Director, UX Design & Research

Job description

The Director, UX Design & Research leads UX strategy, design, and research across Vuori's ecommerce, omnichannel, and retail store experiences — setting the vision for how customers discover, shop, and engage with the brand across every channel. You'll be the internal voice of the customer, helping the broader organization understand, prioritize, and design around real customer problems. You'll grow both UX design and UX research as disciplines at Vuori — raising the craft and rigor of your team's work and developing their skills as the function scales. You'll partner closely with Product, Engineering, Brand & Creative, and Site Experience to unify the customer experience across channels, and you'll evolve and govern Vuori's design system as it matures, keeping it consistent as more teams, tools, and AI-assisted workflows touch it. This role reports to the Senior Director of Digital Product and Experience and leads a small but growing team of UX/UI designers and UX researchers. This is a hands-on Director role — you'll set the vision and stay close to the work, with real latitude to build the practices, standards, and structure this function needs as Vuori scales. What you'll get to do: Serve as Vuori's internal voice of the customer, championing customer insight and helping the organization understand and prioritize customer problems Set and unify UX strategy across Vuori's ecommerce, omnichannel, and retail store experiences, ensuring a consistent, connected journey across channels Lead and grow both generative and evaluative research practices — partnering with Consumer Insights, mentoring and developing Vuori's researcher(s), and raising the rigor of insights that inform design and product decisions Build, manage, coach, and develop a growing team of UX/UI designers and UX researchers, including regular 1:1s, feedback, and career-growth planning Lead UX for major cross-channel initiatives, ensuring connectivity across the broader ecommerce and omnichannel experience Evolve and govern Vuori's design system, ensuring consistency and adoption as it matures across channels and teams Define and evangelize Vuori's evolving ways of working with AI — from design-to-code workflows to how the team incorporates AI tools into everyday practice Present design rationale, research findings, and strategic recommendations to senior stakeholders, defending decisions with clear logic and evidence Flex team capacity with outside agency and contractor support — sourcing, scoping, and managing vendor partners, budgets, and timelines as needed Establish and evangelize UX design and research best practices across the organization Who you are: 8+ years of experience in UX/UI design and/or UX research, including 3+ years managing or mentoring designers and/or researchers Bachelor's degree in UX Design, Human-Computer Interaction, or a related field, or equivalent years of experience preferred Experience leading both design and research functions, with fluency across generative and evaluative research methods Experience maintaining or governing a design system in a production environment, with strong documentation, adoption, and consistency practices Proficiency in Figma; familiarity with AI-assisted design tools (e.g., Claude Design) is a plus Comfort operating at the intersection of design and code; you understand, or are eager to learn, how components, tokens, and documentation translate into a dev environment Interest and some fluency in how AI tools are changing design and design-to-code workflows Ecommerce, omnichannel, or retail experience strongly preferred Experience managing outside vendors or agency partners, including scoping, budgeting, and quality control A track record of coaching and developing design and research talent, and building team capability over time Strong portfolio or body of work demonstrating both hands-on UX/UI and research craft and systems thinking Demonstrated ability to present and defend design and research decisions to senior stakeholders Comfortable in a fast-paced, resource-lean, high-autonomy environment; you build process rather than wait for it Excellent written and verbal communication skills Our investment in you: At Vuori, we’re proud to offer the following to our employees: Health Insurance Savings and Retirement Plan Employee Assistance Program Generous Vuori Discount & Industry Perks Paid Time Off Wellness & Fitness benefits The salary range for this role is $181,000 per year - $220,000 per year. This role is bonus eligible. Vuori is proud to be an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, color, religion, national origin, disability, protected Veteran status, age, or any other characteristic protected by law. All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines. Vuori is re-defining what athletic apparel looks like: built to move and sweat in but designed with a casual aesthetic to transition into everyday life. We draw inspiration from an active coastal California lifestyle; an integration of fitness, creative expression and life. Our high energy fast paced retail environment is reflected in the clothes we make. We aim to inspire others to take on all aspects of their lives with clarity, enthusiasm and purpose…while having a lot of fun along the way. We are proud to be an outlet for opportunity and for personal growth and success.