Director of Product Design

Descript, Inc.; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 283,000 - 302,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading company in San Francisco is seeking a Director of Design to lead a talented team in creating innovative products. This role emphasizes design quality, strategic partnership, and mentoring designers to achieve excellence. The ideal candidate will have a strong background in design leadership and AI fluency, fostering a collaborative environment to drive product success.

Benefits

Generous healthcare package

Catered lunches

Flexible vacation time

Qualifications

• Proven experience in leading product design teams.
• Strong craft perspective and execution focus.
• Experience with AI-powered interfaces.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design team in delivering high-quality user experiences.
• Shape product direction in collaboration with leadership.
• Build a culture of design excellence and accountability.

Skills

Design Leadership

Strategic Decision-Making

AI Fluency

Cross-Functional Collaboration

Product Instincts

Job description

Descript is on a mission to build the next generation of tools for creators—where complexity becomes invisible and power feels effortless. As Director of Design, you will lead a high-performing team in shaping the future of our product, driving systems thinking, craft excellence, and joyful experiences. This is a leadership role for someone who sees design as both an intellectual challenge and an emotional opportunity—to architect structure and surprise, and to create products people love, not just use.

We’re looking for someone who can elevate what design means at Descript. You’ll mentor a team of experienced designers, collaborate across disciplines, and set a high bar for interaction quality, motion, and visual polish. You bring strong opinions, flexible thinking, and a backbone built on deep experience shipping real product.

If you’ve ever looked at a complex product and thought, “This could be both simpler and more fun,” we’d love to hear from you.

Responsibilities

• Design Quality & Craft
  • Lead the team in delivering delightful, polished, and high-craft user experiences across the product—especially in animation, motion, and interaction.
  • Set a standard of quality through detailed critique, mentorship, and your own deep understanding of what good looks like.
  • Interested in creating design that people love use, incorporating fun
• Build and scale a culture of design excellence, autonomy, and accountability.
• Support designers in doing the best work of their careers—through structure, feedback, and inspiration—not micromanagement.
• Act as a backbone for the team: advocating for them, pushing their thinking, and helping them navigate ambiguity.
• Shape how AI shows up in our product—creating interfaces that feel both magical and intuitive, without sacrificing user agency.
• Be curious and opinionated about how AI is changing the design discipline, and ready to guide others through it.
• Strategic Partnership
  • Partner closely with product, engineering, and executive leadership to shape product direction and align design efforts with company goals.
  • Collaborate directly with the CEO, while also empowering your team to lead with independence.
• Hiring & Talent Evaluation
  • Review portfolios with a sharp eye for storytelling, systems thinking, and decision-making under constraints.
  • You are comfortable digging into the details around design decisions. For example, “What Tradeoff’s did you have to make?” and “What did you have to cut from the MVP?”

Requirements

• Proven Design Leadership: You’ve led product design teams through scaling phases, built high-functioning cultures, and driven successful outcomes at growing companies.
• Strong Craft Perspective: You care deeply about execution—from animation systems to visual language—and can mentor others to raise the bar.
• Strategic and Flexible: You bring clarity in decision-making, but know when to adapt. You can advocate for a direction, while leaving room for iteration.
• AI Fluency: You’ve worked with or explored AI-powered interfaces, and you’re excited (not intimidated) by how they’ll reshape interaction and creativity.
• Excellent Cross-Functional Partner: You thrive working with founders and execs to define vision, navigate complexity, and keep the bar high.
• Product Instincts: You know how to simplify complexity for both pros and first-time users—and you have examples to show it.

The base salary range for this role is $283,000- $302,000/year. Final offer amounts will carefully consider multiple factors, including prior experience, expertise, location, and may vary from the amount above.

Nice to Haves

• Experience designing in both consumer and prosumer environments.
• Familiarity with creative tooling, editing workflows, or systems design.

Additional Context

• This is a Director-level role (we're open to strong candidates at Sr. Director level).
• The role is not a player/coach—this is a leadership position focused on team and product excellence, not day-to-day design production.
• Candidates will be asked to share recent team work examples, with an emphasis on what was cut or changed in pursuit of quality.

Descript is the special company that's in possession of both product market fit and the raw materials (passionate user community, great product, large market) for growth, but is still early enough that each new employee has a measurable influence on the direction of the company.

Benefits include a generous healthcare package, catered lunches, and flexible vacation time. Our headquarters are located in the Mission District of San Francisco, CA. We're looking to hire people who are local and able to join us at the office when needed. We're flexible, and you're an adult—we don't expect or mandate that you're in the office every day. But we do believe there are valuable and serendipitous moments of discovery and collaboration that come from working together in person.

Descript is an equal opportunity workplace—we are dedicated to equal employment opportunities regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity, or Veteran status. We believe in actively building a team rich in diverse backgrounds, experiences, and opinions to better allow our employees, products, and community to thrive.

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