Design Director

McAfee; Newport Beach (CA); On-site; USD 142,000 - 233,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401k

Medical, Dental, Vision

Parental Leave

Unlimited PTO

Paid Holidays

Job summary

McAfee in Newport Beach, CA seeks a Design Director to lead the design vertical within Brand Creative Services. You’ll drive standout brand work while coaching designers to deliver high craft across campaigns and channels.

You’ll operationalize the refreshed design system, educate teams, and partner with agencies to scale brand identity. You’ll champion an AI-enabled workflow to accelerate iteration, test insights, and maintain brand integrity.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience creating and leading design work across brand and marketing.
• Strong ability to set and uphold a high bar for design quality across campaigns.
• Experience mentoring designers and leading through feedback in a player-coach capacity.

Responsibilities

• Lead design concepting and execution across key brand initiatives.
• Evolve the New McAfee design system and raise craft for the design vertical.
• Coach, mentor, and review work from designers with clear feedback and growth plans.
• Operationalize and steward the refreshed brand identity and design system across touchpoints.
• Champion responsible adoption of AI-enabled design tools to accelerate iteration and testing.

Skills

Design leadership

Brand systems

Creative direction

Mentoring teams

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Design or related field

Tools

Figma

Adobe Creative Suite

Job description

Role Summary

We are seeking a Design Director to lead the design vertical within Brand Creative Services. This is a player-coach role: you’ll create standout brand work while setting direction, raising craft, and coaching designers to deliver consistently excellent creative across campaigns, lifecycle, and always-on channels. Reporting to the Senior Director, Creative (Design, Concept & Copy), you will partner closely with Copy, Creative Production, and Brand Strategy to translate our brand promise into modern, distinctive, high-performing creative as we evolve and scale our refreshed brand identity.

You will be central to operationalizing our design system, educating internal teams and agency partners on guidelines, ensuring best-in-class application across touchpoints, and helping the organization move faster through smarter workflows, including responsible adoption of AI-enabled design tools for rapid iteration and testing. You’re equally comfortable pushing craft-forward brand work as you are designing against performance insights, using data to refine and improve creative effectiveness without compromising brand integrity.

Position Details

About The Role

• Lead design concepting and execution across key brand initiatives - integrated campaigns, lifecycle marketing, product storytelling, social, web, and partner channels, delivering work that is modern, distinctive, and unmistakably McAfee.
• Champion and evolve the New McAfee design system and raise craft for the design vertical, developing strong visual systems, layouts, typography, illustration, and brand expression that scale across touchpoints.
• Partner closely with Copy, Brand Strategy, Creative Production, Growth/Lifecycle Marketing, and Product Marketing to translate briefs and insights into clear design approaches and compelling creative.
• Coach, mentor, and review work from designers, providing clear, actionable feedback, creating growth plans, and fostering a culture of excellence, collaboration, and inclusive creativity.
• Operationalize and steward our refreshed brand identity and design system - educating internal teams and agency partners, ensuring consistent application, and evolving guidelines as the brand scales.
• Balance brand-building craft with performance-mindful design - using testing and channel insights (e.g., paid social learnings, lifecycle metrics) to iterate and improve creative effectiveness without compromising brand integrity.
• Partner with Creative Production to scope work, align timelines, and ensure deliverables are feasible, on-brand, and on time, supporting a healthy, scalable creative workflow.
• Champion responsible adoption of AI-enabled design tools to accelerate iteration, explore more creative routes, and improve efficiency - while maintaining quality, originality, and brand safety.
• Collaborate with external agencies and freelancers as needed, reviewing work, aligning to guidelines, and ensuring seamless integration with in-house creative.
• Be a company leader for Design by presenting and bringing along E Staff all the way up to the CMO and CEO.
• Be a people leader with more junior designers reporting into you.

About You

• 10+ years of experience creating and leading design work across brand and marketing, with a strong foundation in craft and concept. Both in Agencies and Brand side and experience being a people leader.
• Proven ability to set and uphold a high bar for design quality across campaigns and always-on creative, including digital, social, paid media, and lifecycle channels.
• Excellence without ego, highly collaborative, able to work across disciplines and backgrounds, and confident presenting design rationale to senior stakeholders.
• Strong design systems and brand identity experience - able to translate strategy into scalable frameworks and clear guidelines.
• Demonstrated experience mentoring designers and leading through feedback, critique, and hands-on collaboration in a player-coach capacity.
• Growth mindset and curiosity - eager to embrace new tools and platforms (including AI-enabled workflows) to increase speed, iteration, and creative exploration.
• Experience collaborating with agencies and freelancers to flex resources based on campaign cycles; comfortable reviewing work for brand consistency and craft.

Portfolio Requirement

A portfolio is required and should demonstrate strong brand systems thinking and end-to-end campaign design across brand and performance channels. Portfolios will be reviewed for both strength in creativity/craft and effectiveness.

Company Overview

McAfee is a leader in personal security for consumers. Focused on protecting people, not just devices, McAfee consumer solutions adapt to users’ needs in an always online world, empowering them to live securely through integrated, intuitive solutions that protects their families and communities with the right security at the right moment.

Company Benefits And Perks

We work hard to embrace diversity and inclusion and encourage everyone at McAfee to bring their authentic selves to work every day. We offer a variety of social programs, flexible work hours and family-friendly benefits to all of our employees.

• Bonus Program
• 401k Retirement
• Medical, Dental, Vision, Basic Life, Short Term Disability and Long-Term Disability Coverage
• Paid Parental Leave
• Support and Community Involvement
• 14 Paid Company Holidays
• Unlimited Paid Time Off for Exempt Employees
• 96 Hours of Sick Time and 120 Hours of Vacation for Non-Exempt Employees Accrued Each Year

We're serious about our commitment to diversity which is why McAfee prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, gender, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, marital status, pregnancy, gender expression or identity, sexual orientation or any other legally protected status.

Pay Range

The anticipated compensation for this position is USD $141,680.00/Yr. - USD $232,760.00/Yr. depending on experience and qualifications.

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