Director of Design

What You Will Do In This Role 

As the Director of Design at Inflect, you report directly to the VP of Technology and will sit within the Engineering team and lead our design function with true authority. This is a highly visible and strategic hands-on role where you set the UI/UX and brand direction, make the tough calls, and relentlessly drive them into our shipped product and marketing surfaces.

This isn't a role for someone who just wants to manage a strategy; it's for an operator-leader who demands a studio-grade craft bar and understands the technical nuances of bringing designs to life. Working tightly with Engineering, Marketing, and Product, you will transform complex, data-dense workflows into intuitive, beautiful experiences. You are the architect of Inflect’s visual language, ensuring our digital infrastructure marketplace looks, feels, and moves better than anything else in the industry — on par with the best studio-built sites on the web.

Who You Are 

You are a design authority with a "boots on the ground" execution mindset. You don't just look at high-level concepts; you dive into the mechanics of visual, interaction, and motion design. You possess the ability to translate genuinely complex product flows into elegant, usable interfaces. You are a collaborator who thrives when partnering with frontend engineering to ensure that your motion and craft survive implementation.

You absolutely hate sloppy execution or disjointed branding, to the point where you might think you obsess over these things a little too much. You probably have to work hard to not let “perfection” get in the way of “great”. But, your strong can-do attitude and your innate commitment to reach a high standard no matter what it takes ultimately serve you well. You view yourself as a "Force Multiplier," and relish the idea of getting to hire, grow, and lead a design team while setting the uncompromising standards the function works to. You are driven by a cohesive visual language and have a deep mastery of prototyping (Figma, Framer, and/or code-aware tooling).

You will excel in this role if you feel like we're talking about you when we say the ideal candidate brings the following to the table:

• Design Authority & Craft: Unwavering commitment to a studio-grade craft bar, with an extensive portfolio spanning UI/UX, interaction, and motion design
• People Leadership: Proven experience holding accountability for a design function - hiring, mentoring, and leading high-performing teams to best-in-class standards
• Technical Partnership: Deep experience partnering with frontend engineering (Next.js/TypeScript) to ensure flawless execution from concept to shipped product
• Systems Thinking: Ability to own and evolve a comprehensive design system, typographic system, and overall visual language coherent across both product and brand
• Complex Problem Solving: A track record of untangling genuinely complex product flows (e.g., data-heavy dashboards, geospatial UIs, or deep configuration tools)

Who We Are 

We're revolutionizing the way companies buy and sell digital infrastructure (Datacenter, cloud, and network services), and we're extremely proud of that. Digital infrastructure services are the building blocks of the Internet and at the core of every industry. Traditionally, it's been bought manually through service provider salespeople, resulting in high costs, slow procurement cycles, and services that aren't the best fit - slowing down the ability of companies to build and innovate. Inflect's marketplace and advisory are removing friction so any company can get what they need, when they need it, with the right deal terms. By achieving our mission, we unlock businesses to build and human innovation to inflect!

Of course, we're also a startup, and it's important that you understand what that means if you work for us. We work quick, we work smart, we work hard, and the road to success is filled with some of the highest highs, but also has its fair share of lows. If you're looking for the same thing day in and day out, this will not be the place for you. (And that's totally okay!) We're all owners of Inflect -full time employees receive option grants-, and we know that we're the reason we'll achieve our goals, or we'll be the reason we don't. So believe me when I say that we're hell bent on achieving our goals. If this sounds like the kind of environment you would thrive in then we'd love to have you!

Day-To-Day Responsibilities

Design Leadership & Team Accountability:

• Direction & Authority: Lead the design function with authority, setting the UI/UX and brand direction, making the crucial calls, and driving them into shipped product and marketing surfaces.
• People Leadership: Hold absolute accountability for the design team - hiring, growing, and mentoring talent while setting and enforcing the uncompromising standards the function works to.

Execution & Studio-Grade Craft:

• Visual & Motion Excellence: Own the visual, interaction, and motion design of Inflect across the marketing site (Framer) and the core product (Next.js/TypeScript) to a studio-grade craft bar.
• Systems & Language: Own and continually evolve the design system, the typographic system, and the overall visual language, keeping them coherent across product and brand.
• Complex Product Flows: Lead design for genuinely complex, high-stakes flows, including the quote configurator, data-dense dashboards, and geospatial/RouteFinder UIs.

Cross-Functional Partnership:

• Engineering Alignment: Partner tightly with frontend engineering to ensure motion, interaction, and craft survive implementation; prototype flawlessly using Figma, Framer, and/or code-aware tooling.
• Marketing Collaboration: Act as a tight partner to Marketing as a primary stakeholder, co-owning the craft of inflect.com and aligning brand and visual direction with overarching marketing goals and campaigns.

Qualifications
Desired Qualifications

• Design leadership experience: 8+ years in product and digital brand design, including direct experience leading and managing designers.
• Design authority: You've owned design decisions with real authority in prior roles — you made the call and drove it to shipped, not just produced the mock-up.
• Technical partnership: Deep experience partnering with frontend engineering (Next.js/TypeScript) to ensure motion, interaction, and craft survive implementation; fluent in Figma and Framer (or a fast ramp on Framer), with enough front-end literacy to collaborate on execution.
• Complex product UX: Demonstrated ability to turn genuinely complex, data-dense flows (dashboards, configurators, geospatial UIs) into intuitive, elegant interfaces.
• Range: Strong across both product UX and brand/marketing design, and comfortable acting as Marketing's primary design partner.

Preferred Qualifications

• Studio-grade craft (strongly preferred): A motion-forward, scroll-driven portfolio at a studio-grade bar — motion, transitions, micro-interactions, and custom iconography.
• Creative-development range: 3D/WebGL, Lottie/After Effects, or similar collaboration with engineering on motion.
• B2B or marketplace product design; data-visualization and geospatial UX.
• Brand strategy: experience with a full brand strategy exercise — positioning, audience, and voice through to visual identity — ideally having led one, or at minimum as a core contributor.
• Experience building and scaling a design function from an early stage, ideally in a startup or high-growth environment.

The Benefits We Offer

• Fully covered health insurance options through a major health insurance provider for both you and your family (you pay $0)
• 100% remote work environment - seriously!
• Unlimited PTO
• Dental and Vision insurance available with widely used providers
• Option grants begin vesting after year 1 - you own a piece of Inflect