Head of Design

Alef Education; Abu Dhabi; On-site; AED 350,000 - 550,000; Full time

Job summary

Alef Education is seeking a Head of Design to set the overall design direction using product insight, user research data, and strategy to shape priorities and elevate the end-to-end product and brand experience.

You will build and lead the design team, establish clear processes and quality standards, and align Product, Engineering, Content and other leaders to deliver high-quality, consistent experiences across learning journeys.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in graphic design or related field.
• Master’s degree is a plus.
• 6+ years in branding or visual design with 3+ years in leadership.
• Familiarity with regional culture and education context helpful.
• Strong UI/UX, typography, color theory, and layout skills.
• Proficiency in Figma and Adobe Creative Suite; AI prototyping experience a plus.
• Excellent stakeholder communication and collaboration with cross-functional teams.

Responsibilities

• Shape strategy and align cross-functional leaders; influence direction, not just execution.
• Own end-to-end product and brand experience across platforms.
• Build and lead design teams; establish processes and quality standards.
• Develop and maintain a design system that teams rely on.
• Drive design thinking across the journey from discovery to launch and learn.
• Grow design talent and evolve ways of working; set clear ownership.
• Align Product, Engineering, Content and other teams on priorities and timing.
• Ensure culturally respectful, regionally relevant designs for learning.
• Present research findings to stakeholders and measure impact with key metrics.

Skills

Leadership

Brand design

Design strategy

Cross-functional collaboration

UI/UX principles

Research-driven design

English fluency

Education

Bachelor's degree in Graphic Design, Visual Arts, or related field

Master's degree (a plus)

Tools

Figma

Adobe Creative Suite (Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign)

AI prototyping tools

Project management tools

Job description

About The Role

The Head of Design sets the overall design direction using product insight user research data and design strategy to shape priorities and improve the end-to-end product and brand experience. They also build and develop the design team establish clear ways of working and quality standards and align Product Engineering Content and other leaders around delivering consistent high-quality outcomes.

Key Responsibilities

• Shape strategy and align cross-functional leaders Use design to help set direction not just execute it
• Make trade-offs clear what we focus on now what we pause and why
• Align Product Design Engineering Content and other teams on priorities and how we ll work together
• Own the end-to-end product and brand experience
• Apply product design thinking across the full journey connecting user needs learning goals business needs and the wider product experience
• Ensure the experience feels consistent and clearly us across product marketing and content
• Make key journeys simple clear and accessible for learners and customers
• Find the biggest experience problems and lead the work to fix them
• Build and maintain a design system teams can rely on
• Lead and develop the Design teams and evolve ways of working
• Set a clear quality bar ownership model and ways of working across the design teams
• Grow design leads and team members into stronger owners with less reliance on a few senior people
• Create clear ways of working from Problem Discovery Solution Discovery Solution Lock Development Launch Learn
• Make design ownership and sign-off clear and encourage low-fidelity exploration before teams move into high-fidelity solutions
• Improve the biggest workflow bottlenecks to increase speed and quality
• Drive insight- and data-informed design
• Combine user research qualitative insight and product data to guide decisions
• Define what success looks like and measure whether changes improved the experience
• Focus on a small set of meaningful metrics

To Be The Right Fit, You'll Need

• Bachelor s degree in Graphic Design, Visual Arts, or a related field.
• A Master s degree is a plus.
• Minimum of 6 years in branding or visual design, with at least 3 years in a leadership role; working experience in the region is a plus
• Familiarity with the local culture and education system helps tailor designs effectively.
• Ability to create culturally respectful and relevant designs that resonate with the regional audience.
• Experience in product design, visual identity, and brand design; an affinity with designing for learning.
• Understanding of user interface and user experience design principles.
• Experience with AI prototyping in an emerging tool.
• Strong understanding of typography, color theory, and layout design.
• Ability to develop long-term visual strategies that support brand growth.
• Expert in Figma, Adobe Creative Suite (Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign and similar tools.
• Experience with project & product management tools and methodologies.
• Ability to build strong relationships and work collaboratively with cross-functional teams.
• Experience with presenting research findings to stakeholders
• Fluency in English; Arabic is preferred.