Head of Product Design

Head of Product Design

About the Role

As a Head of Product Design, you will lead, mentor, and scale a high-performing team of Product Designers responsible for shaping end-to-end user experiences. You will partner closely with Product Management, Engineering, Data Science, and Business Leadership to translate high-level business goals into intuitive, elegant, and high-impact design solutions. This role requires a strong balance of strategic vision, first-principles product thinking, operational execution, and executive presence to advocate for the design team’s perspective across the organization.

Key Responsibilities

1. Product Vision, First-Principles Thinking & Strategy

• Beyond Business Directives: Demonstrate deep product judgment rather than simply executing requirements. Formulate strong, evidence-backed views on why a feature or capability should (or should not) be built.
• Entry-Point & Ecosystem Dynamics: Critically evaluate user mental models, value propositions, and discovery pathways (e.g., evaluating standalone surfaces vs. mother-app integrations or alternative interaction models).
• Cross-Functional Alignment & Advocacy: Bring the executive presence and conviction needed to advocate for user-centricity and fight for design team opinions when aligning with Product, Engineering, and Business stakeholders.
• Design Strategy: Partner with Product and Engineering leads to define OKRs, roadmaps, and feature priorities, ensuring long-term design coherence rather than fragmented feature delivery.

2. Team Leadership & Talent Development

• Manage, mentor, and grow a multi-tiered team of Product Designers and Design Leads (from Mid-level to Staff level),
• Establish clear career growth frameworks, provide continuous actionable feedback, and conduct regular performance reviews.
• Cultivate a culture of creative excellence, psychological safety, rapid iteration, and constructive design critiques.
• Lead recruiting efforts to scale the design organization with top-tier talent.

3. Operational Excellence & Execution

• Establish and refine design processes, critique frameworks, and cross-functional syncs to maintain high execution speed and quality.
• Drive foundational UX frameworks, service blueprints, and design system adoption across all product surfaces.
• Integrate qualitative and quantitative user research into every phase of the design lifecycle.
• Hold the design team accountable for usability standards, accessibility (WCAG), visual polish, and design system adherence.
• Track design impact using UX metrics, adoption rates, task completion success, and business conversion signals.

Required Qualifications & Competencies

• Experience: 8+ years of total UX/Product Design experience, with 3+ years of direct people management leading product designers in a fast-paced tech company (B2B, B2C, or marketplace environments).
• Strategic Product Mindset: Proven ability to challenge assumptions, evaluate the true user value of features, and ground design choices in first-principles product thinking.
• Executive Presence & Conviction: Demonstrated confidence to articulate strong opinions, push back constructively on product/business directives when necessary, and champion design leadership.
• Portfolio: A portfolio demonstrating exceptional UX/UI craft and team-led outcomes, illustrating how your team solved complex product challenges from problem definition to launch.
• Systems & Technical Acumen: Deep understanding of modern design systems, interaction patterns, accessibility standards, multi-platform workflows (Mobile App, Web, Responsive), and front-end technical constraints.
• Communication: Exceptional storytelling, presentation, and cross-functional negotiation skills.

Key Performance Metrics

• Team Growth & Retention: Engagement scores, low regretted attrition, and clear career progression across reports.
• Execution & Velocity: On-time project delivery, high-quality design handoffs, and reduced design-tech debt.
• Product Impact: Improved UX benchmarks (CSAT, NPS, task completion speed), adoption metrics, and defensible user experience improvements.

By applying for this position, I voluntarily consent to submitting my information and documents (collectively “Personal Data”), and hereby consent to SmartShift Logistics Solutions Private Limited and its affiliates, subsidiaries or group companies (collectively “Company”) collecting, using, processing and storing such information and documents for the purposes of evaluating my application and candidature, in accordance with the Company’s policies and applicable law. I further consent to the Company sharing my Personal Data with third parties, including to its affiliates, subsidiaries and vendors for the aforementioned purposes and to the consequential use, processing and storage of my Personal Data by such third parties. I further understand that my Personal Data will be stored for such periods as may be required for the Company, subject to applicable law.