Wattpad Director of Design

📋 Description

• • **Lead and Elevate Wattpad's Design Organization:** As the Director of Design at Wattpad, you will be instrumental in shaping the future of our product experience. This pivotal role involves leading, growing, and elevating our entire design organization. You will be responsible for establishing a clear and compelling design vision and strategy that permeates across all our products, ensuring a cohesive and intuitive user journey for millions worldwide. Your leadership will extend to coaching and developing our talented team of designers and user researchers, fostering an environment where creativity thrives and individual growth is paramount.
• • **Shape Product Direction Through Design:** This position is central to how design influences our product roadmap and strategic direction. You will blend high-level strategic thinking with hands-on involvement in our most critical design initiatives. The goal is to deliver deeply intuitive and emotionally resonant experiences that captivate our readers, empower our writers, and engage our advertisers. Design at Wattpad is not just about aesthetics; it's a core driver of user engagement, retention, and overall platform success. You will ensure that design is a driving force behind clarity, cohesion, and joy within our products, directly impacting user satisfaction and platform growth.
• • **Foster a Culture of Design Excellence:** You will lead, coach, and mentor a team of product designers and user researchers, providing active coaching, constructive feedback, and dedicated skill development. A key aspect of your role will be to cultivate a strong culture of design thinking, championing craft excellence and instilling a sense of accountability for achieving measurable outcomes. You will establish clear expectations for design quality, clarity, and impact, while empowering your teams with the autonomy to determine the best methods for achieving these goals. This involves creating an environment where innovation is encouraged, and the pursuit of user-centered solutions is a constant.
• • **Define and Evolve the Design Vision:** You will be responsible for defining and evolving a clear design vision that is intrinsically aligned with our overarching product strategy and the evolving needs of our users. This involves shaping cohesive, intuitive, and delightful experiences across the entire Wattpad ecosystem, encompassing the reader, writer, and advertising platforms. You will translate complex and ambiguous problem spaces into clear, actionable experience directions that teams can confidently execute. Crucially, you will ensure that all design decisions are directly linked to tangible user value, strategic platform goals, and our long-term vision for the future of storytelling.
• • **Strategic Hands-On Contribution:** While leading a team, you will also be hands-on where it matters most. You will actively contribute to high-impact initiatives and critical product moments, providing strategic design leadership. You will partner closely with Product and Engineering leaders throughout the discovery, definition, and delivery phases of product development. Your role will involve providing strong, constructive critique and feedback that elevates the quality of our work without dictating specific solutions, fostering a collaborative problem-solving approach. You will govern and evolve our design system to ensure consistency, scalability, and accessibility across all our products, balancing the need for speed with the importance of craft. This means knowing when to push for deeper exploration and when to drive toward efficient execution, setting clear standards for usability, accessibility, and visual cohesion across all user interfaces.
• • **Champion User-Centric Practices:** You will be a relentless advocate for the user, ensuring that user goals and needs are always at the forefront of our product development. You will partner closely with Product Management and User Research to guarantee that insights derived from research meaningfully shape product direction and strategy. You will manage and support the user research team, ensuring that their work is not only actionable but also strategically aligned with our business objectives. Utilizing evidence, data, and research will be key to influencing decisions and challenging assumptions, driving a culture of informed product development.
• • **Influence and Collaborate Across the Organization:** This role demands strong collaboration and influence across various departments. You will work closely with Product, Engineering, Content, Trust and Safety, and Ads teams to align on experience outcomes and navigate necessary tradeoffs. Your ability to influence product direction through clear, compelling design narratives – not just static artifacts – will be crucial. You will facilitate design critiques, workshops, and working sessions that guide teams toward clarity and alignment. Driving consensus on priorities, tradeoffs, and outcomes through effective design storytelling is a core responsibility. Ultimately, you will advocate for the indispensable role of design as a strategic partner, ensuring it is recognized as a driver of engagement, trust, and growth, rather than merely a downstream function.
• • **Impact and Scale:** Wattpad is a global platform with millions of users, and your work will directly impact how they interact with stories and connect with each other. You will be shaping experiences that are not only functional but also emotionally engaging, contributing to Wattpad's mission to entertain and connect the world through stories. This is an opportunity to leave your mark on a rapidly growing company within the dynamic IP and Creator Ecosystem of WEBTOON Entertainment.