Director, Product Design

About the role

You will own the design direction and craft quality for a portfolio of SF-based product verticals that are central to Strava's commercial growth and long-term athlete retention. You will set the standard for design decisions and ensure that design is a meaningful input at the strategy level. You will manage and develop a team of 5 designers, coaching them on craft growth and career development. You will partner closely with PM and Engineering leadership to shape major product outcomes. You will represent your teams' work and design perspective to the Senior Director of Product Design and the broader Design organization. You will establish what "good" looks like through a strong feedback culture and your own high-level example.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Own design direction and quality across a portfolio of SF-based product verticals spanning athlete engagement, growth, and platform integrity, driving design strategy and key decisions at the vertical and feature level.
• Stay actively in the work by giving precise, substantive craft feedback, engaging in design decisions at the detail level, and setting the standard through your own taste and judgment rather than only through oversight.
• Manage and develop a team of 5 Product Designers, with focus on craft growth, career development, and raising the quality of their output through consistent, high-quality coaching.
• Partner with PM and Engineering leadership to shape product strategy, contributing early, holding a point of view, and ensuring design is a meaningful input to decisions at the senior level.
• Lead design reviews and establish what "good" looks like on this team through explicit standards, a strong feedback culture, and your own example.
• Contribute to Strava's design system, shared standards, and cross-functional design culture to ensure consistency and scalability across products.
• Represent your teams' work and design perspective to the Senior Director of Product Design and the broader Design leadership organization to align priorities and influence strategy.
• Define and drive the craft and quality bar for consumer product design across the team, ensuring that the work reflects real-world athlete needs and responsibility.
• Use your experience with AI-powered product features, health and fitness products, Trust & Safety or policy-adjacent surfaces, growth or B2B product design, and scaling design functions to inform tradeoffs and outcomes.
• Ensure that design decisions are informed by user needs, business goals, and technical constraints, leading to thoughtful and executable outcomes.

Requirements

• You have Director-level (or equivalent) experience in Product Design, with a track record of owning design direction across multiple products and managing a team of designers.
• You can set and articulate a clear design vision, establishing a point of view on where the product should go and bringing others along with it rather than only reacting to existing constraints.
• You are a hands-on maker who can still engage in design work at a high level, providing precise and substantive craft feedback and setting the bar through your own taste and judgment.
• You have demonstrated ability to raise craft and quality across a team, developing others and building a culture where quality is expected, named, and consistently raised.
• You are an expert at cross-functional partnership with PM and Engineering at a senior level, having influenced major product decisions and knowing how to hold a perspective with senior stakeholders.
• You bring consumer product design experience at meaningful scale, showing that you have worked on products that real people depend on and that this responsibility shows in your approach.
• You have a clear design philosophy that you can communicate and use to bring people along with your thinking, not just with your output.
• You are based in San Francisco and able to work in our office more than half the time, as outlined in our flexible hybrid model.

Nice to have

Experience with AI-powered product features, health and fitness products, Trust & Safety or policy-adjacent surfaces, growth or B2B product design, or scaling a design function within a growing company is a plus.

Practical notes

This role is full-time and based in San Francisco. The flexible hybrid model requires more than half of your time on-site, three days per week.