Sr. Director, Product Design

About Niche

Niche is the leader in school search. Our mission is to make researching and enrolling in schools easy, transparent, and free. With in-depth profiles on every school and college in America, 140 million reviews and ratings, and powerful search tools, we help millions of people find the right school for them. We also help thousands of schools recruit more best-fit students, by highlighting what makes them great and making it easier to visit and apply.

Niche is all about finding where you belong, and that mission inspires how we operate every day. We want Niche to be a place where people truly enjoy working and can thrive professionally.

About The Role

We are looking for a Senior Director of Product Design to lead our Product Design team in creating exceptional user experiences for a 2-sided education marketplace and a growing suite of SaaS tools. This role will manage a team of 5 Senior Product Designers and 1 Senior UX Researcher, crafting a cohesive design vision and leading a design operation that expertly balances high velocity and high quality. As a key leader in the organization, you will drive design strategy, oversee a department budget and ensure the team is performing at its full potential with the right mix of skills and experiences.

Duties and Responsibilities/What You Will Do:

• Design Vision & Strategy: Establish and maintain a compelling design vision for our marketplace and SaaS products, tailored for the unique needs of Gen Z and Gen Alpha users.
• Team Management: Lead, mentor, and grow a lean, high-impact team of Senior Designers and UX Researchers, providing hands-on guidance and fostering a culture of continuous improvement.
• Talent Development: Assess talent rigorously while setting ambitious, clear goals for team members and creating an environment where designers are motivated to achieve their best work.
• Hands-On Leadership: Actively engage in the design process by providing direction, reviewing work, and making detailed adjustments to ensure high-quality output.
• Process Efficiency: Implement efficient, repeatable design processes that maximize productivity and minimize waste, ensuring our design team operates at peak efficiency in a fast-paced, test-and-learn environment.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Collaborate closely with partners across Product, Engineering, Marketing, Sales, Finance, Legal, Operations and Data to align design efforts with broader business goals.
• Product & Results Orientation: Drive product improvements that lead to measurable impact, ensuring design initiatives are grounded in business needs and outcomes.
• Personalization: Lead the team in designing highly personalized user experiences that adapt to individual user behaviors, preferences, and demographics, leveraging data-driven insights to enhance engagement and retention.
• SEO: Integrate SEO-driven design principles into the UX/UI strategy, ensuring that user interfaces and content layouts are optimized for search engine visibility without compromising usability or aesthetic appeal.
• User Research Oversight: Lead and support the UX researcher in conducting high-impact user research initiatives. Ensure that research insights are continuously integrated into the design process and that user needs and pain points are central to design decisions.
• Stakeholder Presentation: Confidently present design vision and updates to senior leadership, demonstrating both design expertise and business acumen.
• Budget Oversight: Manage the department’s budget, making strategic decisions to allocate resources effectively across projects.

What We Are Looking For

• 10+ years of experience in product design, with at least 5 years in a leadership role, ideally within a startup or fast-paced environment.
• Proven ability to drive a team to execute and iterate designs quickly, employing a test-and-learn mindset to adapt and improve based on data and user insights.
• Expertise in designing for Gen Z and Gen Alpha demographics, with a deep understanding of simplicity as a core design principle.
• Strong mentor and team builder, experienced in developing design talent and setting performance goals that align with business objectives.
• Assertive, hands-on leader able to drive high-quality design work while staying closely connected to the day-to-day process.
• Highly efficient and process-oriented, with a knack for developing streamlined workflows that support a lean design team.