Job description

Constructive, a leading social impact strategy and design firm is looking for a new Design Director with deep expertise in UX design for content-rich websites, a skilled eye for visual design, and strong people management skills.

Constructive is a close-knit, committed team of experts who partner with visionary organizations to create greater understanding about the world and help make it a more fair, equitable, and sustainable place. Our culture is built on values that are essential to who we are and how we show up—deeply held beliefs about the importance of empathy, accountability, teamwork, and respect that we look for in everyone who joins our team. If the above sounds a lot like you and you’re passionate about producing great work for purpose-led brands, then please read on.

About the Role

Please note, this is not a product design role. Our work is overwhelmingly branding and website design, with our Founder/Creative Director overseeing the integration of the two. Constructive’s Design Director leads our UX/visual design team and reports to our Founder & Creative Director to ensure that the work we co-create with clients is strategically sound, creatively inspired, and highly effective. We are looking for a designer who has extensive UX and interaction design experience in large-scale, content-rich websites and who, at a minimum, has a strong eye for visual design fundamentals and user interface design.

You’ll manage and mentor our team of UX and visual designers to help them continuously create stand-out work. You’ll listen to, learn from, and lead clients—facilitating design strategy, presenting work, and providing consultative guidance. You’ll collaborate with Constructive’s strategy, content, and engineering teams to ensure that what we produce delivers results.

You will also be a valuable member of Constructive’s management team, collaborating with company leadership to shape our strategies and practices. And you’ll get ongoing leadership coaching and support from our executive coach to build your leadership and management skills.

Your Core Responsibilities

Here are the primary activities and outcomes that Constructive’s Design Director is accountable for and by which your success and contributions will be measured.

- Produce exceptional design work. You and your team consistently create UX and UI design that meets our standards, is aligned with strategy, and continuously sets the bar higher.
- Shape our UX design practices. You ensure that the sitemaps, wireframes, and prototypes you and your team produce embody best practices and “next practices” in human-centered design.
- Lead our design team. You manage, mentor, and elevate our design team—inspiring them, strengthening their skills, and continuously coaching them to seek greatness in their work.
- Lead design strategy workshops. You translate brand and digital strategies into collaborative client workshops that produce mission-aligned brand experiences.
- Lead client presentations. You present work persuasively, articulate how design solutions deliver on strategy, and steer critical conversations to balance the need to integrate client feedback with the need to advocate for effective design.
- Collaborate across teams. You work closely with our strategy, content, and engineering teams—and our Creative Director— to ensure that design intent are faithfully translated into final deliverables.
- Support resourcing and project health. You make design team assignments, contribute in resourcing meetings, and work with project managers to ensure that they have visibility into projects and that our design work is tracking to scope, budget, and timeline.
- Build our design team. You secure the talent we need to produce the work that we and our clients expect, identifying talent for our team and building out our pool of freelance consultants.
- Contribute thought leadership. You help our Marketing Lead produce thought leadership on design practices by sharing your ideas so that they can be turned into articles, webinars, and other content marketing.

Things That You’ll Need

- Strong alignment with our core values.
- At least 7 years of UX and UI design experience, primarily in agency settings, creating large-scale, content-rich, brand presence websites.
- At least 3 years experience managing and overseeing the work of interactive design teams.
- Exceptional UX design and human-centered design skills—particularly designing high-polish wireframes and prototypes.
- A strong eye for visual design fundamentals—typography, color systems, grid theory, and information organization.
- Collaborative leadership capabilities with the ability to manage designers and manage up to the Creative Director for feedback and support.
- Exceptional presentation and speaking skills—the ability to build confidence in clients, persuasively articulate our ideas without being pushy, and facilitate strategic feedback conversations.
- An allergic reaction to mediocre work, an unrelenting eye for detail, and an insistence that any work we produce meets our highest standards and honors our clients’ trust in us.
- Fluency with Figma and strong Adobe Creative Suite skills.
- Proficiency in UX research and usability testing a plus.

What We Offer

We do our best to make sure everyone at Constructive is taken care of with a great mix of salary, benefits and perks, opportunities for professional growth, and significant time off. We expect this position to have a base salary between $120k - $130k (+ profit share) based on experience and value-added skills. In addition to this salary, we offer defined profit sharing, 401K matching, and discretionary performance-based bonuses.

Compensation & PTO

- Defined Annual Profit Sharing Plan
- 401K With Up to 4% Company Match
- Company Sponsored Medical, Dental, and Vision Insurance
- Discretionary Performance Bonuses
- 3 Weeks Paid Vacation (15 days)
- Paid Vacation From Christmas Eve through New Year's
- Paid 1/2-day Summer Fridays (Approx 16/year)
- Unlimited Wellness/Sick Days
- New Client Bonuses (3% of First 12 Months of New Work You Proactively Bring In)

Professional Development & Culture

- A Values-Aligned Team That Loves Showing Up for Each Other
- Monthly Virtual Happy Hours & Games
- Feeling Great About Your Work Making the World a Better Place

Our Commitment to Diversity & Inclusion

We believe strongly that diversity is one of our greatest strengths—that the more perspectives we bring to the mix, the better we are as people and the better partner we are for our clients. So, in considering if Constructive is a good fit for you, know that all we care about is that you’re qualified to do the job, share our values, and want to be here. These are the things we’ll be evaluating for every applicant. If you meet those and add to our team’s diversity, all the better.

Interested? Great!

We’ll begin reviewing candidates on September 23 and will be rolling until we find the right person for the role. If you are selected for an interview, here’s what you can expect:
- Experience Interview (30-45 mins)
- Focused Interview with Case Study/Presentation (45-60 mins)
- Reference Interviews