Associate Creative Director, Brand & Design

Socket.dev; Long Beach (CA); On-site; USD 151,000 - 256,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, vision coverage

Generous paid time off

Equity and 401(k) retirement plan

Onsite meals and snacks

Job summary

Vast is seeking an Associate Creative Director, Brand & Design in Long Beach to build and protect the company’s creative standards. You will lead a small team, craft direction for core brand moments, and mentor designers while collaborating with marketing, product, and engineering to move initiatives forward.

The role is full-time and exempt, based in Long Beach, with a focus on delivering high-quality brand work across channels and evolving design practices in a fast-paced space industry

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience.
• 8+ years in brand, design, art direction, or related creative discipline with hands-on work.
• Strong portfolio across multiple channels with a pull toward innovative, simple work.
• Experience in fast-paced environments with ambiguity and volume.
• Experience managing a small design team and mentoring direct reports.
• Ability to translate business objectives and concepts into clear, executable creative.
• Experience partnering with marketing, communications, product, engineering, and leadership.

Responsibilities

• Own and evolve Vast's brand design standards and ensure team output meets them daily.
• Manage a design team: provide real-time feedback, run reviews, set direction.
• Contribute hands-on: sketch, edit, design when needed to move work forward.
• Lead creative work from concept through execution across campaigns and moments.
• Translate business goals into actionable creative direction for the team.
• Collaborate with marketing, comms, product, engineering, and operations to maximize design impact.
• Mentor designers in craft and judgment, not just process.
• Present creative direction to stakeholders and uphold quality under pressure.
• Monitor how AI influences design/workflows and adapt workflows accordingly.

Skills

Brand design

Art direction

Team management

Creative direction

Cross-functional collaboration

Strategic thinking

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience

Job description

At Vast, our mission is to contribute to a future where billions of people are living and thriving in space. Vast is developing next-generation space stations to ensure a continuous human presence in space for America and its allies, enabling advanced microgravity research and manufacturing, and unlocking a new space economy for government, corporate, and private customers. Using an incremental, hardware-rich and low-cost approach, Vast is rapidly developing its multi-module Haven Station. Haven Demo’s 2025 success made Vast the only operational commercial space station company to fly and operate its own spacecraft. Next, Haven-1 is expected to become the world’s first commercial space station when it launches, followed by additional Haven modules to enable permanent human presence by 2030. Our team is all-in, committed to executing our mission safely and on time. If you want to work with the most talented people on Earth furthering space exploration for humanity, come join us.

Vast is looking for an Associate Creative Director, Brand & Design, reporting to the Senior Director, Brand Design, to help build and protect the creative standard for how Vast shows up in the world. You'll be in the work every day: designing, art directing, and solving creative problems directly, while giving clear direction to a small team and mentoring the people on it. You help shape the creative direction for key brand moments, then roll up your sleeves to make the work great.

This will be a full-time, exempt position located in our Long Beach location.

Responsibilities

• Own and evolve Vast's brand design standards, and make sure the work coming out of the team meets them every day, not just at major launches
• Manage a team of designers day-to-day: give feedback in real time, run reviews, and set clear direction on what good looks like
• Jump into the work yourself, sketching, editing, designing, when that's the fastest way to get something over the bar
• Lead creative work from concept through final execution across brand initiatives, campaigns, and key company moments
• Translate business goals and technical complexity into creative direction the team can actually run with
• Partner with marketing, comms, product, engineering, and business teams to spot where design can move the needle, and follow through on it
• Mentor designers on craft and judgment, not just process, help them get better at knowing what to cut
• Present creative direction to stakeholders, and hold the line on quality when there's pressure to compromise
• Keep a real pulse on how AI is changing design and production workflows, and bring that into how the team actually works

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience
• 8+ years of experience in brand, design, art direction, or a related creative discipline (e.g., brand design, digital design, visual communications, integrated marketing), with a proven track record of producing high-quality work yourself
• A strong portfolio that demonstrates hands-on craft across multiple channels and audiences, with a clear pull toward innovative, simple, and technically-minded work
• Experience working in a fast-paced environment, and genuinely enjoying the pace, volume, and ambiguity that come with it
• Experience managing a small design team: giving clear creative direction while staying deeply hands-on in the work itselfA natural people mentor who develops direct reports and helps them grow their craft and confidence
• Experience translating business objectives, audience insights, and complex concepts into clear, executable creative
• Experience partnering with cross-functional teams including marketing, communications, product, engineering, operations, and leadership

Preferred Skills & Experience

• Experience building brand in aerospace, technology, science, or another category where the product is genuinely hard to explain
• Comfortable across brand design standards, design for print, ads, social, events, partnerships, mission graphics, facilities and wayfinding
• Experience translating highly technical, hard-to-explain products into stories that land with a broader audience without losing credibility with a technical one
• Experience managing external creative partners and production resources
• Comfortable in the room with engineers and executives, able to hold a point of view under pressure and get people aligned without watering down the work

Additional Requirements

• Ability to travel up to 10% of the time
• Willingness to work overtime, or weekends to support critical mission milestones

Pay Range: California $151,000 — $256,000 USD

COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS

Base salary will vary depending on job-related knowledge, education, skills, experience, business needs, and market demand. Salary is just one component of our comprehensive compensation package. Full-time employees also receive company equity, as well as access to a full suite of compelling benefits and perks, including: medical, dental, and vision coverage for employees and dependents, generous paid time off; up to 20+ days of vacation for exempt staff and up to 10+ days of vacation for non-exempt staff with the ability to cash-out unused vacation annually, paid parental leave, short and long-term disability insurance, life insurance, access to a 401(k) retirement plan, ClassPass credits, personalized mental healthcare through Spring Health, and other discounts and perks. We also take pride in offering exceptional food perks, with snacks, drip coffee & onsite barista, cold drinks, and dinner meals remaining free of charge, and lunch subsidized as part of Vast’s ongoing commitment to providing high-quality meals for employees.

U.S. EXPORT CONTROL COMPLIANCE STATUS

The person hired will have access to information and items subject to U.S. export controls, and therefore, must either be a “U.S. person” as defined by 22 C.F.R. § 120.62 or otherwise eligible for deemed export licensing. This status includes U.S. citizens, U.S. nationals, lawful permanent residents (green card holders), and asylees and refugees with such status granted, not pending.

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY

Vast is an Equal Opportunity Employer; employment with Vast is governed on the basis of merit, competence and qualifications and will not be influenced in any manner by race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability or any other legally protected status.