Head of Design

About Us:

We make software that anyone can mold and shape to take on every challenge — from taking personal notes to running large companies. Based in the Mission neighborhood of San Francisco, we've been building together since 2016 and are trusted by customers including Nike, Airbnb, Slack, Samsung, and more. We're excited to be growing a team as diverse and creative as the millions of people we reach worldwide and a company where everyone can thrive.

We're on a mission to make it possible for every person, team, and company to be able to tailor their software to solve any problem and take on any challenge. Computers may be our most powerful tools, but most of us can't build or modify the software we use on them every day. At Notion, we want to change this with focus, design, and craft.

We've been working on this together since 2016, and have customers like Pixar, Mitsubishi, Figma, Plaid, Match Group, and thousands more on this journey with us. Today, we're growing fast and excited for new teammates to join us who are the best at what they do. We're passionate about building a company as diverse and creative as the millions of people Notion reaches worldwide.

Notion is an in person company, and currently requires its employees to come to the office for two Anchor Days (Mondays & Thursdays) and requests that employees spend the majority of their week in the office (including a third day).

About The Role:

You’ll lead the design organization at Notion, the group responsible for crafting the experiences and interfaces in which our users interact with at Notion. You’ll recruit and manage designers and design managers, as well as drive the company strategy for leveraging design.

What You'll Do:

• You'll build and manage a diverse and inclusive team of designers and design managers working to drive effective use of data across the organization.
• You'll recruit, coach, and develop designers and design managers; you'll ensure people in your group are regularly receiving feedback and that they are making rapid progress on personal and professional goals.
• You'll guide the company's strategy to maximize the use of design, focusing particularly on collaborating with cross-functional departments like product and engineering.
• You'll be responsible for enhancing the quality of work in a company that deeply values craftsmanship, aesthetics, and usability.
• You'll work with executive leadership to shape how Notion's design organization operates—you'll help develop our best practices, recruiting and onboarding strategy, planning and prioritization process, and more.

What We're Looking For:

• You've managed a design organization with more than thirty designers and end-to-end responsibility for a user-facing product with substantial surface area.
• You have built, or are committed to building, diverse and inclusive teams; you value empathetic and direct communication and foster environments that are at once collaborative, empowering, supportive, and challenging—ones where people do their best work.
• You have a track record of managing design teams that work proactively to drive impact with their partners across the business.
• You have a track record of managing teams that successfully ship high-quality products with refined user experiences, ideally productivity, collaboration or consumer products.

Bonus Points:

• You have managed and scaled design teams at startups before, particularly during periods of rapid growth and organizational change.
• You have experience rolling out design and management practices and processes where they didn't exist before.
• You've managed teams that are geographically distributed across multiple offices and timezones.
• You've heard of computing pioneers like Ada Lovelace, Douglas Engelbart, Alan Kay, and others—and understand why we're big fans of their work.