VP, Engineering

Job description

### **Who We Are** UnitedMasters is building a marketplace that connects artists, brands and fans - empowering artists to earn and grow. UnitedMasters has taken the bold step of building a music distribution service that, radically, puts artists first - disrupting the legacy music business by letting up-and-coming artists distribute their music directly to fans through streaming services while maintaining ownership of their master recording rights and up to 100% of royalties. Through the combination of UnitedMasters’ music distribution platform and its deep ties to brands, UnitedMasters enables independent artists and change-makers to grow and earn unlike any other platform. The UnitedMasters team is made up of musicians, marketers, engineers, and storytellers with backgrounds from YouTube, SoundCloud, Pandora, Facebook, Uber, Dropbox, Complex, VICE, and more. We work hand in hand with the award-winning creative teams that forge those innovative partnerships at Translation (our in-house creative advertising agency). ### **What's the Role** UnitedMasters is seeking a Director of UX to lead the design vision, customer research, and end-to-end product experience across iOS, Android, and web. You will manage a team of UX/UI designers while also being deeply hands-on a true player/coach who actively designs, prototypes, and conducts research alongside your team. This role requires a design leader who has extensive experience designing for mobile apps and responsive web products, bringing consistency, craft, and clarity across platforms. You must be comfortable alternating between high-level UX strategy, pixel-level detail, and customer discovery. You’ll partner with Product, Engineering, Marketing, and Data Science to deliver intuitive, artist-first experiences that drive growth, retention, and label partner success. *This role is based in San Francisco with four days in-office and one day remote.* **What You'll Do** ### **Design Leadership & Vision** - Define and articulate a multi-platform UX strategy spanning iOS, Android, and web. - Establish a unified design language and systems that scale across mobile and desktop experiences. - Champion simplicity, accessibility, and consistency across all surfaces. ### **Hands-On Design Execution (Player/Coach)** - Deliver high-quality designs and prototypes for mobile apps and web interfaces, demonstrating mastery of platform-specific interaction patterns. - Lead critical product surfaces including onboarding, distribution tools, subscription areas, analytics, payments, and artist monetization features. - Collaborate directly with engineers to ensure designs are technically feasible and implemented with high fidelity across platforms. - Coach designers on mobile UI patterns, responsive design, gesture-based interaction, and layout systems. ### **User Research & Customer Insight** - Conduct user interviews, usability tests, concept evaluations, and surveys across mobile and web contexts. - Build a deep understanding of how artists and label partners use our products across devices. - Turn insights into product opportunities, UX improvements, and roadmap guidance. - Evangelize research findings across executives and cross-functional teams. ### **Team Leadership & Operations** - Manage, mentor, and develop a small but high-impact UX/UI design team. - Establish design critique rituals, quality standards, and platform-specific guidelines for mobile and web. - Implement design ops practices to streamline workflows, improve velocity, and reduce design debt. - Build career paths, growth plans, and structures for scaling the UX function. ### **Cross-Functional Partnership** - Collaborate tightly with Product and Engineering to shape requirements, define success metrics, and plan releases across mobile and web. - Work with Data Science, Artist Relations, and Marketing to create culturally resonant, data-informed experiences. - Influence roadmap and prioritization using clear UX rationale and customer insights. **Knowledge, Skills and Abilities** - Strong project management skills and ability to prioritize work to successfully balance several work streams at a time - Ability to pay meticulous attention to detail and possess a deeply pro-active, hands-on mentality - Possess deep appreciation and sensitivity towards people, culture, and values - Ability to execute on priorities with a strong sense of urgency, ownership and accountability - Ability to handle confidential and sensitive information with tact, diplomacy, and discretion - Proactive collaborator among various stakeholders and peers - Personable, smart, passionate, and optimistic. ### **Minimum Qualifications** - 8+ years of UX/UI or product design experience for consumer-facing mobile apps (iOS + Android) and responsive web products. - 3+ years managing designers or leading design teams. - Strong portfolio showing high-quality cross-platform design work, including flows, visual systems, and interaction patterns. - Demonstrated experience as a hands-on designer and player/coach. - Expertise in user research, usability testing, customer discovery, and insight synthesis. - Proficiency with Figma, prototyping tools, mobile design systems, and responsive layout frameworks. - Exceptional communication and storytelling capabilities. ### **Preferred Qualifications** - Experience in creator platforms, music tech, digital media, or marketplace ecosystems. - Familiarity with experimentation/analytics systems (A/B testing, funnels, behavioral data). - History of partnering deeply with engineering teams to ship mobile and web features at scale. - Ability to coach designers across mobile interaction patterns, responsive best practices, UX writing, visual craft, and systems thinking. ### ***About UnitedMasters, Inc.*** UnitedMasters Inc. represents the creative solutions company, Translation, and the leading software and services platform for independent creators, UnitedMasters. UnitedMasters enables ownership, exposure, and new paths for financial return for independent creators, while Translation helps brands leverage the power of contemporary culture to achieve transformational growth. Combined, UnitedMasters, Inc. is the world’s leading marketplace for cultural capital, connecting independent artists and brands to realize a future in which all creators own their future. Backed by Alphabet, Andreessen Horowitz, and Apple, UnitedMasters, Inc. is reimagining how brands and artists come together to tell their stories, build profitable growth, and push culture forward. **Salary Hiring Range:** $210,000 - $245,000 *Our salary ranges are based on paying competitively for our size and industry, and are one part of many compensation, benefits and other reward opportunities we provide (e.g. bonus, stock options, 401(k) match, etc.)* *Individual pay rate decisions are based on a number of factors, including qualifications for the role, experience level, skillset, and balancing internal equity relative to peers at the company. We expect the majority of the candidates who are offered roles at our company to fall healthily throughout the range based on these factors.* *The range above is for the expectations as laid out in the job description, however we are often open to a wide variety of profiles, and recognize that the person we hire may be less experienced (or more senior) than this job description as posted. If that ends up being the case, the updated salary range will be communicated with you as a candidate.* *The salary range above is for the NY/CA. As a company, we have a location based strategy, which means the salary range could be lower or higher than this if the role is hired in another location.* #LI-HYBRID