grounded in Parallel's point of view.
- Drive project success by applying service design and change-management thinking.
- Partner with the business team to scope work well and spot the right opportunities to grow an account.
- Build a collaborative, inclusive, high-performance design culture.
- Partner with Parallel's leadership to keep the team engaged and the culture strong.
- Hire, mentor, and develop designers, building a real pipeline of leaders on the team.
- Represent Parallel in the design community, attracting great talent and new work.
What we're looking for
- 10+ years in product or UX design, with proven time managing and mentoring design teams through complex work at a high bar.
- Strong communication and presentation skills, with the ability to align and influence a room of different stakeholders.
- Experience working cross-functionally to drive business priorities and deliver real value.
- A portfolio of shipped products that shows both craft and strategic thinking.
- Everyday fluency with modern design tools and AI in your practice.
- Working knowledge of change management and service design.
- Active engagement in the design community through writing, talks, or panels.
- A commitment to inclusive design and a collaborative team environment.
- Product / UX design: set the quality bar, push teams toward better thinking, and drive best practice across research, strategy, and execution.
- Visual design: champion excellent visual craft and stay current on trends, tools, and emerging tech.
- Product strategy: keep design aligned with the product roadmap, release plans, and market positioning.
- Critique and collaboration: build a culture of constructive critique, inside the team and with clients.
- Research: use qualitative and quantitative signals to inform and validate design decisions.
- Content design: advocate for clear, compelling communication that fits the brand and the experience.
- Selling design: build narratives that help clients understand and buy into the decisions.
- Vision: lead teams to shape experience concepts that balance business goals, user needs, and genuine innovation.
- Creative direction: hold the strategic and creative quality of every project, through execution and client presentation.
- Systems design: define scalable design systems built for usability, adoption, and the long haul.
- Brand strategy: confidently lead brand and strategy sessions, guiding clients toward strong creative directions.
How to get hired
- 1A couple of conversations with the team
- 2A small, paid real-world project
Apply
About Parallel
Parallel partners with companies who care about building great products, and helps them ship work that improves lives and moves markets.