Design Director

Design Director Opportunity

Love where you work! Voted Best Architectural Firm to Work For since 2018, Taylor Design, a 100% employee-owned company, is looking for a Design Director to join our Orange County office. This is your opportunity to work with a team of dedicated, creative, and fun architects and designers on award-winning projects.

The Design Director is a visionary leader with a strong ability to mentor, inspire creativity, foster meaningful relationships, and build a design culture across all Taylor Design offices. This role centers on innovation, generating new ideas, and crafting meaningful experiences in healthcare and life science environments. The Design Director should inspire and promote integration among all design disciplines, both internally and externally, with the overarching goal of consistently elevating design and increasing design awareness. This individual will help the firm imagine and advance new possibilities in health and science, as well as in other emerging market sectors. The successful candidate will productively lead design teams, navigate interpersonal relationships, provide strategic direction, diplomatically advocate the vision, and maintain a focus on sustainability in the broadest sense. The ideal candidate must be knowledgeable about new trends and processes in the design field, including integrated delivery, and promote research-based design strategy.

What you will do:

• Establish and model a culture of design excellence, accountability, and follow-through by setting and upholding high standards for clarity, coordination, constructability, and execution across all project phases.
• Supervise Designers, Project Designers, and Senior Project Designers.
• Direct and provide leadership for design teams, across multiple projects, during the conception, development, and production of projects to ensure that clarity and quality of the conceptual design is established and maintained.
• Lead and support design presentations in collaboration with other leaders.
• Assure that the design process is occurring and is fully integrated into architectural design and technical production processes.
• Navigate feedback and client pushback constructively maintaining design intent while building trust and consensus across project stakeholders.
• Cultivate a culture of engagement where junior staff are free to ask questions early, understand what their work is supposed to communicate, and learn how their contribution fits into the whole.
• Work with leaders to develop tools and a consistent process to generate a viable design strategy on every project and educate others on how to integrate these concepts into the project design.
• In collaboration with other leaders, play a leadership role in defining how the firm is positioned in the marketplace from the standpoint of design.
• In collaboration with other leaders, establish methods for evolving the design capability of Taylor Design staff and tracking their progress.
• Stay abreast of market trends/research as it related to design within Taylor Design's market sectors and communicate information to the firm as appropriate.
• Demonstrate service orientation and willingness to foster a respectful, innovative, and stimulating environment as highly valued, as well as holding a respected place in the broader design community.

What you will have:

• 12 to 15+ years professional experience including proven track record of experience in the design field.
• Experience in health and science markets preferred.
• Experience developing design options, overall design concepts and formulating design presentation strategies.
• Analytical, graphic, and problem-solving skills; and graphic presentation skills.
• Must be able to develop collaborative relationships within the firm and with other key constituents.
• Exceptional communication skills: able to present design ideas persuasively to clients, translate vision to production teams, and advocate diplomatically for design intent and quality.
• Knowledge of design trends, construction methodology, material applications, and manufacturer/supplier appropriateness.
• A familiarity with AI tools, design software packages such as Revit, Sketchup, Lumion, and Enscape.
• A history of integrating sustainability into architectural projects, and an awareness of the importance of sustainability as a design principle.
• Track record of leadership, management, and mentoring skills with staff and general business acumen to advise and guide clients as required.
• Demonstrated ability to mentor and elevate emerging designers — not just manage output but develop people.

At Taylor Design, we're humble—it keeps us grounded. We value an entrepreneurial spirit—it feeds our creativity. We put a premium on curiosity—it guides our future. Most of all, we believe in good design for the good of all.

We are committed to fostering, cultivating, and preserving a culture of diversity and inclusion. As an employee-owned firm, our staff understands what drives success. Every employee is positioned to think like an owner.

Pay Comments: If you are hired at Taylor Design, your base salary is based on factors such as geographic location, skills, education, experience, project complexity, and licensure and/or certifications. We believe in the importance of pay equity and consider internal equity of our current team members as part of any final offer.

Taylor Design is an Equal Opportunity Employer and participant in the U.S. Federal E-Verify program. Women, minorities, individuals with disabilities and protected veterans are encouraged to apply.

Please note that Taylor Design does not accept unsolicited resumes from recruiters or employment agencies. In the absence of a signed contract, Taylor Design will not agree to pay any recruiter fee. In the situation an agency or recruiter submits a candidate or resume without a previously signed agreement and/or without Taylor Design's request, Taylor Design explicitly reserves the right to hire those candidate(s) without any financial obligation to the recruiter or agency. Any unsolicited resumes, including those submitted to hiring managers, are deemed to be the property of Taylor Design.