Design Director

Job Description

Job Description

Established in 2004, OLIVER is the world's first and only specialist in designing, building, and running bespoke in-house agencies and marketing ecosystems for brands. We partner with over 300 clients in 40+ countries and counting. Our unique model drives creativity and efficiency, allowing us to deliver tailored solutions that resonate deeply with audiences. 

As a part of The Brandtech Group , we're at the forefront of leveraging cutting-edge AI technology to revolutionise how we create and deliver work. Our AI solutions enhance efficiency, spark creativity, and drive insightful decision-making, empowering our teams to produce innovative and impactful results. 

Role: Design Director

Location:  San Francisco Bay Area or Remote (PST)

About the role:  

We're pairing craft with AI velocity—and we need a Design Director to lead it.

We've launched an embedded, AI-native creative studio for one of the world's most influential B2B tech brands—a global platform company serving 85% of the Fortune 500. This isn't a traditional agency setup. You'll be leading an established, high-output creative studio that operates as a seamless extension of the client's internal global brand team. Your mission: to scale their vision with relentless craft and speed. That means taking hero campaigns, brand systems, and creative playbooks—and turning them into flawless assets across regions, channels, and formats. You'll direct a multi-disciplinary team, set the bar for quality, and ensure that every piece of work—whether it's a flagship moment or a localized event—feels unmistakably on-brand. If you're energized by the idea of combining creative excellence with operational rigor, and you thrive when empowering teams to do their best work at scale, we'd love to talk.

What you will be doing:  

Creative Direction and Quality

• Direct and develop a multi-level creative team — running internal critiques, sharpening executions, and building a culture where high standards are the shared expectation
• Contribute directly to concepting and design, bringing hands-on skill to the team's output and elevating work at every stage of production
• Act as the studio's final quality check, reviewing and auditing all creative work before it reaches the client
• Ensure every asset the studio produces is faithful to the client's brand guidelines, voice, and creative vision — from flagship campaign heroes to localised regional content

Team Leadership and Capability Building

• Develop team members' skills and creative output through regular coaching, feedback, and structured knowledge-sharing
• Identify opportunities to improve creative processes and introduce smarter ways of working
• Build an inclusive, collaborative team culture where diverse perspectives strengthen both creative output and working relationships

Client Partnership and Studio Operations

• Partner with the OLIVER Business Director to manage studio operations, timelines, and the overall client experience
• Maintain strong working relationships with client creative directors, account leads, producers, and project managers
• Manage and prioritise team workloads across high-volume delivery cycles, adapting quickly when priorities or timelines shift

AI Integration and Innovation

• Lead the integration of generative AI tools into creative workflows, setting quality standards and governance for AI-assisted output at studio level
• Drive AI adoption and share best practice across the team and the wider OLIVER network
• Apply an agentic approach to complex creative and operational challenges — breaking problems down systematically and identifying efficient, high-quality paths forward 

What you need to be great in this role:  

• A strong portfolio demonstrating brand system expertise, campaign craft, and multi-format creative execution at scale
• Proven experience leading and developing multi-disciplinary creative teams in high-volume, fast-paced environments — agency, in-house, or embedded studio backgrounds all welcome
• Deep expertise in brand identity and creative systems, with a track record of maintaining quality and consistency across diverse markets, channels, and formats
• Experience leading creative quality processes — running critiques, setting standards, and developing team members' output
• A collaborative, stakeholder-savvy approach, with the ability to build strong working relationships with senior clients, account teams, and cross-functional partners
• Strategic awareness of how generative AI can enhance creative quality and delivery efficiency, combined with the judgment to evaluate outputs critically and maintain creative standards
• Advanced proficiency with generative AI tools — including Midjourney, Adobe Firefly, or equivalent — and experience building AI-assisted workflows within a creative team
• Expert proficiency with the Adobe Creative Suite and Figma
• Strategic integration of generative AI across studio projects and operations
• Experience setting AI quality standards and governance at studio or team level
• Agentic leadership: a systematic, goal-oriented approach to complex creative and operational challenges
• Drives AI adoption and shares best practice across teams and into client partnerships
• Strong understanding of AI capabilities and limitations, with rigorous human oversight and critical evaluation of outputs

At the time of this posting, the base salary for this position may range according to what's stated below. Individual compensation varies based on job related factors, including location, business needs, level of responsibility, experience, and qualifications. The range listed is just one component of OLIVER's total compensation package.

Salary Range

$185,250—$213,750 USD

Our values shape everything we do: 

Be Ambitious to succeed   

Be  Imaginative to push the boundaries of what's possible   

Be  Inspirational to do groundbreaking work   

Be  always learning and listening to understand   

Be  Results-focused  to exceed expectations   

Be actively pro-inclusive and anti-racist across our community, clients and creations  

Our recruitment process does not employ artificial intelligence. Candidate evaluation and selection are conducted without AI-supported screening or decision-making.

OLIVER, a part of the Brandtech Group, is an equal opportunity employer committed to creating an inclusive working environment where all employees are encouraged to reach their full potential, and individual differences are valued and respected. All applicants shall be considered for employment without regard to race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, neurodivergence, disability status, or any other characteristic protected by local laws.    

OLIVER has set ambitious environmental goals around sustainability, with science-based emissions reduction targets. Collectively, we work towards our mission, embedding sustainability into every department and through every stage of the project lifecycle.