Director, Product Design - AI in Experience Design

The Experience Design (XD) 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, honoring diversity of thought, creating a culture of belonging, and elevating one another.

About the role

This Director will work closely with our XD top-of-house team, including the SVP, Chief Design Officer, and their Senior Leadership Team. The role involves building and owning roadmaps across AI tooling, AI-enabled design process evolution, and AI-centric talent upskilling across Design at Capital One. With a destination-backed mindset, this leader will define the vision of how Design works with AI and act as a player-coach for day-to-day implementation. Operating at the intersection of high-level strategy and hands-on execution, you will partner with Senior Executives across Product, Engineering, and Design to drive AI experimentation and adoption, balancing bold, big-picture thinking with immediate, actionable milestones.

The mission is twofold: to establish a definitive future vision for AI integration and to act as a catalyst for accelerating AI adoption across the Experience Design organization and beyond, balancing both risk and fast-paced innovation. We seek a seasoned design veteran with organizational rigor, a deep passion for AI experimentation, and a drive to shape the future of design.

Responsibilities

• Drive transformative efficiency by architecting and scaling AI-driven design processes and tooling—including Claude, Gemini, and assistive IDEs—across the organization’s highly matrixed environment.
• Define workforce transformation requirements to seamlessly integrate new technical capabilities into the operating model.
• Partner with executive leadership to bridge the gap between high-level innovation and disciplined execution, delivering measurable business value and experience excellence at scale.
• Leverage product design expertise to elevate the quality and maturity of the design practice at Capital One, collaborating with cross-functional partners to optimize tools, platforms, frameworks, and design systems.
• Develop artifacts such as vision stories, journey maps, blueprints, high-fidelity designs, and prototypes.
• Create infrastructure for design leaders to shape product direction and outcomes using deep product design expertise, user insights, and business understanding.
• Drive alignment with cross-functional executive leaders, ensuring user needs are central to overall strategy and enabling bold, innovative solutions to complex problems.
• Identify opportunities where customer needs and business goals align, reinforcing the importance of diverse customer perspectives throughout the design process.
• Demonstrate mastery of products, processes, customers, competitors, and industry trends to predict shifts and shape Design’s engagement in solving significant business challenges.
• Drive creative problem-solving across cross-functional groups, illuminating potential pitfalls and fostering shared learnings.
• Build frameworks for complex decision-making that enable effective debate and accelerate solutions.
• Connect the dots across the organization, proactively bringing together executive partners to drive coherent experiences, accelerate delivery, and elevate the value of design.
• Present work to executive leaders and stakeholders, modeling a strategic, human-centered approach that integrates design frameworks, data, and research insights to influence change and drive strategic direction.

Qualifications

Basic Qualifications

• At least 8 years of experience in a product design role.

Preferred Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in a product design role.
• Experience leading a portfolio of work implementing AI processes and tools at scale in a design organization.
• Experience in a design toolkit spanning product design, service design, and content design.
• Expertise with AI assistant tools like Claude or Gemini, agentic development like Claude Code, state machine visualizers like Stately or XState, and assistive tools like Windsurf.
• Experience leading high-impact, highly complex projects 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 an established 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.
• Proficiency in business case development, grounding product and user experience decisions in 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 agreed-upon hours. This role is also eligible for performance-based incentive compensation, including cash bonuses and/or long-term incentives (LTI).

• McLean, VA: $230,400 - $263,000 for Director, Design
• New York, NY: $251,400 - $286,900 for Director, Design
• San Francisco, CA: $251,400 - $286,900 for Director, Design

Candidates hired to work in other locations will be subject to the pay range associated with that location.

Benefits

Capital One offers a comprehensive, competitive, and inclusive set of health, financial, and other benefits that support 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.