Experience Design Lead (AI Focus)

The Hired Guns; New York (NY); Hybrid; USD 200,000 - 250,000; Full time

Job summary

The Hired Guns in New York, NY seeks a senior digital leader to shape brand experiences across digital, physical and emerging platforms. You'll partner with strategists, creatives, technologists, writers and clients to drive breakthrough work and mentor a growing design team.

With 12+ years at top agencies, you lead hands-on design, UX/UI, and storytelling, turning complex ideas into clear experiences. You welcome ambiguity, value AI as a creative material, and help set the agency’s next chapter.

Qualifications

• 12+ years of experience at a top creative, branding, digital, or experience agency.
• Hands-on creative leader who still makes great work and is a doer.
• Deep expertise in UX/UI, digital experiences, websites, brand systems, and storytelling.

Responsibilities

• Partner with strategists, creatives, technologists, writers, and clients to create unforgettable brand experiences across digital, physical, and emerging platforms.
• Mentor a growing design team and push bold, groundbreaking work.

Skills

UX/UI design

Digital leadership

Brand systems

Storytelling

Strategic thinking

Mentoring

Emerging tech

Job description

Independent Creative Agency Seeking Innovative Senior Digital Leader!

Salary range: $200,000 to $250,000 per year

Are You the Missing Piece?

What if your best work has never fit neatly into a job title? You're not "just" a UX designer. You're not only a brand thinker. You're not simply a creative director. You see every touchpoint: A website, an event, a product demo, an installation, even an emerging technology, all as part of one connected experience. You love solving messy, complex problems, turning abstract ideas into something people can actually feel, and building work that leaves an impression long after someone clicks away. If that sounds like you, keep reading.

This independent creative agency is looking for a highly creative and innovative senior digital design leader who still loves getting their hands dirty. You'll partner with strategists, creatives, technologists, writers, and clients to create unforgettable brand experiences across digital, physical, and emerging platforms. Yes, AI is part of the conversation, but not because it's trendy. Here, it's another creative material, one that helps people connect more deeply with brands rather than replacing the craft behind them. You'll help shape breakthrough work for complex clients, influence the agency's next chapter, mentor a growing design team, and spend time experimenting with entirely new products and ideas that don't exist yet.

What's it going to take to score an interview?

• 12+ years of experience (REQUIRED: some of that experience MUST be at a top creative, branding, digital, or experience agency)
• You're a hands-on creative leader who still loves making great work and is a doer
• Deep expertise in UX/UI, digital experiences, websites, brand systems, and storytelling
• Comfortable working across strategy, technology, creative, and client-facing presentations
• You know how to turn complicated ideas into simple, elegant experiences
• You're energized by ambiguity and excited by problems that don't have obvious answers
• You naturally think in concepts, not just deliverables
• You embrace emerging technology thoughtfully and know when it enhances an experience (and when it doesn't). AI is something you're playing with in your free time
• You're the person who brings momentum, optimism, and solutions - not bureaucracy
• You enjoy mentoring others and are excited to help build a growing design practice
• Your portfolio shows curiosity, experimentation, and original thinking, not just polished case studies and basic wireframes
• Bonus points if you have a physical or digital artifact you made that you can send us that lights you up and demonstrates your out-of-the-box creativity

You should take this meeting because ...

This isn't another agency role where you'll spend your days polishing deliverables and waiting for creative direction. You'll help define what gets built, how it's built, and what's possible next. You'll have the freedom to experiment, the runway to build, and the opportunity to influence the future of an agency that’s betting on bold thinkers, not followers. If you're energized by complexity, love making the impossible feel inevitable, and want your fingerprints on work that actually moves the industry forward, this is your kind of challenge.

The Hired Guns does not and will not discriminate in considering and referring candidates for employment, or in its treatment or advancement of its employees, and will not tolerate harassment, on the basis of race, color, religion, gender (including gender identity and expression), sexual orientation, place of origin, years on this Earth, disability, or any other status protected by applicable federal, state or local law.

Full Time / Direct Hire - Remote, Eastern (preferred) or Central Time Zone

Full Time / Direct Hire - Hybrid, In-Office 2 Days Per Week, New York, NY