Creative Director

Gradial is the marketing operations system of work that helps marketers and creatives move from idea to execution faster. Our platform orchestrates across martech stacks, workflows, and people to automate marketing execution, cutting execution time, so marketers focus on the work only humans can do: shaping brands, understanding customers, and creating the work that moves people.

Backed by leading investors, we’re building software that adapts to the user, not the other way around. We move with urgency, operate with ownership, and solve hard problems from first principles. If you want to do ambitious work, take real responsibility, and help define the future of AI-native content operations, you’ll do your best work here.

The Role

As Creative Director at Gradial, you’ll own and shape our visual and brand identity across every brand surface, from website and product marketing to motion, social, decks, and everything in between.

This is not a maintenance role. You’ll translate complex concepts like AI agents, automation, and orchestration into design that feels clear, confident, and human. You’ll work closely with Product and Go-To-Market to ensure what we say externally reflects what we’re actually building internally.

If you have exceptional taste, strong opinions, and the ability to move fast without sacrificing quality, this role gives you meaningful ownership over how Gradial looks, feels, and shows up in the world.

What You’ll Own

• Shape and evolve Gradial’s visual identity across all brand touchpoints, including website, product marketing, email, decks, social, infographics, and motion explainers
• Translate complex technical ideas into brand-aligned design that feels intuitive, modern, and human
• Partner closely with Product and GTM to ensure brand, messaging, and product reality are always aligned
• Raise the bar on design quality, polish, clarity, and boldness across the company
• Move quickly while maintaining a high standard, knowing when to refine and when to ship
• Set and uphold an extremely high quality bar, pushing back when work doesn’t meet it
• Build and maintain strong visual systems that scale, not just one-off assets

What We Need

• Strong design instincts and clear opinions, with the ability to articulate and defend design decisions
• Demonstrated experience building modern, intentional brands or products
• A systems-oriented mindset. You care about consistency, cohesion, and long-term scalability
• Comfort starting from a blank page and navigating ambiguity
• Ability to operate independently without large teams, rigid processes, or perfect briefs
• Experience designing across multiple surfaces (web, marketing, motion, presentation, social)

What Matters Most

• Taste - you have a sharp eye for what looks and feels right, and consistently make design decisions that elevate the brand
• Clarity - you turn complex ideas into design that is intuitive, confident, and easy to understand
• Momentum - you move fast, ship thoughtfully, and keep work progressing without sacrificing quality

The salary range for this position is $145,000 – $180,000 annually . Final compensation will be determined based on factors such as experience, skills, and qualifications. In addition to base salary, this role may be eligible for performance-based bonuses and equity awards. Gradial offers a comprehensive benefits package, including medical, dental & vision insurance, 401K retirement plan, paid time off, paid sick leave and other employee wellness programs.

What we offer

• Performance-based annual bonus
• Meaningful equity awards
• Medical, dental & vision (fully covered for employees with 75% for dependents)
• Fertility & family-planning support
• 401k plan
• Unlimited PTO
• A beautiful Seattle office with a gym, sauna, and bike parking
• Free lunch three days a week in our HQ
• A front-row seat to building category-defining AI infrastructure

You'll thrive here if you

• Learn quickly, actively seek out new challenges, and regularly reconsider “how it’s always been done.”
• Want to have real impact with zero bureaucracy.
• Have an innate drive for being 1% better than the day before, building towards greatness.
• Embrace AI as a core tool for problem-solving, innovation, and scale.
• Show customer-obsession (internal or external), high ownership/accountability, and bias for action.
• Communicate clearly, directly, with curiosity, and assuming good intentions.
• Thrive in fast-paced, hyper-growth environments where building better > maintaining status quo.

AI Literacy & Interviewing Tools

As an AI-first company, we prioritize AI literacy as a core competency in our hiring decisions. We’re excited by candidates who thoughtfully apply AI tools in their work, but during interviews we’re focused on you. This is your opportunity to show how you think, communicate, and solve problems. Over-reliance on AI-generated responses during the interview process (especially when it obscures your own voice) will result in disqualification. We want to understand your unique perspective and how you approach challenges, both with and without AI.

Gradial is dedicated to creating an environment where diverse perspectives are valued and all team members can grow. We offer competitive compensation, equity, flexible work hours, comprehensive benefits, and a collaborative culture focused on learning and impact.