Director, Product Design

Communication has changed for people. It’s changed for businesses, too.

Intercom is the only suite of customer messaging products that drives growth at every stage of the customer lifecycle—across acquisition, engagement, and support. Today more than 25,000 businesses use Intercom to connect with a billion people worldwide.

Join the company helping businesses grow revenue through live chat, and so much more.

What's the opportunity? ?

You will lead a team of Design Managers and Product Designers across our Engage group of product teams.

You will be responsible for leading and growing groups of teams, developing product strategy and vision, partnering with your peer Directors, supporting your teams in delivering great design work, and helping to evolve our Product Design function as one of our most senior design leaders. You’ll be supported every step of the way by peers and leaders who are invested in your growth and your happiness.

Engage is one of the core pillars of the Intercom product, used by tens of thousands of our customers to directly connect with millions of their customers. The product area contains many interesting design challenges from a no-code visual campaign builder to product tours to powerful surveys.

The Customer Engagement landscape is changing fast, and Intercom is the Engagement OS. We’re replacing legacy email marketing with a modern, personal messaging platform that weaves in useful automation and that users love. This is an exciting opportunity to shape the future of one of the most critical and most used parts of our product, and the future of the entire customer engagement industry.

You will initially manage two Design Managers, each of whom in turn manage Product Designers who are embedded on cross-functional product teams. You’ll report directly to our VP of Product Design and partner closely with our Dublin Directors of Product and Engineering.

We genuinely care about people and value kindness in our everyday interactions. You'll be able to be yourself, feel valued, supported, learn and grow no matter how experienced you are.

We've had designers in key leadership roles, including at the exec level, from the very beginning of the company. This has made design a core foundation of our success so far, and positions design to be a key driver of our success in the years to come. We are a successful, pre-IPO, healthy business, and we have ambitious plans for the coming years.

If you want to learn more about what it's like to work here, check out intercom.design or read about what makes us different for Product people, or our blog posts about product and design.

What will I be doing? ?

• Defining vision and strategy for our Engage products.
• Managing and scaling the Engage design team through multiple phases of growth. Building a world-class design team by hiring the best, managing performance, and mentoring your team.
• Managing managers, coaching and providing feedback on your team’s performance and ensuring they are delivering high-quality work that meets user and business needs.
• Defining career paths, helping people to identify opportunities for growth and define plans for achieving measurable goals.
• Collaborating closely with other Design leaders (across Product and Brand design in London and San Francisco) to evolve the global Product Design function, our culture, structure, processes, and beliefs.
• Working with leaders of other functions (e.g. PM, Eng, Research, Analytics, Marketing, Sales) to ensure that teams are collaborating effectively to execute on company strategy.
• Joining our R&D Leadership team (led by Des Traynor, Paul Adams, and Darragh Curran) to evolve and improve how we ship product and lead teams.
• Playing an active role in our broader R&D Leadership team, working together to set a positive, fun culture and drive high levels of engagement across the org.
• Representing Intercom Product Design publicly in whatever form feels natural to you: writing, speaking, tweeting, community outreach, etc.

What skills do I need? ?

• Experience leading a team of Designers and Design Managers in a fast-growing environment, hiring, and managing performance.
• Experience working on a broad, modern product that has significant scale.
• Ability to motivate and inspire people to grow, learn, succeed, do their very best work.
• Ability to communicate (written and verbally) with precision, clarity, honesty, and respect.
• Understanding of how effective product strategy is shaped.
• Understanding of commercial dynamics and how design can help drive business success.
• Strong sense of product design, from high level strategic direction down to UI design details.
• Strong systems and conceptual thinker, ability to understand complex systems.
• A passion for building product. A growth mindset. Willingness to own problems. A desire to make things better. A sense of optimism.

Benefits ?

We are a well treated bunch, with awesome benefits! If there’s something important to you that’s not on this list, talk to us! :)

• Competitive salary and equity in a fast-growing start-up
• We serve lunch every weekday, plus a variety of snack foods and a fully stocked kitchen
• Regular compensation reviews - we reward great work!
• Peace of mind with life assurance, as well as comprehensive health and dental insurance for you and your dependents
• Open vacation policy and flexible holidays so you can take time off when you need it
• Paid maternity leave, as well as 6 weeks paternity leave for fathers, to let you spend valuable time with your loved ones
• If you’re cycling, we’ve got you covered on the Cycle-to-Work Scheme. With secure bike storage too 
• MacBooks are our standard, but we’re happy to get you whatever equipment helps you get your job done

We are a diverse bunch of people and we want to continue to attract and retain a diverse range of people into our organisation. We're committed to an inclusive and diverse Intercom! We do not discriminate based on gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, civil or family status, age, disability, or race.