Design Director, Agentic UI

APPLY is the Agentic Customer Experience (ACx) partner for the world's most ambitious consumer and entertainment brands. We bring together deep domain expertise across Retail, CPG, Sports, and Media with AI-native delivery capability, designing and delivering agentic solutions that turn CX vision into commercial reality. We are the partner of choice for brands like Arc'teryx, NFL, Lululemon, and Kraft Heinz. For more information, visit

APPLY is hybrid/remote friendly. The preferred candidate should be based in Canada, working in hours that align to ET (Eastern Timezone) or PT (Pacific Timezone).

As Director of Experience Design, Agentic UI, you will be a hands-on, senior technical leader responsible for executing, shaping, and delivering the next generation of AI-driven UI design across APPLY. This is a role built for a practitioner: you will spend at least 50% of your time as a direct "doer with AI," actively designing alongside Agents, while guiding the broader craft of screen design, advanced design systems, and interaction excellence across complex client engagements.

Reporting to the Head of Experience Design, you will take full ownership of APPLY's agentic UI design workflows. You will drive both high-level design strategy and deep technical execution, covering everything from component strategy and design system requirements to defining exactly how great work gets built using emerging AI tool chains. You will serve as a trusted, deeply technical partner to clients and internal teams alike, moving beyond traditional team management to pave the way for a modern, execution-focused delivery model.

This role is made for a client-focused, seasoned design leader who thrives at the absolute intersection of craft, systems thinking, and AI-native workflows. You bring deep expertise in design systems spanning token architecture, component governance, CMS integration, and multi-platform scalability, and you know how to practically operationalize that expertise. You are someone who raises the bar for quality by doing the work;

a builder who actively embraces agentic design workflows, advanced AI tools, and systems-level execution to push what’s possible for our clients and our practice.

• Set and uphold the bar for UI design quality across all client engagements, ensuring deliverables reflect APPLY's standards and each client's brand vision from foundational token architecture and atomic component libraries through to polished, production-ready screen design.

• Lead and actively contribute to the creation of high-quality screen designs, prototypes, and design systems across multi-product and multi-platform projects, with deep hands-on expertise in foundations, tokens, and atomic design methodology.

• Define and govern design system standards including token naming conventions, tier structures (global, alias, component), theming strategies, and component documentation ensuring systems are scalable, maintainable, and developer-ready.

• Establish and champion design frameworks, UX principles, and visual consistency practices across the team, embedding design system thinking at every stage of the project lifecycle.

• Drive design critique culture and create structured feedback loops that elevate the work, with a sharp eye for system integrity, component reuse, and cross-platform consistency.

• Champion the integration of agentic design workflows and AI-powered tooling including Claude for design to accelerate design system production, automate token management, and unlock new levels of craft and efficiency across the team.

• Act as a senior design voice in client relationships, presenting concepts, rationale, and recommendations with confidence and clarity.

• Lead…