Director, Product Design - Accelerator

About the Company

At Capital One, we’re building a leading information-based technology company. Still founder-led by Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Richard Fairbank, Capital One is on a mission to help our customers succeed by bringing ingenuity, simplicity, and humanity to banking. We measure our efforts by the success our customers enjoy and the advocacy they exhibit. Guided by our shared values, we thrive in an environment where collaboration and openness are valued. We believe that innovation is powered by perspective and that teamwork and respect for each other lead to superior results. We elevate each other and obsess about doing the right thing. Our associates serve with humility and a deep respect for their responsibility in helping our customers achieve their goals and realize their dreams. Together, we’re on a quest to change banking for good.

About the Team and Role

The Accelerator is a small, internal team of problem solvers across Risk, Technology, Product, and Design that works to alleviate the knottiest spaces in the company. As engagements come to us, we focus on easing pathways for innovation across the enterprise for both new acquisitions and seasoned teams on the cutting edge of change. This role also oversees design within the Global Enterprise Affairs team with a focus on products that enable our community engagement investments.

We require not just a people leader who can tactically execute work, but rather, a strategic design leader. In this Director role, you will be expected to deliver on the following critical areas:

• Strategic Ownership: Beyond managing day-to-day operations and team outputs, independently help define the vision for integration experiences, build the Design roadmap, and proactively identify priorities without heavy oversight.
• Cross-Functional Influence and Executive Presence: As the work streams heavily interface with multiple functional areas and senior leaders, this role must effectively influence priorities and drive high-stakes initiatives across the functional areas.
• Navigating Ambiguity and Context Shifting: Given the evolving nature of our work, it’s critical to work in ways that preserve optionality, make decisions with incomplete data, and pivot seamlessly without losing momentum.
• Building a Design Org of the Future: In addition to managing current designers in the space, we look to this leader to help scale the function, design the future organizational structure, and develop current designers as the team grows. This includes leveraging technology to broaden the reach of design within the organization.

The Experience Design team at Capital One is at the forefront of enriching our customers’ digital and physical experiences. We are passionate about creating memorable, meaningful product experiences that build the Capital One brand with humanity and drive business advantage and innovation. We champion a thriving environment of collaboration, authenticity, and healthy critique, in which we honor diversity of thought, create a culture of belonging, and elevate one another.

Responsibilities

• Lead a talented, cross-disciplinary team of designers and collaborate deeply with research teams and Product and Tech leadership.
• Lead high-impact, highly complex projects and define and drive design strategy that informs the higher-level vision of the organization and aligns to business objectives.
• Product Design Expertise: Leverage established expertise and leadership in product design to elevate the quality and maturity of the design practice at Capital One. Oversee and optimize the use of appropriate tools, platforms, frameworks, and design systems to develop artifacts such as vision stories, journey maps, blueprints, high-fidelity designs, and prototypes.
• Leadership: Create conditions for a positive and inclusive team environment and set a vision for an inclusive, collaborative culture that makes your team feel valued and heard.
• Human-Centered: Champion voices of both customers and partners, modeling the mindset that business and customer outcomes are complementary, resulting in experiences that exceed baseline customer needs and expectations.
• Business-Focused: Demonstrate expert knowledge of products, processes, customers, competitors, and industry market trends, applying relevant insights to shape how Design should engage and solve business challenges.
• Problem-Solving: Share insights around technical advances and data capabilities that could influence outcomes, while helping larger teams navigate technical limitations and boundaries in service of bold technological solutions and efficiency.
• Collaboration: Connect the dots across teams, portfolios, platforms, and lines of business, bringing together partners and processes in ways that drive more coherent experiences, accelerate delivery, and elevate the value of design.
• Communication: Present work across levels and job functions, modeling a strategic human-centered approach that integrates design frameworks, data, and research insights to make the complex accessible, influence senior stakeholders, and achieve impactful results.

Qualifications

Basic Qualifications:

• At least 8 years of experience in a product design role
• At least 3 years of experience leading design teams

Preferred Qualifications:

• At least 10 years of experience in a product design role
• At least 5 years of experience leading design teams
• Experience in a design toolkit that spans product design, service design, design strategy, and content design
• Experience leading product design teams operating across UX and UI, strategy, content, and research from strategy through delivery to market
• Experience partnering with product managers, engineers, marketing, and analytics leaders across multiple business lines to shape strategy, OKRs, roadmaps, and operating models
• Experience working within a design system
• Proficiency with web and mobile technologies and platforms, navigating technology considerations and constraints to drive sound product and experience decisions
• Expertise with design and prototyping tools such as Figma
• Experience managing an interdisciplinary design team
• Experience working in heavily regulated, data-heavy problem spaces
• Proficiency in business case development, grounding product and user experience decisions to business value
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills
• Exceptional interpersonal skills and relationship building across complex organizations
• Exceptional people management and development skills

Pay

The minimum and maximum full-time annual salaries for this role are listed below, by location. Salaries for part-time roles will be prorated based on the agreed-upon number of hours to be regularly worked.

• McLean, VA: $230,400 - $263,000 for Director, Design
• New York, NY: $251,400 - $286,900 for Director, Design
• Richmond, VA: $209,500 - $239,100 for Director, Design

Candidates hired to work in other locations will be subject to the pay range associated with that location, and the actual annualized salary amount offered to any candidate at the time of hire will be reflected solely in the candidate’s offer letter. This role is also eligible to earn performance-based incentive compensation, which may include cash bonus(es) and/or long-term incentives (LTI). Incentives could be discretionary or non-discretionary depending on the plan.

Benefits

Capital One offers a comprehensive, competitive, and inclusive set of health, financial, and other benefits that support your total well-being. Eligibility varies based on full or part-time status, exempt or non-exempt status, and management level. Learn more at the Capital One Careers website.