About the Role
Reporting to the VP, Product & Design, the Director, Product Design is a critical member of the EPD organization accountable for the quality and strategic impact of design across Raptor's 9 product portfolio. This leader manages and develops a team of Product Designers, establishes how design works at Raptor β rituals, systems, standards, and best practices β and partners closely with Engineering and Product Management, while also engaging directly with customers, stakeholders, and industry experts to inform design direction and deliver cohesive, high-quality user experiences at a predictable cadence.This role is about leading a team to ship great design consistently, scaling and continuously improving the design system, and ensuring design is a trusted and respected partner across the organization β collaborating closely across disciplines and staying relentlessly focused on delivering value to school safety customers.
Key Responsibilities
People Leadership
- Lead, coach, and develop a mid-sized team of Product Designers located across the US and UK; set clear expectations and manage performance through Raptor's High Performance Culture program, with a strong expectation of consistent, point-in-time feedback on a regular basis
- Establish "what good looks like" for design craft: UX quality, design systems contribution, cross-functional collaboration, and delivery discipline
- Build and maintain a high-performing team through hiring, onboarding, and capability development
- Own the design team's budget, headcount planning, and resource allocation; make informed investment decisions that balance team capacity, designer development, and product priorities β ensuring designers get meaningful breadth of opportunity across web, mobile, systems, and visual design.
- Support designer growth through active investment in career development, personal development planning, and relevant training opportunities β ensuring designers have a clear path forward and the resources to get there
Design Systems & Quality
- Own and evolve Raptor's design system, ensuring it scales to support both product and cross-functional use cases (including marketing)
- Drive consistency across Raptor's product suite β unified patterns, navigation, onboarding, and interaction standards
- Define how design quality and team impact are measured; establish and monitor relevant KPIs and metrics
- Ensure Raptor products meet high accessibility standards and compliance requirements
- Raise the bar for UX quality across the platform; flag and address incoherence, unnecessary complexity, or under-designed experiences
Cross-Functional Leadership & External Engagement
- Partner with Engineering and Product Management leadership to drive alignment on scope, sequencing, design readiness, and delivery commitments
- Ensure design is embedded in the product process from problem framing through launch; designers are strategic product thinkers and creative problem solvers
- Collaborate closely with Engineering and Product teams across the full delivery cycle, ensuring design contributes to consistent, high-quality outcomes for school safety customers
- Surface and resolve cross-team dependency risks early; drive crisp decisions and appropriate escalation
- Partner with Product Marketing to align product positioning with user experience, and support go-to-market launches with the right design artifacts and storytelling
- Engage directly with customers and prospects to gather feedback, validate design decisions, and ensure Raptor's products reflect real user needs
- Build relationships with industry experts, design community leaders, and key stakeholders to stay current on best practices and bring outside perspective into the team
AI-Powered Design Practice
- Champion the adoption of AI-based design tools, workflows, and processes across the design team, ensuring Raptor stays at the forefront of modern design practice
- Lead the design team's participation in Raptor's AI-PDLC (AI Product Development Lifecycle) β a framework for using AI natively throughout the entire project lifecycle, with tools and processes in place to optimize AI as an embedded partner from discovery through delivery
- Identify opportunities to integrate AI into the design team's day-to-day workflows to improve quality, consistency, and throughput
- Stay current on emerging AI design tools and bring relevant innovations into the team's practice
Qualifications
- 10+ years of product/UX design experience, including demonstrated people leadership of a design team
- Proven track record of shipping high-quality product design at scale β not just discovery and process, but delivered outcomes
- Deep experience owning and evolving a design system in a multi-product environment
- Strong cross-functional leadership skills; a demonstrated ability to build trust and accelerate work with Engineering and Product partners
- Ability to balance design craft with delivery pragmatism β knows when to iterate and when to ship
- Strong communicator; able to give clear, direct feedback and create alignment across design, product, and engineering stakeholders
- Experience establishing design team operating rhythms, feedback loops, and quality standards
- Familiarity with accessibility standards (WCAG) and experience embedding compliance into design practice
- Experience leading distributed or international design teams, with the ability to build cohesion and culture across time zones and geographies
- Experience in B2B SaaS or enterprise software environments preferred
What's in it for you?
- You join the gold standard in school safety software.
- You will join a company where innovation and customer collaboration are part of what drives new product development to help keep kids safe.
- You will work with diverse teams made up of some of the best minds in the industry.
- You will get exposure to strong mentorship and leadership that have supported a long history of career advancement opportunities for our employees.
- You will have access to a robust benefits package that includes:
- Remote-first philosophy
- Flexible paid time off
- Paid parental leave
- 11 Paid holidays per year
- Workplace flexibility
- Affordable health coverage (medical, dental, vision), paid 100% for employee only medical
- 401(k) employer contributionβ―to help youβ―plan for the future
- Company paid life insurance, STD, and LTD
