Principal Design Lead

What We Do

The Trade Desk is seeking a Principal Design Lead to own and evolve our Digital Playbook and to modernize how our design practice works. Partnering closely with Product, Product Marketing, and Brand, you will set a best-in-class standard for how our platform looks, feels, and evolves.

This is a senior individual-contributor design leadership role for someone who can see around corners on where our product language and platform experience need to go, and who can take that vision from concept through shipped, polished product. You will guide the evolution of our design language and systems so they stay cohesive and scalable as the platform grows and AI reshapes what advertisers and agency partners expect.

You bring deep, hands-on fluency with AI tools and use them to change how design gets done: faster exploration, tighter design-to-build handoff, and higher craft. You will help evolve our workflows, standards, and practices as we modernize, and you will work in lockstep with the design lead driving AI experience vision so the Playbook and product language support AI-powered capabilities consistently across the platform.

You are adept at product and brand integration, storytelling, and visual design, and you can bridge these domains to accelerate our product language and evolution.

This role reports to the Senior Director of UX Design and is a core leader of the UX team’s impact.

What You Will Be Doing

As Principal Design Lead at The Trade Desk, you will:

Own & Evolve the Digital Playbook

• Define, maintain, and evolve the Digital Playbook, including design foundations, style guide, component anatomy, and the guidance that connects them, as the source of truth for how our product and brand show up across the platform
• Set the standards and principles that help teams design with consistency, clarity, and craft
• Keep the Playbook a living resource: adopted in daily work, responsive to product change, and measurable in its impact on quality and speed
• Translate ambiguous product and brand needs into clear, usable guidance that teams can apply with confidence

Partner on Core Platform Evolution

• Work in close partnership with the Director leading Core Platform Evolution to ensure the Playbook and the platform’s direction evolve together
• Guide the evolution of our product design language as the platform grows, helping unify the experience, reduce fragmentation, and close quality gaps
• Identify shared patterns and align teams on best practices, raising the bar for coherence and usability across the product suite
• Lead hands-on, high-fidelity design of foundational elements, from early concept through detailed specification and adoption

Define the Modern Design System

• Help define what a modern design system is at The Trade Desk: how it is structured, how it scales, and how it supports both designers and builders
• Partner with our Design Technologist to bridge design and code, ensuring foundations, anatomy, and patterns translate cleanly into the product
• Shape how the system evolves alongside the Playbook so guidance, components, and implementation stay in sync

Bridge Product, Brand & Storytelling

• Partner with Product Marketing and Brand to integrate brand expression into the product in a way that feels intentional, distinctive, and consistent
• Build a shared visual and narrative language that connects what we say about The Trade Desk with how the platform looks and feels
• Present vision and direction to senior leadership with compelling storytelling that aligns stakeholders and accelerates decisions

Partner on the AI Experience

• Collaborate with the design lead for AI experience to translate their vision into consistent patterns, standards, and guidance within the Playbook
• Ensure the product language, components, and visual conventions support AI-powered capabilities (assistive, predictive, generative, and agentic) in a cohesive, trustworthy way
• Contribute to cross-functional conversations with Product, Engineering, and Data Science to keep platform standards and AI capabilities evolving together

Champion AI-Native Ways of Working

• Model hands-on use of AI tools in exploration, prototyping, craft, and design-to-build handoff, and share what works across teams
• Help evolve design, product, and engineering workflows so teams move faster and with higher quality
• Bring a strong point of view on where AI accelerates the work and where human judgment must stay in the loop
• Establish standards and practices that make AI-enabled workflows repeatable across the design organization

Elevate Craft & Mentor Design Talent

• Set the craft standard for visual and interaction design across the UX organization
• Provide critique and design direction that helps teams apply the Playbook and raise the quality of their work
• Mentor designers on systems thinking, visual craft, storytelling, and AI-enabled ways of working
• Lead by example through visible, hands-on work, fostering a culture where design quality is everyone’s responsibility

Represent TTD’s Design Point of View

• Share perspective on design modernization, product brand integration, and AI-enabled design practice at industry events and in the broader design community
• Position TTD as a company at the forefront of cohesive, modern, customer-centered product design in adtech

What You Bring to the Table

You are an experienced design leader with a track record of shaping the look, feel, and coherence of complex products. You combine strong visual and systems craft with product sense, brand sensibility, and genuine fluency in how AI is changing the way design gets done. You are energized by ambiguity, driven by user outcomes, and skilled at turning emerging tools and technology into practices and experiences that feel clear, confident, and human.

• Bachelor’s degree in Design, HCI, Computer Science, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience (Master’s preferred)
• 10+ years of experience in product design or UX design, including work on enterprise-grade or data-rich applications
• 4+ years leading high-impact design initiatives or strategic projects across teams or product areas
• Proven track record owning or evolving a design language, style guide, design system, or playbook that teams adopt at scale
• Strong visual and interaction design skills, with a portfolio demonstrating high standards of craft, clarity, and user-centered problem solving. Please include a viewable link or access instructions with your resume.
• Experience integrating brand and product, with the ability to partner effectively with Product Marketing and Brand teams
• Deep, hands-on fluency with AI tools for design exploration, prototyping, and workflow, with examples of how you have changed the way a team works
• Strong command of Figma and modern prototyping tools, used for fast, high-fidelity exploration at multiple levels of fidelity
• Experience partnering with design technologists or engineers to connect design foundations to implementation
• Exceptional communication and storytelling skills, with strong executive presence and experience presenting vision and direction to senior leadership
• Experience working in cross-functional teams, influencing outcomes through collaboration, systems thinking, and storytelling
• Ability to navigate ambiguity and drive clarity and alignment in complex, fast-moving environments
• Familiarity with how AI-powered experiences are designed, including patterns for trust, explainability, and error handling (preferred)
• Familiarity with advertising technology, programmatic platforms, or campaign optimization tools (preferred)
• Published thought leadership, talks, or case studies on design systems, design modernization, or AI-enabled design practice (preferred)

Why This Role Matters

At The Trade Desk, we design powerful, enterprise-grade tools that give advertisers and agencies extraordinary power to describe and reach their target audiences. As the platform evolves and AI becomes a defining layer of how customers plan, optimize, and decide, the experience has to feel like one product with one voice.

How cohesive, confident, and modern that experience feels is a design problem before it is a technology problem. The Digital Playbook is how we make it real: a shared standard that connects product, brand, and the way our teams work.

As Principal Design Lead, you will own that standard, modernize how our design practice operates, and help ensure every part of the platform reflects the quality our customers expect. If you are energized by the intersection of design craft, product and brand integration, and the way AI is transforming how great design gets made, this is your role.

The Trade Desk does not accept unsolicited resumes from search firm recruiters. Fees will not be paid in the event a candidate submitted by a recruiter without an agreement in place is hired; such resumes will be deemed the sole property of The Trade Desk. The Trade Desk is an equal opportunity employer. All aspects of employment will be based on merit, competence, performance, and business needs. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, marital status, age, national origin, ancestry, physical or mental disability, medical condition, pregnancy, genetic information, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran status, or any other status protected under federal, state, or local law.

[LA JOBS ONLY] The Trade Desk will consider qualified applicants with criminal histories for employment in a manner consistent with the requirements of the Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring, Ordinance No. 184652.

[SF JOBS ONLY] Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

At the Trade Desk, Base Salary is one part of our competitive total compensation and benefits package and is determined using a salary range. The base salary range for this role is 182800 - 335200 USD