Executive Design Director (Brand & Product)

Metalab is a company that creates products to improve lives and reshape markets. As the Executive Design Director, you will lead the creative vision across brand and product design, elevate design standards, and actively participate in client engagements while mentoring senior design leaders.

Responsibilities:

• Define and evolve Metalab's product and brand design vision to ensure alignment across teams and client work
• Coach senior design leaders and project teams, providing clear, actionable feedback and long-term career guidance
• Model creative excellence in your own work—jumping in hands-on when needed and sharing your thinking openly
• Own design quality across the department, offering constructive and actionable feedback to uphold and uplevel creative standards
• Guide strategic direction across brand and product design engagements ensuring client and business outcomes are met at every stage
• Oversee, create and refine brand systems that work seamlessly into product experiences and vice versa
• Push creative boundaries by integrating motion, 3D, and interaction design to create dynamic, immersive brand moments in the context of products
• Lead cross-disciplinary reviews, elevating critique culture and building team fluency in storytelling, systems thinking, and craft
• Partner with clients at a strategic level, helping founders and executives articulate, evolve, and scale their brands for digital-first environments
• Collaborate with design leadership—including the Chief Design Officer—to influence design department direction and design operations
• Partner with the Partnerships team on new business pursuits and pitch visionary design approaches
• Coordinate team availability/downtime to drive showcases of our best assets to drive marketing efforts
• Collaborate with design leadership to shape internal systems for hiring, feedback, and growth within the brand and product design discipline
• Represent Metalab in the design community through thought leadership and speaking opportunities
• Lead accounts by championing quality of work and client relationships that organically grow the business

Requirements:

• At least 12 years of experience in brand and product design, creative direction, or digital design leadership— in a digital-first environment—with at least 2 years leading design teams at a senior director or executive level
• Must be able to maintain at least a 4-hour overlap with Pacific Time (PST) business hours (up to 12:00 PM PST)
• A visionary design leader who inspires creative excellence, communicates with clarity, and earns client trust—balancing creative risk-taking with strategic rigor to ensure every design direction is both aspirational and grounded in business value
• Proven ability to lead multidisciplinary teams and large-scale product-led brand engagements from strategy through execution, with a portfolio that demonstrates mastery in visual identity, brand systems, and storytelling across digital touchpoints
• Fluency in modern design tools and emerging AI tooling and a deep understanding of how product-led brands extend through motion, interaction, and content—able to concept, design, and refine at a world-class level
• The ability to translate complex ideas into coherent, scalable brand and product design systems—visual, verbal, experiential, technical—and direct others to execute across environments, from pixels to motion to storytelling to code
• Experience presenting to and influencing executive stakeholders, with the ability to build buy-in through strong narratives, strategic storytelling, and meaningful business context
• Experience working cross-functionally with product, engineering, marketing, and executive teams—bringing a systems mindset to connecting the dots across every touchpoint
• Strong facilitation and communication skills, with the confidence and empathy to guide workshops, strategic sessions, and cross-disciplinary critique
• Deep knowledge of design trends and the evolving role of brand, product and experience design in the digital ecosystem
• A track record of elevating design communities through mentorship, constructive critique, and a commitment to inclusive practices and building equitable, diverse teams
• Active engagement in the design community through thought leadership, writing, events, or speaking
• A passion for mentoring others and shaping the future of design culture at Metalab