VP of Design

We're looking for a VP of Design to lead the strategic direction and vision of the entire design organization at Zapier. Are you excited to scale a user-centered UX design culture in a 100% remote company? Then keep reading!

We know applying for and taking on a new job at any company requires a leap of faith. We want you to feel comfortable and excited to apply at Zapier. To help share a bit more about life at Zapier, here are a few resources in addition to the job description that can give you an inside look at what life is like at Zapier. We hope you'll take the leap of faith and apply.

Zapier is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace dedicated to pursuing and hiring a diverse workforce.

About you

You've managed or scaled a 30+ person design organization(s) . Specifically, you're able to effectively manage UX Research, Product Design and Brand work through at least one layer of senior management. You have the experience driving processes and systems for the organization, including career frameworks, design identity, and principles. You're experienced with creative organizational design and have demonstrated experience growing and developing your teams.

You are a strategic and inspiring leader. You have influenced at the executive level and have helped to inform the product and business strategy of the company, but you can also lead the direction and vision of the entire design team.

You've scaled a product across the chasm and have seen both sides of it. You can share anecdotes and stories about designing for both types of users (early adopters and early majority) and have successfully navigated a team or organization through the transition.

You are comfortable owning the user experience. You've owned the user experience of significant products, helping design teams prioritize and push for smart decisions that positively impact the user experience across the product.

You are an expert at building relationships across the organization. We practice the EPD model here at Zapier, meaning that Engineering, Product, and Design are all equally hitched in decision-making, and each function is involved and aligned from a product’s inception to its launch. You're comfortable working in an environment where you'll lean heavily on your Engineering and Product leaders, while also working across the organization with Marketing, Customer Support & Success, etc. to drive the right solutions for our customers.

You are a skilled mentor and coach. You realize the best way to grow a team is by helping them to grow themselves. You're able to effectively share your experience and provide a clear framework for growth.

You are a skilled UX and UI designer. We don't expect you to create designs on a regular basis, but you've done it for years and have lots of stories and advice to share based on prior experience. You can inspire a team, even when delivering design critique, based on your past experience.

You have experience leading hyper-growth UX Research teams. You'll manage our research team who do both foundational and UX validation-style research. You know how to get the most out of a research team -- how research can influence roadmaps, strategy, and decision making -- based on your past experience. You can bridge qualitative and quantitative research to help drive decision making within the broader organization.

You are product, business, and customer focused. You are able to relate to our customers and partners to provide and translate business vision into user experience vision in a simple and clear manner.

You're a skilled written communicator. Zapier is a 100% remote team and writing is our primary means of communication. You'll use written summaries and reports to communicate vision, strategy, plans, findings, and results to the engineering and full Zapier team.

You're a champion for doing things efficiently. At Zapier, the work you do will have a disproportionate impact on the business. We believe in systems and processes that let us scale our impact to be larger than ourselves.

Things You Might Do

Lead and inspire your team. Today, the team is 15 in Product Design, 8 in UX Research, and 1 in Brand Design. The team will grow significantly over the next 12-18 months.
Build rapport with each member of the design team and work hard to help them level up their skills.
Understand the skills and weaknesses of the team and build a hiring roadmap that will support the business and product initatives
Collaborate across functions (product, engineering, marketing, just to name a few) to help set roadmaps that will achieve business goals through design
Advocate for a design-centric mental model across the organization. Find ways to involve non-designers in the product design process through design sprints and other creative means.
Drive our Zapier design standards and basic design system forward
Give, seek, and receive thoughtful critical feedback
Give back to the community via open source, blog posts, and sharing design team work
Travel 5-10% of the year to our bi-annual company retreats based in North America
As a part of Zapier's all-hands philosophy, help customers via support to ensure they have the best experience possible