Senior Director, Design

renttherunway; New York (NY); On-site; USD 220,000 - 320,000; Full time

Job summary

Rent the Runway is seeking a Senior Director of Design to own the design infrastructure across its platform, shaping how customers discover and engage with the brand. You will lead the in-house design function and ensure coherence across site, app, and product experiences, including AI-enabled features and a scalable visual language.

You will partner with Product, Engineering, and Brand Creative to translate design decisions into business impact, build a high-performing team, and establish

Qualifications

• 10+ years of design experience with leadership of multi-disciplinary design teams.
• Built or evolved a design system for a consumer-facing product.
• Strong product design instincts for complex journeys and discovery surfaces.
• Understanding of how AI can be integrated into a coherent UX.

Responsibilities

• Own design systems and visual language across site, app, email, and internal tools.
• Lead end-to-end UX and product design across the customer-facing platform.
• Drive AI-enabled design initiatives including discovery, recommendations, and PDP design.
• Build and develop a high-performing, multi-disciplinary design team.
• Establish and maintain design quality standards and review processes.

Skills

Design leadership

Design systems

UX design

Product design

AI in design

Cross-functional

Roadmap planning

Job description

Senior Director, Design

About Us:

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, trus