Director, Product Design

Hi there Thanks for stopping by We are seeking an experienced and visionary **Director of Product Design** to lead our talented design team and champion user-centered innovation. In this pivotal role, you will be instrumental in shaping delightful and effective product experiences, with a keen eye on how emerging technologies, including Artificial Intelligence, enhance and transform our Hospitality Products. If so, you might just be in the right place We're looking for a **Director of** **Product Design** to join the **Hospitality** team. This team is at the heart of our business, strategically crafting workflows and building centralized products that seamlessly integrate with our diverse product offering. We help our merchants take the boring out of business by simplifying how they set up our products, manage their money, and get paid. **What you'll be doing?** As our **Director of Design**, you'll be at the forefront of shaping exceptional product experiences. This isn't just about managing; it's about leading, inspiring, and innovating. You'll: - **Lead and Inspire a Global Team**: Guide, mentor, and empower a diverse team of product designers across geographies (North America, EMEA), setting clear goals, optimizing workload allocation, and ensuring their continuous growth and success on projects that span our entire product portfolio, including those with AI-driven features. - **Empower Autonomous Teams**: Foster an environment where designers embedded in highly autonomous product teams ("squads") can collaborate effectively through both synchronous and asynchronous methods, driving design quality and efficiency. - **Translate Vision into Impact**: Guide teams in the practice of transforming nebulous concepts into specific, useful, and delightful product features, adeptly navigating the complexities introduced by AI and machine learning capabilities. - **Drive Insight-Driven Solutions**: Champion the process of extracting powerful insights from user research, with particular attention to how users interact with and perceive AI-enhanced functionalities, and translating these insights into tangible, impactful design solutions. - **Strategic Cross-Functional Partnership**: Serve as an equal partner to senior leaders in Product and Engineering, influencing product strategy and collaborating deeply to build innovative products that customers love and are willing to invest in, including those leveraging AI. - **Cultivate a Culture of Innovation**: Instill and amplify a culture of innovation within the Design team and across the organization, actively identifying and celebrating groundbreaking ideas—especially those that explore the frontiers of AI in user experience. - **Elevate Our Design System**: Own the evolution and maintenance of our Hospitality Design System, ensuring its growth accommodates new interaction patterns and components required for AI-driven experiences, in close partnership with Engineering. - **Build Organizational Trust & Advocacy**: Develop strong, trusted relationships across the entire organization, leveraging your influence and industry connections to advocate for the design team and champion the value of design thinking, particularly in the context of intelligent systems.You may be asked to contribute as part of the wider Lightspeed team to achieve organizational objectives even if this means doing things that aren't strictly within the scope of your role **What you need to bring?** We are looking for a seasoned design leader who is passionate about user experience, team development, and the transformative potential of technology. You should have: - **Strategic Curiosity & Vision**: A deep curiosity and capacity to contribute to product strategy and vision. You're not just asking "how it looks" or "what we should design," but profoundly "why are we designing this at all, and how can AI responsibly enhance this vision?" - **Extensive Product Design Expertise**: At least 10 years of practical, in-house product and/or consumer-facing UX/UI and visual design experience. A minimum of 3 years of industry experience in a people management role on a Design team. Enterprise experience, especially within technology-driven sectors, is highly preferred. - **Acute Empathy & Self-Awareness**: A deep understanding of human behavior and needs, coupled with profound empathy for both our customers (and their relationship with AI) and your team's goals. - **Evolutionary Technology Perspective**: A tenured, forward-thinking perspective on technology, product development, and design practices, with a specific understanding of the evolving landscape and implications of Artificial Intelligence. - **Applied Service Design**: Demonstrated experience with service design practices and a commitment to continuously evolving your design process to encompass end-to-end user journeys that may include AI interactions. - **Holistic Design Thinking**: An eagerness and ability to work across all digital, A