Director, Product Design

DigiCert; California; On-site; USD 200,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health and wellness program

Paid time off

401(k) retirement plan

Job summary

DigiCert is seeking a Product Design Director to set design direction and lead a geographically distributed team across a broad portfolio, including Trust Lifecycle Manager and the common platform. You will align company strategy with customer needs and craft, while enabling designers to produce their best work.

You will partner with cross-functional leaders to turn AI ambitions into repeatable, responsible operating models, balance speed with quality, and scale design practices that improve

Qualifications

• AI transformation leadership demonstrated in team- or function-level change.
• 10+ years in product design, 5+ years leading design teams.
• Experience hiring, coaching, and career development across locations/time zones.
• Experience designing complex B2B/enterprise SaaS products with multi-step workflows and scale.
• Deep knowledge of product design from discovery to production delivery.
• Experience creating coherent experiences across multiple products or a shared platform.
• History of building partnerships with Product, Engineering, Sales, Support, and other leaders.

Responsibilities

• Portfolio strategy: Set and communicate a cohesive design vision across Trust Lifecycle Manager, the common platform, and other product areas. Translate strategy into priorities.
• Product partnership: Partner with Product and Engineering; shape roadmaps and turn direction into executable plans.
• End-to-end craft: Raise the quality bar from discovery through information architecture, interaction/visual design, prototyping, content, accessibility, design systems, and production QA.
• Customer insight: Build feedback loops with customers, Sales and Support; use research, data, and field evidence to identify opportunities, validate decisions, and measure outcomes.
• Platform coherence: Create connected journeys across a large surface; partner with design system lead for reusable patterns while addressing domain needs.
• AI transformation roadmap: Define and lead the design function's roadmap for AI-enabled and agentic workflows across disciplines.
• Adoption and capability: Build literacy, coach designers, share workflows, and enable safe testing of new approaches.
• Responsible scale: Partner with Engineering, Security, Legal, IT to establish guardrails and quality standards; scale effective practices.
• AI-enabled experiences: Design trustworthy automation and human-agent interactions with clear controls, feedback, and recovery paths.
• People leadership: Hire, coach, develop, and retain a geographically distributed team; set expectations and foster accountability.
• Organizational effectiveness: Align talent to high-value work, improve operating rhythms across time zones, and improve collaboration and decision-making.
• Executive influence: Present design-driven recommendations to executives with customer evidence and measurable outcomes.

Skills

AI transformation leadership

Product design leadership

Distributed people management

Enterprise SaaS depth

Craft judgment

Systems thinking

Cross-functional leadership

Executive communication

Evidence of impact

Job description

Who we are

DigiCert is a global leader in intelligent trust. We protect the digital world by ensuring the security, privacy, and authenticity of every interaction. Our AI-powered DigiCert ONE platform unifies PKI, DNS, and certificate lifecycle management, to secure infrastructure, software, devices, messages, AI content and agents. Learn why more than 100,000 organizations, including 90% of the Fortune 500, choose DigiCert to stop today’s threats and prepare for a quantum-safe future at www.digicert.com

Job summary

The Product Design Director will set design direction and lead a geographically distributed team across a broad portfolio, including Trust Lifecycle Manager, DigiCert's common platform, and other product verticals. You will connect company strategy, customer needs, and a high bar for craft, while creating the conditions for designers to do the strongest work of their careers.

AI is changing both the products customers need and the way product teams work. We are accelerating the adoption of agentic workflows across design, and this leader will partner with other cross-functional leaders to turn that ambition into a repeatable, responsible operating model: selecting high-value use cases, redesigning workflows, building team capability, defining guardrails and evaluation criteria, and scaling the practices that improve speed, quality, learning, and customer outcomes. We are looking for someone excited to lead through this disruption with curiosity, urgency, and sound judgment.

This is a strategic people-leadership role that stays close to the work. You will use your business acumen and craft expertise to guide discovery and critique, help teams make difficult tradeoffs, and ensure the experience customers receive in production reflects the intent and quality of the design.

What you will do

• Portfolio strategy. Set and communicate a cohesive design vision across Trust Lifecycle Manager, the common platform, and other product areas. Translate company and product strategy into clear experience priorities.
• Product partnership. Operate as a strategic peer to Product and Engineering leaders. Shape roadmaps early, frame the right problems, make tradeoffs visible, and turn direction into executable plans.
• End-to-end craft. Raise the quality bar from discovery through information architecture, interaction and visual design, prototyping, content, accessibility, design systems, and production design QA.
• Customer insight. Build strong feedback loops with customers and with Sales and Support. Use qualitative research, product data, and field evidence to identify opportunities, validate decisions, and measure outcomes.
• Platform coherence. Create connected journeys across a large product surface. Partner with our design system lead to champion reusable patterns while allowing product teams to solve domain-specific needs.
• AI transformation roadmap. Define and lead the design function's roadmap for AI-enabled and agentic ways of working across research, synthesis, exploration, prototyping, validation, content, and delivery.
• Adoption and capability. Move the team beyond isolated experimentation by building practical literacy, coaching designers, sharing proven workflows, and creating permission to test new approaches safely.
• Responsible scale. Partner with Engineering, Security, Legal, IT, and other stakeholders to establish fit-for-purpose guardrails, human review points, quality standards, and evaluation methods. Scale what works and stop or adjust what does not.
• AI-enabled experiences. Help teams design trustworthy automation and human-agent interactions, with clear controls, permissions, feedback, transparency, failure recovery, and escalation paths.
• People leadership. Hire, coach, develop, and retain a geographically distributed team. Set clear expectations, give candid feedback, support career growth, and build an inclusive culture of accountability and trust.
• Organizational effectiveness. Match talent and capacity to the highest-value work, establish effective operating rhythms across time zones, and improve how design collaborates, makes decisions, and delivers.
• Executive influence.Champion design with executive leadership through clear narratives, customer evidence, prototypes, and business-relevant measures. Present recommendations and tradeoffs with confidence.

