Head of Product Design

Description

Product Design at Noisy Creek shapes the look, feel, and voice readers meet across our sites — The Stranger, Portland Mercury, Chicago Reader, EverOut.com — and in every newsletter we send. As we grow into new markets, we need a technical design leader to bring consistency, craft, and a strong point of view to the experience readers, members, and advertisers have with us across web, email, and — soon — mobile app.

Our Product Design leader will own end-to-end user experience (UX) and visual design direction across our digital properties: websites, email/marketing templates, and future mobile app work. This is a hands‑on leadership role — you'll set design vision and standards for a multi‑brand, multi‑market publisher while staying close enough to the work to design a page template, refine an email system, or prototype a mobile concept yourself. You'll partner with editorial, membership, advertising, and product leaders to ensure design serves both readers and the business, work directly with engineering to ship your designs, and engage at the C‑suite level to establish design as a company‑wide priority.

Key Responsibilities

• Define and own the UX/visual design vision for Noisy Creek's digital properties, building a cohesive design language that flexes across brands while preserving each publication's voice.
• Own end-to-end website design — information architecture, interaction, visual design, and responsive behaviour — from concept to shipped experience.
• Design and maintain the system for email templates and marketing formats (newsletters, membership, ticketing, promotions), ensuring consistency and deliverability across markets.
• Lead early‑stage design exploration for future mobile app initiatives, from concept through user testing.
• Build and maintain a scalable design system and component library so a small team can ship consistent, on‑brand work across properties.
• Partner with engineering to translate designs into shipped product, and with product, editorial, membership, and advertising leaders to align design with business goals like growth, conversion and retention.
• Conduct or commission user research and usability testing to validate and iterate on design decisions.
• Establish and maintain accessibility, usability and brand standards across all digital touchpoints.
• Build the case for growing a design function over time, then hire, mentor and manage that team as it's approved.

Requirements

• 7+ years of UX/product design experience, including owning end‑to‑end design for a consumer‑facing product at scale.
• A strong portfolio spanning web and email/marketing design, ideally with early‑stage mobile app work.
• Experience building or evolving a design system used across multiple products or brands.
• Experience partnering directly with engineers from concept to shipped product, with fluency in implementation constraints.
• Strong communication skills, including presenting and defending design decisions to executive leadership.
• Experience conducting or commissioning user research to inform design decisions.
• Comfort with autonomy in a lean, fast‑moving org — equally strategic and hands‑on.

Preferred

• Experience designing for media, publishing, membership/subscription, or email marketing at scale.
• Experience designing across multiple brands or a multi‑tenant design system.
• People management experience, or a track record of building the case for a team before it exists.
• Experience as a sole/first design hire, standing up process and craft standards from scratch.
• Familiarity with WCAG accessibility standards and email rendering constraints across clients.
• Seattle location preferred, not required.

Benefits

• Comprehensive Health Coverage: Noisy Creek provides employer‑subsidized premiums for medical, dental and vision insurance.
• Retirement Savings: Participation in a SIMPLE IRA program with employer matching.
• Paid Vacation: Accrued at two weeks per year, scaling to four weeks annually after five years of tenure.
• Paid Sick Leave: Accrual of one week per year, including rollover for future use.
• Holiday Time: Nine standard paid holidays, a full paid week off between December 24 and January 1, and two floating holidays for use anytime.
• Extended Leave Options: Paid bereavement and jury duty leave, with opportunities to augment state family and medical leave benefits.
• Transit Support: Access to discounted commuter transit passes.
• Career Growth: An annual professional development stipend to fund training and specialised learning.
• Wellness Support: Employee Assistance Program offering resources for financial and mental health.
• Flexible Spending Account: Access to pre‑tax FSA options for healthcare and dependent care expenses.

Why Join Noisy Creek?

We're a vibrant, creative team that believes the more diverse voices at the table, the better the conversation—and the work! We realize that not everyone receives the same professional or educational opportunities, so if you don't meet all the above qualifications but still think you'd be a good fit.

Noisy Creek is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will be considered without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran or disability status.

About Noisy Creek

Noisy Creek launched in mid‑2024 with an innovative model to invigorate local media across the United States for our democracy, civic engagement and thriving local communities. It currently operates The Stranger, the Portland Mercury, the Chicago Reader, EverOut.com, Noisy Creek Podcasts, Noisy Creek Productions and Bold Type Tickets.