Director of Product Design

About the role

We are seeking a Director of Product Design to lead our efforts in transforming Ellevation Education into the premier and most impactful ELD solution. Reporting to the Chief Product & Technology Officer, this role is integral to our R&D Leadership team, where Design collaborates equally with Product and Engineering.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design function as we evolve from a suite of point solutions into an integrated ELD platform.
• Think strategically, scale design craft, and influence peers across R&D.
• Build a cohesive team of product designers, including filling open roles.
• Develop a clear picture of Ellevation's strategy and the role design plays in success.
• Understand our operating rhythm, team rituals, and shape-up planning cadence.
• Partner with the Principal Product Designer to assess the current state of Backpack and the craft bar across the team.
• Steward the overall direction of Product Design, ensuring designers participate in upstream shaping.
• Work closely with R&D Leadership to calibrate on performance and resource allocation.
• Continue to grow influence across the organization.
• Take full ownership of Product Design at Ellevation, expanding the team's capacity through hiring, mentorship, and scaling rituals.
• Define healthy collaboration patterns from shaping through delivery with Product and Engineering leadership.
• Drive Backpack adoption as a competitive advantage with the Principal Product Designer.

Requirements

• 8+ years managing Product Designers, with a track record of building resilient teams, growing talent, and developing leaders.
• A clear communicator who can articulate design decisions to non-design audiences and earns trust through framing trade-offs.
• Raises the bar on craft, giving honest feedback, pairing with designers on hard problems, and setting a clear standard for what good looks like.
• Bias to action, testing ideas in the world, iterating on what ships, and not getting stuck debating.
• AI-fluent, with a developed perspective on AI in the design craft, building LLM-assisted workflows, and teaching others to do the same.
• Designs with empathy for users unlike themselves and brings diverse perspectives into the process.

Qualifications

• Enterprise SaaS builder background, with experience delivering for both key decision-makers and end-users.
• Personally goes to the source on user research and brings the team along.
• Thinks in systems and creates coherent experiences across workflows rather than isolated features.
• Loves to win with great people, building influence across functions, sharing credit broadly, and bringing out the best in others.

Skills

• Strategic thinking
• People leadership
• Design craftsmanship
• AI fluency
• User empathy

Benefits

• Competitive compensation package
• Flexible working hours
• Professional development opportunities
• Health and wellness programs

Pay

• $150,000 - $175,000 annually

Schedule

• Full-time position
• Minimum of 10 in-person visits per year in the Boston area