Design Lead

The Design Lead owns the delivery of design engagements and the performance of the designers on them. The role supports pre-sales and scoping, plans and runs projects, manages team bandwidth, and keeps engagements on time and on budget, while developing the people on the pod. The Design Lead keeps enough hands‑on craft credibility to guide design direction, but is measured primarily on delivery, client confidence, and team growth.

• Manages direct reports, setting goals, assigning work, and providing constructive feedback and timely performance input.
• Oversees the daily workflow of the team and balances workloads across engagements, flagging staffing gaps, over allocation, and hiring or contractor needs to the Creative Director.
• Contributes to the hiring process for new designers, including defining needs, interviewing candidates, evaluating portfolios, and recommending hires.
• Manages designers and other resources to deliver projects on tight deadlines.
• Represents the team's needs, bandwidth, and contributions to the Creative Director and PMO.

• Project Management:
  Own the plan for each assigned engagement, including milestones, dependencies, approval gates, and handoffs aligned to our standard operating procedures.
• Roadmaps and Coalition Building:
  Draft project roadmaps from vision through execution that align stakeholders and guide progress across teams.
• Task and Status Management:
  Break scope into work streams and tasks, assign owners, run team standups and internal reviews, and keep status current.
• Budget, Schedule, and Scope Control:
  Assist the PMO team in tracking hours against estimates, and escalates slips, out-of-scope requests, and change-order needs.
• Pre-Sales Involvement:
  Join sales calls, discovery conversations, and client meetings to represent design, understand goals and constraints, and support pitches and proposals.
• Scoping, Estimating, and Proposals:
  Translate sales notes and client requests into a clear design scope, estimate hours by role, and recommend team composition. Partner with Sales, the PMO, and the Creative Director on proposals and SOWs, pressure-testing scope for risk and margin before it goes to the client.
• Engagement Kickoff:
  Hand off signed scopes with captured assumptions, risks, and client context, and review actuals against estimates after delivery to improve future scoping.
• Resource and Bandwidth Planning:
  Forecast team capacity across active engagements and the pre-sales pipeline, and recommend staffing changes to the Creative Director.
• Client Leadership:
  Serve as the day‑to‑day design contact for assigned accounts, leading status meetings, workshops, and presentations, and managing feedback and approvals.
• Account Growth:
  Identify expansion opportunities within existing accounts and bring them to Sales and the Creative Director.
• Design Direction and Review:
  Guide design direction in alignment with the Creative Director, give clear directional feedback on the team's and partners' work, and contribute hands‑on design on high‑priority work streams.
• Brand and Design Standards:
  Bridge brand and product design so visual identity and design system standards stay consistent across digital surfaces.
• Cross‑functional Coordination:
  Partner with engineering, content, QA, and PMO teams to keep dependencies, handoff, and design QA on schedule.
• Team Operations:
  Maintain team standards, templates, and acceptance criteria, and run review processes that make work better and faster.
• AI Adoption:
  Champion AI adoption within the team by integrating tools that improve speed, scalability, and quality without compromising craft.
• Engagements delivered on time, within approved hours and budget, and meeting acceptance criteria at each gate.
• Acc…