21GRAMS- Director, Product Design

Real Chemistry; New York; On-site; GBP 105,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Real Chemistry is seeking a Director, Product Design to set the product design vision, raise the quality bar, and lead teams delivering cohesive, accessible digital experiences across websites, platforms, products, and services in healthcare.

This role combines strategic design leadership, client relationship management, and hands‑on guidance, ensuring measurable outcomes while developing designers and shaping scalable design practices within a global agency.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in product design, experience design, interaction design, or a related discipline, including 3+ years managing and developing designers.
• A portfolio demonstrating leadership across complex, multi‑channel

Responsibilities

• Lead the design vision and product strategy across a portfolio of complex client engagements, aligning user needs, brand intent, business goals, and technical feasibility.
• Guide teams from discovery through delivery, ensuring strategic intent is maintained during implementation.
• Oversee scalable design systems, component libraries, and documentation in Figma with engineering partners.
• Establish accessible design practices, applying WCAG 2.2 AA principles and inclusive design early in the process.
• Partner with senior stakeholders to articulate strategy, trade‑offs, risks, and recommendations.

Skills

Product design

Experience design

Interaction design

Leadership

Job description

At Real Chemistry, making the world a healthier place isn’t just an aspiration—it’s our everyday reality. Our drive to transform healthcare is informed by our blend of deep scientific expertise, human-centred creativity, and AI‑driven insights, fostering a unique environment where innovation thrives and our people are impact‑obsessed. As a global agency, we provide a full suite of services across healthcare communications and marketing to our clients, including top players in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries.

Our #LifeatRealChem culture is rooted in our people—we believe we are best together and are committed to excellence for both our clients and colleagues. Whether you're a seasoned professional or just starting your career, if you share our passion for healthcare and connection, we invite you to explore our opportunities.

Discover your purpose. Embrace innovation. Experience #LifeatRealChem.

**21GRAMS, a Real Chemistry subsidiary, is an advertising agency born to make healthcare more human. **Not just in our work, but in how we conduct business, approach client relationships, and treat each other. We believe in being good to each other and hard on the work, and in creating work that makes a meaningful difference for patients, caregivers, healthcare professionals, and brands.

Job Summary

The Director, Product Design is a senior design leader responsible for setting the product design vision, raising the quality of the work, and building the conditions for teams to deliver cohesive, accessible, and effective digital experiences. This role leads complex engagements across websites, platforms, products, services, and connected ecosystems, translating user needs, brand strategy, business goals, technology constraints, and healthcare requirements into clear experience direction.

This is not solely an execution role. The Director is accountable for design strategy, client leadership, team development, resourcing, design operations, and measurable experience outcomes. They remain close enough to the work to guide critical decisions, facilitate discovery, critique design, and step into high‑impact moments while enabling senior designers to lead day to day.

What You Will Do

Design Vision and Product Strategy

• Own the product design vision and experience strategy across a portfolio of complex client engagements, connecting user needs, brand intent, business objectives, and technical feasibility.

• Partner with Experience Strategy, UX, Product Management, Creative, Technology, Data, Medical, Strategy, and Account leadership to frame opportunities, define roadmaps, and establish measurable outcomes.

• Lead discovery and definition activities, including stakeholder alignment, experience principles, journey framing, service blueprints, value propositions, prioritization, and product or platform planning.

• Identify opportunities that extend beyond the immediate brief and turn them into clear, decision‑ready recommendations for clients and agency leadership.

Design Excellence and Delivery

• Set and uphold a high bar for interaction design, visual design, responsive behavior, content hierarchy, prototyping, motion, and end‑to‑end experience coherence.

• Guide teams from early concepts through detailed design, validation, launch, and optimization, ensuring that strategic intent is maintained through implementation.

• Oversee scalable design systems, component libraries, pattern governance, and documentation in Figma, working with engineering partners to improve quality and delivery efficiency.

• Build accessibility into the work from the start, applying WCAG 2.2 AA principles and inclusive design practices rather than treating compliance as a final review step.

• Use qualitative research, analytics, usability findings, and business measures to evaluate design decisions and recommend iteration.

Client and Cross‑Functional Leadership

• Act as a trusted senior design partner to clients, clearly articulating experience strategy, design rationale, trade‑offs, risks, and recommendations to executive and working teams.

• Lead high‑stakes presentations, workshops, critiques, and decision‑making sessions, creating alignment across internal and external stakeholders.

• Partner with project and account leadership on scope, staffing, schedules, assumptions, and change management; surface delivery risks early and propose practical solutions.

• Represent Product Design in new‑business opportunities, estimates, proposals, capability presentations, and pitch work.

People Leadership and Practice Development

• Manage, coach, and develop product designers across levels through clear expectations, actionable feedback, growth plans, and regular career conversations.

• Create an environment where designers can do their best work, with strong critique, psychological safety, accountability, and thoughtful delegation.

• Partner with Experience leadership on hiring, staffing, performance management, succession planning, and capability development.

• Improve the Product Design practice through reusable methods, templates, standards, training, and responsible adoption of emerging tools, including AI‑enabled workflows.

• Contribute to a culture of collaboration across Product Design, UX, Creative, Technology, and Strategy, reducing silos and improving continuity from concept through launch.

What Success Looks Like

• Clients see Product Design as a strategic partner, not only a production capability.

• Teams have clear experience direction, decision criteria, and an appropriate level of design leadership from discovery through delivery.

• Creates a more consistent, accessible, and high‑quality experience across the portfolio.

• Designers receive strong coaching, understand what is expected of them, and demonstrate measurable growth.

• The practice becomes more scalable through better systems, methods, staffing decisions, and cross‑functional ways of working.

• Experience recommendations connect to defined user, client, and business outcomes.

What You Should Have

• 10+ years of experience in product design, experience design, interaction design, or a related discipline, including 3+ years managing and developing designers.

• A portfolio demonstrating leadership across complex, multi‑channel