Director, Product Design (San Francisco)

Front is the customer operations platform built for B2B complexity, keeping every team, tool, and customer conversation in sync so companies can scale without losing connection. Others handle simple interactions. Front handles the coordination and context behind complex B2B customer relationships. Over 9,000 companies, including Uber Freight, Navan, and Stripe, rely on Front because it’s the only one that can run the operational layer that makes customer‑facing work actually succeed.

Backed by Sequoia Capital and Salesforce Ventures, Front has raised $204M from leading venture capital firms and independent investors including top executives at Atlassian, Okta, Qualtrics, Zoom, and PagerDuty. Front has received numerous Great Place to Work accolades, including Built In's 100 Best Midsize Places to Work in SF 2025 , Top Places to Work by USA Today 2025 , Y Combinator's list of Top Companies in 2023 , #4 on Fortune’s Best Workplaces in the Bay Area™ , Inc. Magazine's 2022 Best Workplaces list , and Forbes Best Startup Employers 2022 List .

Front is looking for a Design Director to lead our Product Design team and elevate the craft, speed, and impact of what we ship. This role is a senior design leader responsible for the quality of end‑to‑end experiences across Front’s core workflows—and for building the systems, processes, and leadership muscle that help design scale.

You’ll partner closely with Product and Engineering leadership to shape what we build (not just how it looks), connect design decisions to customer outcomes, and drive a high‑trust, high‑accountability culture across the org.

Who you are

• A senior, hands‑on design leader who sets high standards for craft, clarity, and outcomes.

• Comfortable operating in complex, workflow‑heavy, data‑rich product areas (queues, routing/assignment, rules builders, automation, analytics).

• A strong cross‑functional partner to Product and Engineering—able to drive alignment, momentum, and crisp decision‑making.

• An executive‑level communicator who can translate design decisions into business outcomes and tradeoffs.

• An operator who brings structure without bureaucracy—improving process so teams move faster, not slower.

• Product‑obsessed: deeply curious about customers and the broader CX market, and committed to understanding the “why” behind the work.

• Excited to define and lead an AI‑forward evolution of design practices while protecting quality and customer trust.

What you’ll do

• Lead and develop a team of product designers (including managing managers as the org scales), setting clear expectations and coaching to raise the craft bar.

• Establish a strong operating cadence (critiques, design reviews, planning, decision‑making) that improves quality, clarity, and throughput.

• Raise design quality across Front’s core workflows—queues, routing/assignment, rules/automation, and analytics—shipping high‑craft improvements that measurably increase usability and adoption.

• Ensure experiences feel fast, clear, and intuitive even when systems are complex and data‑heavy; model strong interaction, visual polish, and systems thinking.

• Evolve and govern the design system (tokens, components, governance, collaboration model) so design and engineering can ship 2–3× faster with confidence.

• Operationalize an AI‑first design process from research to prototyping to engineering handoff—accelerating iteration, reducing rework, and setting AI‑forward standards while protecting quality and customer trust.

• Partner with Product and Engineering leadership to identify risks early, align stakeholders, and translate design decisions into business outcomes and tradeoffs.

What you bring

• 10+ years of product design experience with substantial time leading teams in complex product environments.

• Strong track record designing and shipping workflow‑heavy, data‑rich experiences (e.g., routing/assignment, rules builders, dashboards, analytics).

• Proven experience building, evolving, and governing a design system that improved consistency and shipping velocity.

• Excellent cross‑functional leadership—able to partner deeply with Product and Engineering to drive clarity and execution.

• Executive‑level communication: strong storytelling, sharp judgment, and comfort presenting tradeoffs and recommendations.

• Experience defining AI‑enabled design practices and tools across a team (or a clear, credible point of view on how you would).

Bonus points

• Experience with B2B SaaS products in CX/support/operations‑adjacent categories.

• Track record shipping products known for exceptional craft and ambitious design.

Why this role and why now?

Front has invested heavily in foundations—now we’re ready to turn that into exceptional product experiences at scale. This role has real leverage: you’ll lead the team that shapes the usability, consistency, and quality of Front’s core product, while helping define how design evolves in an AI‑first era.

Front provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age or disability. By applying, you acknowledge and agree that you have read and understand the California Recruiting Privacy Notice & EU Privacy Notice