Design Director, Platform UI

At CourtAvenue, the Design Director, Platform UI leads the visual interface layer of our most complex platform engagements, building and evolving the components, design systems, and pixel-level interfaces that ship in production for years on enterprise client work. This is a role for a visual and systems craftsperson who thrives in the constraints of real platforms, real engineering teams, and real users. Not a brand or campaign designer.

You will partner closely with our Experience Strategy team, who own CX, UX, research, and information architecture. They will hand you validated foundations (flows, wireframes, IA) and you will take that work to a finished, system-aware, engineering-ready interface. You will also partner deeply with engineering, product management, and platform architects to ensure design ships at quality and at scale.

The work spans enterprise B2B SaaS, content and commerce platforms, and complex MarTech implementations for clients across telecom, retail, manufacturing, and other regulated enterprise environments. This is not consumer brand or campaign work.

Responsibilities

Own the visual interface layer of platform engagements, translating UX foundations from Experience Strategy into production-ready, system-aware UI.
Architect, evolve, and govern design systems and component libraries that engineering teams build against in production. Own component standards, design tokens, documentation, versioning, and contribution rituals.
Drive visual design quality and craft across typography, color, spacing, iconography, motion, and micro-interactions: the details that distinguish a polished platform from a passable one.
Partner deeply with engineering, product management, and platform architects as a peer, not a handoff partner. Participate in technical discussions, design within real platform constraints, and ensure shipped work matches design intent.
Partner with Experience Strategy as a defined upstream collaborator. Respect the boundary: they own UX and research; you own UI and visual systems. Push back, elevate, and translate, but do not redo their work.
Champion accessibility (WCAG 2.1 AA minimum) as a non-negotiable design discipline embedded in every component, every pattern, every review.
Establish and run design critique culture, design system governance, and the rituals that scale design quality across multiple concurrent engagements.
Inspire and manage the career growth, education, and skill development of a team of UI designers, including hiring, performance management, and mentorship.
Drive organic growth through trusted relationships with senior client stakeholders, presenting design rationale and platform vision to executive audiences in their language.
Maintain mastery of client presentations and non-creative communication, explaining visual and systems decisions to product, engineering, and business leadership without relying on design jargon.
Own quality across long-running engagements, designing for maintainability, scalability, and the next designer who inherits the system.
Stay on the pulse of platform UI, design system practice, accessibility standards, and emerging interface patterns; translate that fluency into client recommendations and internal capability.

Requirements

8+ years of experience in digital product design, UI design, or visual/interface design, with at least 3 years specifically focused on product, platform, or B2B SaaS work (not brand, campaign, or marketing design).
Demonstrated experience in a design leadership role within an agency, consulting firm, or product company, including direct people management of designers.
Strong portfolio of shipped product interfaces, not campaign visuals, brand guidelines, or marketing site work. Case studies should evidence design system thinking, visual craft at the pixel level, and partnership with engineering.
Deep experience designing for enterprise platforms, B2B SaaS, MarTech, content and commerce platforms, telecom, financial services, or comparable regulated/enterprise environments. Consumer brand work alone is not a fit.
Mastery of Figma, including advanced component architecture, variables, auto-layout, and design system management. Familiarity with Storybook, Zeroheight, or similar design system documentation tools.
Working fluency in WCAG 2.1 AA standards and accessibility tooling. Adobe Creative Suite proficiency is a plus, not a requirement.
Track record of architecting or significantly contributing to design systems that engineering teams have adopted in production, including governance, versioning, and contribution models.
Experience as a downstream partner to UX, research, or experience strategy teams, comfortable receiving wireframes and flows and translating them into final UI without redoing the strategic work.
Excellent client-facing communication and the ability to present design rationale, system architecture, and platform vision to senior client stakeholders.
Strong organizational skills and the ability to lead design across multiple concurrent enterprise engagements while maintaining quality and team momentum.
Digital agency experience and background.

Work Environment

• Our organization follows a structured-hybrid work model, where employees work in an office environment in the middle of the week and remotely on Mondays and Fridays.

• Candidates for this position will ideally be located near one of our Midwest or Central offices:

• Chicago, IL

• Cincinnati, OH

• Minneapolis, MN

• Dallas, TX

• Candidates near our Los Angeles and San Diego offices will be considered.