Director of Product Design

Company Description

Swiftly is on a mission to help cities move more efficiently. We are the leading transit data platform for agencies to share real-time passenger information, manage day-to-day operations, and improve service performance. Today, over 200 transit agencies in 12 countries – including LA Metro, MARTA, SEPTA, and MBTA – rely on Swiftly to improve on-time performance by up to 40% and increase passenger information accuracy by up to 50%.

The result is better service reliability, increased ridership, and more efficient transit operations.

Even though Swiftly's HQ office is located in San Francisco, CA, we are open to candidates in most locations across the U.S. as well as Ontario and British Columbia, Canada. At this time we are unable to provide Visa sponsorship.

We’re looking for a Director of Product Design who is as fluent in the work as they are in leading it; someone who can set the direction for a strong, senior design team to lead Swiftly’s design practice, elevate the craft, and shape the future of our products that improve mobility in cities of all sizes.

Reporting to the Chief Technology Officer, you’ll lead and grow a talented design team and partner closely with Product Management and Engineering leadership to build a world‑class, cross‑functional product organization. You’ll advance our design vision, scale our design systems and operations, and ensure our experiences are both powerfully functional and beautifully intuitive.

We’re building at a moment when design’s tools, methods, and scope are all changing  need someone who will lead through that, holding a high bar on craft while moving the organization forward.

* We use AI tools for scheduling and summarization in our hiring process. We do not use AI tools to decide who moves forward or to assess candidate strength. Every application is reviewed, and all hiring decisions are made by Swiftly team members. This is an active, open role that we are currently hiring for at Swiftly.

• Translate company, product, and team strategy into a clear design vision and bring teams along by showing them where it leads. Articulate and share this vision with leadership and the company at large to catalyze, align, and energize the company in making cities move more efficiently.
• You will work closely with Product Management and Engineering leadership to build a cross‑functional product development engine that understands the power of design and emphasizes product experience, lovability, and impact.
• Lead design reviews that are genuinely excellent, where the team’s work gets sharper. Refine and scale the practices around them: a maturing design system, systematized user research, and a design ops model that keeps pace with how the craft is evolving.
• You’ll set the standard for design experiences across native mobile, web platform, and agentic workflows. You’ll help your team balance refined design opinion with direct usage & anecdotal feedback to ensure our products stay intuitive, fresh, and focused on solving real problems.
• You’ll realize a cadence of rapid iteration and execution
  , encouraging designers to share early and often, make decisions with the right amount of information, drive alignment across functions with living prototypes, and maintain dev‑ready designs in lock step with development.
• Champion AI‑accelerated design iteration by embedding rapid, seamless AI prototyping into discovery, design, and dev processes, compressing concept‑to‑dev‑ready timelines and deepening real‑time collaboration between PM and Engineers throughout the product development cycle.
• Represent Product Design and the greater Product Org alongside Product Management and Engineering in company leadership meetings, bringing customer pains and insights to life to inform strategy.
• You’ll build on Swiftly’s culture of curiosity, feedback, and inclusion, helping designers stretch their craft, challenge ideas with care, and grow through collaboration.

• 10+ years of product design experience, with 5+ years in leadership roles. A very good designer in your own right, you are an engaged and experienced manager who likes…