Director of Product Design

Job description

JOB OVERVIEW: Design at Kevel is at an inflection point and we're looking for the person to help define it. As our Director of Product Design, you'll elevate design from a valued craft into a strategic capability: setting the vision, standards, and ways of working that shape how we build products our customers love. This is a true player-coach role. You'll be responsible for shaping long-term design strategy and maturing the operational foundations of the practice, while also rolling up your sleeves to ship polished, user-centered experiences yourself. Reporting directly to the Chief Product Officer (CPO), you'll be the leading voice for design across the company. LOCATION: REMOTE. This position is fully remote and can based out of our Porto or Copenhagen offices, or fully remote from Spain, Australia or Hungary. Candidates in these specific locations are preferred, however, we are open to other EU locations as well. PAY TRANSPARENCY: Kevel uses external, third-party market data to determine compensation for all open positions. Our compensation philosophy is based on the candidate’s specific working location and experience level. This means that we will take a no negotiation approach in our recruitment and offer processes. We believe this is an important step in living our value of embracing diversity while underlining our commitment to fair, equitable and inclusive pay practices. An exact offer for this position will be determined based on the candidate's working location and experience level, in relation to our existing team. All compensation packages include the additional benefits as described in the 'Why you'll love working with us' section below. We also have a transparent ‘Total Rewards Philosophy’ we’d be happy to share with you which describes our overall approach to compensation and benefits in full detail! Our recruitment team can share more about this with you in an initial phone interview and will be happy to answer any questions you have related to compensation at Kevel! WHAT YOU'LL ACCOMPLISH: BUILD THE PRACTICE: Take Kevel's design function to the next level - evolving the operating model, rituals, and standards for how design works here, from user testing and research cadences to ideation workshops, critiques, and engineering handoff. Define and champion a cohesive design vision across product lines; partner with the CPO, R&D leadership, and commercial teams to translate business goals into design principles and a scalable design system. Set UX/UI strategy and design direction in partnership with the CPO, and serve as the voice of design in product and engineering planning — bringing stakeholders in early and raising the bar across the organization. Define and track UX metrics that demonstrate design's impact and drive continuous improvement in outcomes. Mentor, coach, and set direction for designers across the team, building on the foundation for a growing design org. Own the design hiring plan - defining roles, recruiting exceptional designers, and growing the team as the practice scales. Own the design toolchain and operations - evaluating and managing the tools, platforms, and vendor relationships that keep the practice running efficiently. Establish accessibility and quality standards across all product surfaces, ensuring our experiences meet the expectations of enterprise customers. DO THE WORK: Lead end-to-end design for key product surfaces — from discovery and user research through wireframes, prototypes, and high-fidelity specs ready for engineering handoff, covering both UI and UX. Conduct user research, synthesize insights, and translate findings into actionable design decisions. Evolve/Build and maintain a scalable design system and documentation. Implement AI tools to accelerate production and maintain design components. Facilitate workshops, design sprints, and reviews with stakeholders using current UX and design thinking practices. Collaborate closely with engineering to ensure high-quality implementation, and gather feedback from customer-facing teams and product managers to inform design direction. SKILLS YOU'LL BRING WITH YOU: 10+ years of product design/UX/UI experience, including 3+ years operating at a strategic or leadership level. Experience building or significantly scaling a design practice - whether establishing a function's processes, standards, and culture, or elevating an existing team to its next stage of maturity. A strong portfolio demonstrating both systems thinking and refined craft — you can show the strategy and the pixels. Experience partnering with senior leadership and influencing product direction at the executive level. Proficiency in Figma and prototyping tools, and fluency with AI tools within the modern design practice. Deep, hands-on understanding of user research methodologies and how to operationalize them. Experience mentoring designers and elevating the craft of those around you. Comfortable with ambiguity and energized by bringing structure and clarity as a practice scales. Clear communicator who can articulate design decisions and their business impact to non-designers. Experience designing for B2B SaaS, enterprise platforms, or data-dense products - you know how to bring clarity to complex, technical workflows. 