Director of Design - fully remote!

About the Role

As the Director of Design at Inflect, you report directly to the VP of Technology and will sit within the Engineering team, leading our design function with true authority. This is a highly visible and strategic hands-on role where you set the UI/UX and brand direction, make the tough calls, and relentlessly drive them into our shipped product and marketing surfaces. You will work tightly with Engineering, Marketing, and Product to transform complex, data-dense workflows into intuitive, beautiful experiences. You are the architect of Inflect's visual language, ensuring our digital infrastructure marketplace looks, feels, and moves better than anything else in the industry—on par with the best studio-built sites on the web.

Who You Are

You are a design authority with a "boots on the ground" execution mindset. You dive into the mechanics of visual, interaction, and motion design and translate complex product flows into elegant, usable interfaces. You thrive when partnering with frontend engineering to ensure motion and craft survive implementation. You hold high standards for execution and branding, often obsessing over details to achieve excellence. As a "Force Multiplier," you relish hiring, growing, and leading a design team while setting uncompromising standards. You are driven by a cohesive visual language and have deep mastery of prototyping (Figma, Framer, and/or code-aware tooling).

• Design Authority & Craft: Unwavering commitment to a studio-grade craft bar, with an extensive portfolio spanning UI/UX, interaction, and motion design.
• People Leadership: Proven experience holding accountability for a design function—hiring, mentoring, and leading high-performing teams to best-in-class standards.
• Technical Partnership: Deep experience partnering with frontend engineering (Next.js/TypeScript) to ensure flawless execution from concept to shipped product.
• Systems Thinking: Ability to own and evolve a comprehensive design system, typographic system, and overall visual language coherent across both product and brand.
• Complex Problem Solving: A track record of untangling genuinely complex product flows (e.g., data-heavy dashboards, geospatial UIs, or deep configuration tools).

About Inflect

We're revolutionizing the way companies buy and sell digital infrastructure (datacenter, cloud, and network services). Digital infrastructure services are the building blocks of the Internet and at the core of every industry. Inflect's marketplace and advisory remove friction so any company can get what they need, when they need it, with the right deal terms. By achieving our mission, we unlock businesses to build and human innovation to inflect.

As a startup, we work quickly, smartly, and hard. The road to success has highs and lows, and we thrive in an environment of ownership—full-time employees receive option grants—and relentless drive toward our goals.

Responsibilities

• Design Leadership & Team Accountability:
  • Direction & Authority: Lead the design function with authority, setting the UI/UX and brand direction, making crucial calls, and driving them into shipped product and marketing surfaces.
  • People Leadership: Hold absolute accountability for the design team—hiring, growing, and mentoring talent while setting and enforcing uncompromising standards.
• Execution & Studio-Grade Craft:
  • Visual & Motion Excellence: Own the visual, interaction, and motion design of Inflect across the marketing site (Framer) and the core product (Next.js/TypeScript) to a studio-grade craft bar.
  • Systems & Language: Own and continually evolve the design system, the typographic system, and the overall visual language, keeping them coherent across product and brand.
  • Complex Product Flows: Lead design for genuinely complex, high-stakes flows, including the quote configurator, data-dense dashboards, and geospatial/RouteFinder UIs.
• Cross-Functional Partnership:
  • Engineering Alignment: Partner tightly with frontend engineering to ensure motion, interaction, and craft survive implementation; prototype flawlessly using Figma, Framer, and/or code-aware tooling.
  • Marketing Collaboration: Act as a tight partner to Marketing as a primary stakeholder, co-owning the craft of inflect.com and aligning brand and visual direction with overarching marketing goals and campaigns.

Requirements

• Design leadership experience: 8+ years in product and digital brand design, including direct experience leading and managing designers.
• Design authority: You've owned design decisions with real authority in prior roles—you made the call and drove it to shipped, not just produced the mock-up.
• Technical partnership: Deep experience partnering with frontend engineering (Next.js/TypeScript) to ensure motion, interaction, and craft survive implementation; fluent in Figma and Framer (or a fast ramp on Framer), with enough front-end literacy to collaborate on execution.
• Complex product UX: Demonstrated ability to turn genuinely complex, data-dense flows (dashboards, configurators, geospatial UIs) into intuitive, elegant interfaces.
• Range: Strong across both product UX and brand/marketing design, and comfortable acting as Marketing's primary design partner.

Preferred Qualifications

• Studio-grade craft (strongly preferred): A motion-forward, scroll-driven portfolio at a studio-grade bar—motion, transitions, micro-interactions, and custom iconography.
• Creative-development range: 3D/WebGL, Lottie/After Effects, or similar collaboration with engineering on motion.
• B2B or marketplace product design; data-visualization and geospatial UX.
• Brand strategy: Experience with a full brand strategy exercise—positioning, audience, and voice through to visual identity—ideally having led one, or at minimum as a core contributor.
• Experience building and scaling a design function from an early stage, ideally in a startup or high-growth environment.

Benefits

• Fully covered health insurance options through a major provider for you and your family (you pay $0).
• 100% remote work environment.
• Unlimited PTO.
• Dental and vision insurance available with widely used providers.
• Option grants begin vesting after year 1—you own a piece of Inflect.