Senior Director, Design

Rent the Runway; New York (NY); Hybrid; USD 208,000 - 270,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health benefits

401(k) plan

Employee discounts

Parental leave

Paid sabbatical

Company events

Job summary

Rent the Runway is seeking a Senior Director of Design to own our design systems and visual language across the platform. You will lead end-to-end UX and product design, integrating AI to enhance discovery, fit, and PDP experiences.

Build a high-performing team and set quality standards for design across site, app, and tools. You will partner with Product, Engineering, Brand Creative, and Revenue to align design with business goals, while mentoring designers and expanding the design organization

Qualifications

• 10+ years of design leadership in consumer-facing products.
• Built or evolved a design system at scale.
• Strong instincts across complex journeys and checkout flows.
• Experience integrating AI-powered features into UX.
• Proven ability to scale design organizations and manage teams.
• Experience in fashion, retail, or DTC is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Own RTR's design systems and visual language implementation across site, app, email, and internal tools.
• Lead end-to-end UX and product design across the customer-facing platform, integrating AI tools.
• Drive product design for AI-enabled initiatives like AI-powered discovery and PDP design.
• Build and develop a high-performing, multi-disciplinary design team.
• Establish and maintain design quality standards and review processes across the team and partners.
• Partner with Product, Engineering, and Channel Revenue as a cross-functional peer.
• Collaborate with Brand Creative on handoffs and scalable translation of brand language.
• Manage design vendors and operational infrastructure to move quickly without sacrificing quality.
• Represent design’s strategic perspective to leadership and advocate for resources.

Skills

Design leadership

Design systems

Product design

AI in UX

Cross-functional

Team building

Job description

Rent the Runway (RTR) is transforming the way we get dressed by pioneering the world’s first Closet in the Cloud. Founded in 2009, RTR has disrupted the $2.4 trillion fashion industry by inspiring women with a more joyful, sustainable and financially-savvy way to feel their best every day. As the ultimate destination for circular fashion, the brand now offers infinite points of access to its shared closet via a fully customizable subscription to fashion, one-time rental or ownership. RTR offers designer apparel and accessories from hundreds of brand partners and has built in-house proprietary technology and a one-of-a-kind reverse logistics operation. RTR has been named to CNBC’s “Disruptor 50” five times in ten years, and has been placed on Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies list multiple times.

About the Job:

The Senior Director, Design owns the design infrastructure that makes RTR's platform work: the systems, experiences, and visual language that shape how customers discover, navigate, and fall in love with what we offer. This role leads RTR's in-house design function and is responsible for the quality, coherence, and performance of design across the entire customer-facing platform.

Design sits within the broader Product & Channel Revenue organization, working as a peer to Product, Engineering, Copy and Creative. Where Brand Creative sets the visual identity and drives campaigns, Design makes that identity work at scale across every surface of the site, app, and product experience that touches the customer. As RTR builds toward a customer-led fashion service platform that compounds value across subscription, Reserve, and resale, this role is central to making those ambitions real.

What You’ll Do:

• Own RTR's design systems and visual language implementation, ensuring the brand's visual identity is expressed consistently and correctly across site, app, email, and internal tools, in close coordination with Brand Creative.
• Lead the end-to-end UX and product design function across the customer-facing platform, integrating AI tools into the team's everyday workflows to drive design efficiency, accelerate output, and maintain a consistently high quality bar across every surface.
• Drive the product design track underlying RTR's AI-enabled initiatives including AI-powered discovery, fit recommendations, and PDP design, bringing a product design and UX perspective that is peer-level to Brand Creative's AI creative leadership.
• Build and develop a high-performing, multi-disciplinary design team across product design.
• Establish and maintain design quality standards and review processes, owning what great design looks like for RTR's digital platform and holding that bar across the team and with external partners.
• Partner with Product, Engineering, and Channel Revenue as a true cross-functional peer, participating in roadmap planning, sprint reviews, and product decisions where design has a meaningful stake.
• Collaborate with Brand Creative on handoffs between brand-level design direction and platform-level implementation, ensuring the visual language developed at the brand level is translated accurately and scalably across every digital surface.
• Manage design vendors, tools, and the operational infrastructure that enables the team to move quickly without sacrificing quality.
• Represent design's strategic perspective to leadership, articulating how design decisions impact business outcomes and advocating for the resources and space the team needs to do its best work.

About You:

• You have 10+ years of design experience with demonstrated leadership of multi-disciplinary design teams..
• You have built or significantly evolved a design system in a consumer-facing product environment, and you understand how design systems scale across teams and surfaces.
• You have strong product design instincts and experience designing for complex user journeys, checkout flows, personalization experiences, and discovery surfaces are areas where you've done meaningful work.
• You understand how AI is changing the product design landscape and have a POV on how to integrate AI-powered features into a coherent, trustworthy user experience.
• You are a skilled cross-functional partner, you work comfortably alongside product managers, engineers, and brand leaders, and you can translate design decisions into business impact in language your partners understand.
• You have experience building and scaling design organizations, including developing direct reports, establishing team structures, and creating the career frameworks and operating rhythms that allow a multi-disciplinary team to do their best work.
• You bring clarity and structure to ambiguous situations, you can define the design problem, align stakeholders on the approach, and then lead the team to execute against it.
• Experience in fashion, retail, or a direct-to-consumer platform is a strong plus. You understand how customers shop, trust, and return to a brand.
• You are energized by a high-stakes, fast-moving environment where design has real influence on business outcomes and you know how to protect quality while moving at speed.

At Rent the Runway, we’re committed to the wellbeing of our employees, and aim to create a workplace that fosters both personal and professional growth. Our inclusive benefits include, but are not limited to:

• Paid Time Off, including vacation, paid bereavement, and family sick leave - every employee needs time to take care of themselves and their family.
• Comprehensive health, vision, dental, FSA and dependent care from day 1 of employment - Your health comes first, and we’ve got you covered.
• 401(k) match - an investment in your future.
• Exclusive employee subscription and rental discounts - to ensure you experience the magic of renting the runway (and give us valued feedback!).
• Universal Paid Parental Leave for both parents + flexible return to work program - because we know your newest family member(s) deserve your undivided attention.
• Paid Sabbatical after 5 years of continuous service - Unplug, recharge, and have some fun!
• Company-wide events and outings - our team spirit is no joke - we know how to have fun!
• Office-centric work - our corporate employees and technical leaders have the option to work remotely on Fridays, in accordance with Company policies.

Rent the Runway is an equal opportunity employer. In accordance with applicable law, we prohibit discrimination against any applicant or employee based on any legally-recognized basis, including, but not limited to: race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, lactation, childbirth or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, age (40 and over), national origin or ancestry, citizenship status, physical or mental disability, genetic information (including testing and characteristics), veteran status, uniformed service member status or any other status protected by federal, state or local law.

The anticipated base salary for this position is $207,692 - $270,000. The actual base salary offered will depend on a variety of factors, including without limitation, the qualifications of the individual applicant for the position, years of relevant experience, level of education attained, certifications or other professional licenses held.