3+ years leading designers or a design function, with a track record of hiring and growing teams. Experience leading design in a distributed, multi-timezone organization. Working knowledge of accessibility standards (WCAG) and inclusive design practices. Strong command of interaction design and information architecture for complex products. A passion for creating highly functional products that are a delight to use. Strong command of interaction design and information architecture for complex products. WHY YOU'LL LOVE WORKING WITH US: Fully Remote Team: We are a 100% remote work environment with employees located around the world. You are welcome to work from home, one of our offices, a WeWork office, or an equivalent co-working space. Flexible Working Hours: We understand our employees have their own lives, responsibilities and working preferences. We trust our employees to communicate with their managers, and work when they work best. Comprehensive Health Benefits - Kevel provides 100% employer paid medical benefits for our employees and their children, plus comprehensive, affordable coverage for all other dependents. Savings opportunity for the Future: Kevel offers retirement savings plans with employer contributions so employees can save toward future financial objectives. Rest and Relaxation: Unlimited personal time off - and we mean it! We trust our employees to take the time they need, whenever they need it. We also offer Paid Holidays + a Kevel Holiday Break (from 12/24 - 1/1 every year!) Kevelfest: Our annual corporate retreat! The entire Kevel team gets together once a year for a four - day in - person event filled with collaboration, team building, celebration and fun! Home Office Stipend: You’ll receive a new windows or mac machine (your choice) + a $500 home office allowance to purchase what you need to set up your work space properly! Parental Leave Support: We support all parents with salary continuation and benefits when our employees are growing their families. Free press benefits : Kevel believes all employees should have access to legitimate news sources. You’ll receive a $300 annual allowance to subscribe to the news source of your choice. You’ll work with an award winning team! We’ve won numerous Best Places to Work Awards for several years and counting! We’ve also won many awards for our Innovation, Business Intelligence, and our best-in-class products (Software of the Year, Cloud Company of the Year, Best Ad Tech and API Innovator). Full transparency. We embrace transparency and encourage you to read more about what we value through our Company Constitution and Employee Bill of Rights , our About Kevel page, and Careers Page . Hiring Guidelines by Country: Kevel hires new team members in countries around the world. Some roles may carry specific location-based eligibility requirements. Our Recruitment Team will share the specific benefits that are available in your location, and can help answer any questions about location specific eligibility requirements and benefits after the recruitment process begins. ABOUT KEVEL Kevel (previously Adzerk) offers the infrastructure APIs needed to quickly build custom ad platforms for sponsored listings, internal promotions, native ads, and more. We are committed to helping publishers drive new revenue and take back the Internet from ad tech giants like Google, Amazon, and Facebook. Kevel was founded in 2010 in Durham, North Carolina. We embrace remote working culture with our entire team being spread across the United States, United Kingdom, Portugal and Singapore! Kevel is proud to be an inclusive workplace with one goal in common — we want to make the internet a better place. ALL APPLICANTS ARE WELCOME, EXACTLY AS YOU ARE We’re building a global community - one that’s safe for people of all backgrounds and walks of life. Our policies and way of working are guided by our core values of inclusivity, trust, empathy, and respect. We know we have more work to do, but firmly believe that our work is at its best when everyone feels free to be their most authentic selves. Kevel is an equal opportunity employer, and we’re proud of our ongoing efforts and commitment to creating a diverse, inclusive, and transparent workplace where everyone feels respected, heard, safe and accepted. At Kevel, we embrace our differences and consider diversity a superpower that drives the success of our organization. Individuals seeking employment at Kevel are considered without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, medical condition, ancestry, disability, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. Kevel is transforming the retail media space with its cutting-edge, AI-driven ad tech infrastructure APIs that power the Retail Media Cloud™. This groundbreaking solution combines the power of AI insights with API-based technology, allowing multi-brand retailers to build dynamic, customizable ad platforms while maintaining full control of their first-party data. With Kevel, retailers can deliver personalized shopper experiences, optimize ad targeting, and unlock predictive insights to stay ahead in an ever-evolving market.