Head of Design

Coast is re-imagining the trillion-dollar U.S. B2B card payments and expense management infrastructure, with a focus on the country’s 500,000 commercial fleets and 40 million commercial vehicles. Our platform gives vehicle fleets control, security, and real-time visibility into their spending. We started by building a fair, transparent charge card designed specifically for mobile fleet workers, owners, and managers. Our long-term vision is to build a holistic and smart financial services platform purpose-built for this industry. Design is central to making complex financial workflows simple, intuitive, and trustworthy for users in the field and at the office.

Coast is founded and led by Daniel Simon, who previously cofounded Bread (breadpayments.com), a leading payments and credit technology firm backed by some of the world’s top VCs which was acquired for $500M+ in 2020. The company has raised $165M in total funding — our recent $40M Series B equity round was led by ICONIQ Growth with participation from Thomvest, and Synchrony. We\'re also backed by top fintech and mobility venture funds, including Accel, Insight Partners, Better Tomorrow Ventures, Avid Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, BoxGroup, Foundation Capital, Greycroft, Colle, and premier angel investors, including: Max Levchin (Affirm), Josh Abramowitz (Bread), Jason Gardner (Marqeta), William Hockey (Plaid), Ryan Petersen (Flexport), and many others.

About the Role

As our first Director of Product Design you will be responsible for defining and scaling design at Coast. This role is ideal for a design leader who thrives in builder mode; someone excited to set direction, establish standards, and grow a team, while still being close to the work. This is a true player-coach role. You will lead a small but talented team while also acting as the primary product designer on one of our product teams. As the design organization matures and scales, your hands-on IC responsibilities will naturally decrease over time.

You’ll inherit a small, but talented team of individual contributor product designers and have the mandate to evolve design into a mature, scalable function.

Reporting to the SVP of Product, you’ll be a key partner to Product Management and Engineering leadership, shaping how design influences strategy, execution, and outcomes. Over time, this role has the potential to grow into leading the entire design organization, including areas like UX research, design systems, and UX writing, as those functions are introduced.

If you’re motivated by impact, ownership, and the chance to leave a lasting imprint on a company’s product and culture, this role is for you.

Please note that this role will require you to be comfortable with working in-person at our NYC office at least 3.5 days/week on average.

What You’ll Do

• Set the vision and bar for product design at Coast, ensuring exceptional user experiences across our product portfolio
• Lead and develop the design team - starting with 2 IC designers - and grow the team thoughtfully as the company scales
• Partner closely with Product Management and Engineering to influence product strategy, roadmap prioritization, and execution.
• Establish foundational design practices, including: design principles, critique, feedback loops, and quality standards
• Drive the creation of a design system that improves consistency, velocity, and product coherence over time
• Advocate for user-centered decision-making through research, testing, and data-informed design
• Balance hands-on IC design work with coaching, mentorship, and organizational leadership as the team scales
• Help develop future design capabilities, including UX research and UX writing, as the organization grows
• Act as hands-on product designer on a product team, owning discovery, interaction design, and delivery.

What You Bring

• At least 9 years of experience building and shipping high-quality and impactful products
• At least 3 years of design leadership experience growing and managing multidisciplinary design teams at high-growth, product-led organizations
• Experience shipping both 0-to-1 and 0-n-1 products in ambiguous environments
• A strong product mindset; you think in terms of outcomes, not just outputs
• Exceptional cross-functional leadership skills with the ability to influence and partner at the executive level
• Relentless attention to detail and a passion for exceptional design craft with the ability to raise the bar across a team
• Comfort operating as both a design leader and an individual contributor in an early-stage, evolving organization

Nice-to-Haves

• Experience building AI products
• Experience building in financial, enterprise, or other domains requiring complex systems thinking

What We Offer

• A high-impact leadership role with real ownership and the opportunity to shape the future of design at Coast
• Competitive compensation, including:
• Equity: commensurate with level determined at the discretion of the company, with meaningful potential upside given the company’s early stage
• Company-sponsored 401(k)
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance
• Flexible paid time off (vacation, personal well being, paid holidays)
• Paid parental leave
• $400 accessories allowance (a keyboard, mouse, headphones, etc.)
• Education stipend
• Tools to help manage your financial wellness, including webinar, and access to an equity tax advisory service
• Free lunch on Fridays