What you will have

Required Qualifications

• AI transformation leadership. Demonstrated experience leading team-level or function-level AI transformation beyond individual tool use. You can show how you redesigned workflows, addressed adoption barriers, established guardrails and quality measures, developed capability, and achieved measurable gains in speed, quality, learning, capacity, or customer outcomes. We will ask for specific examples.
• Product design leadership. 10+ years of experience in product design, UX, or a related discipline, including 5+ years leading and developing product design teams.
• Distributed people management. A strong record of hiring, coaching, performance management, and career development for teams working across locations and time zones.
• Enterprise SaaS depth. Experience designing complex B2B or enterprise SaaS products for technical customers, including multi-step workflows, data-rich interfaces, administration, integrations, permissions, and scale.
• Craft judgment. Deep knowledge of product design from discovery through production delivery, with the ability to evaluate both strategic direction and detailed execution.
• Systems thinking. Experience creating coherent experiences across multiple products or a shared platform and balancing long-term architecture with near-term delivery.
• Cross-functional leadership. A history of building trusted partnerships with Product, Engineering, Sales, Support, and other leaders, including navigating disagreement and ambiguity.
• Executive communication. Excellent written, visual, and verbal storytelling, with experience influencing decisions and presenting complex ideas to executive leadership.
• Evidence of impact. A portfolio or case studies that show the outcomes you led, the teams and decisions behind the work, and the effect on customers and the business, not only final artifacts.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in cybersecurity, PKI, certificate lifecycle management, identity and access management, DevOps, cloud infrastructure, DNS, or adjacent technical domains.
• Experience leading design for AI-enabled products or agentic workflows, including human oversight, permissions, transparency, and recovery from failure.
• Experience evolving a shared platform, consolidating fragmented experiences, or scaling a mature design system.
• Experience leading through significant organizational or product transformation in a global SaaS company.

What Success Looks Like

• A clearer product experience. Customers can move across DigiCert products and platform capabilities with greater confidence, consistency, and efficiency.
• Design shapes strategy. Customer evidence and design thinking influence priorities early, and leaders understand the experience, business, and technical tradeoffs behind key decisions.
• AI practices move into repeatable use. The team advances from promising pilots to governed, measurable workflows that increase learning and capacity while preserving judgment, security, and craft quality.
• The team grows stronger. Designers have clear direction, meaningful ownership, high-quality coaching, and opportunities to develop their craft and leadership.

What We Offer

Connecting Work and Life

At DigiCert, we recognize that a fulfilling career is just one part of a well-rounded life. Our benefits are designed to support the whole person, helping you thrive personally and professionally.

• Comprehensive physical and mental wellness programs
• Competitive vacation and paid holidays
• Country-specific parental leave and family planning support
• Employee Resource Groups
• Catered lunches for in-office employees

Financial Health and Future Planning

Your financial well-being is a priority. We offer competitive compensation structures and programs to help you build long-term security.

• Annual performance-based bonus
• Country-specific retirement planning options

Professional Development and Career Growth

We believe that when our employees grow, we grow. We invest in learning and development initiatives to support every stage of your career.

• Continuous learning programs
• Assigned mentorship program
• Structured performance review cycles
• Leadership development opportunities

Benefits

• Competitive compensation and comprehensive health, dental, and vision coverage
• Retirement savings programs with company matching (401(k) or RRSP)
• Generous paid time off, including holidays, and vacation
• Paid parental leave and family support benefits
• Life and disability coverage
• Flexible spending and health savings options (where applicable)
• Health and wellness support, including gym reimbursement and wellness programs
• Employee Assistance Program with 24/7 confidential support for employees and families
• Educationassistanceand professional development opportunities
• Access to LinkedIn Learning and continuous learning resources
• Employee referral bonus program andadditionalcompanyperksand discounts
• Internal rewards and recognition platform (Motivosity) to celebrate and acknowledge project wins, milestone achievements, and the outstanding contributions of our colleagues
• Business travel insurance and global employee support programs

DigiCert is an Equal Opportunity employer and is committed to diversity in its workforce. In compliance with applicable federal and state laws, DigiCert prohibits discrimination on the basis of race or ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, sex, age, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, veteran’s status, status as a qualified person with a disability, or genetic information. Individuals from historically underrepresented groups, such as minorities, women, qualified person with disabilities, and protected veterans are strongly encouraged to apply.

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Compensation Transparency:

The annualized base salary range for this position is outlined below.

Each candidate’s compensation offer will be determined based on factors including experience, skills, qualifications, job duties, business needs, and location. For roles that include additional compensation components, total compensation may include base pay, bonus, equity, or other incentives.

This role may also be eligible for benefits, which will be discussed during the hiring process. We are committed to fair and transparent pay practices and comply with all applicable pay transparency requirements. If you would like more information about compensation or benefits, we are happy to provide additional details during the hiring process.

For more information regarding our comprehensive benefits, see the benefits section.

Base Salary

$200,000 — $240,000 USD