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.

The Role
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 at once. We 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.

What You'll Do:
• 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.

What will set you up for success:
• 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 keeping your design skills sharp.
• Proven success shaping design strategy for B2B or B2B2C products with consumer-grade usability standards.
• Experience hiring & coaching junior and senior designers through the full life-cycle of design, from conception to completion, sharing the vision through design explorations, documentation, and presentations.
• Proven ability to scale design orgs and systems in a matrixed, cross-functional team environment.
• Experience creating and maintaining multi-platform design systems (mobile, desktop, APIs, etc. Hardware is a plus.)
• Deep expertise in making complex, data-heavy applications feel specially crafted and delightful for users.
• Experience designing thoughtful AI/ML-powered products that not only solve problems but also build customer trust.
• Communication that commands the room; concise, energizing, and able to distill complexity into a clear point of view. You’ll represent design in company leadership meetings, with enterprise customers, and alongside the executive team.

Pay Range
In accordance with pay transparency laws, please see the approximate salary ranges below. These ranges represents the anticipated low and high end of the salary and any on-target earnings (if applicable) for this position. Actual salaries will vary and are based on a multitude of non-discriminatory factors including final role leveling decisions, a candidate’s relevant work experiences/skills, and geographic location. Salary is one component of Swiftly’s total compensation package, which also includes stock options, competitive benefits, 401(k)/ RRSP matching, a fantastic team and culture, opportunity to have a huge impact, emphasis on professional growth and holistic wellness, and other perks.

US Salary Range: $160,000 - $265,000 OTE USD
Canadian Salary Range: $175,000 - $220,000 OTE CAD

Beyond the Skills:
We are looking for candidates who are passionate about mobility, sustainability, or mission-oriented projects that have a significant real-world impact. Ideal candidates encompass the core values of our company:
• Team. Together, we are more effective and better supported
• Impact. Drive impact for our customers, our company, and all of our teams
• Diversity. See differing perspectives as ways to address our weaknesses and find new strengths
• Communication. Assume others internally and externally have good intentions
• Feedback. We share feedback because we want each other to grow professionally and personally
• Growth. Foster personal, professional, and company growth

Benefits:
• Competitive salary
• Equity compensation for every employee
• Medical, Dental and Vision
• Retirement with Employer Match
• Flexible Spending Account (FSA)
• Home office setup reimbursement
• Monthly cell/internet reimbursement
• Monthly "Be Well" stipend
• Flexible PTO with a recommended minimum
• Flexible work environment
• 16 paid holidays, including holidays in months without US national holidays
• 8 fully paid weeks of leave for child birth/adoption

Travel note: Swiftly employees can generally expect to travel 1–2 times a year for in-person company or team offsites. As a fully distributed company, we consider these offsites important for cultivating strong relationships across our teams! Attending these in-person is expected and encouraged, although we understand everyone has different personal circumstances and we will consider requests for exceptions. Customer-facing team members and other specific roles may be expected to travel more frequently.

We are a truly mission-driven culture that is set to change the world of transit

We are an equal opportunity employer - we are committed to a workplace that is as dynamic, diverse, and passionate as the communities we serve.

Because we work with public agencies, we participate in E-Verify.