Director, Product Design

The team

The SoFi product design team is dedicated to developing user-friendly and intuitive experiences. This role is specifically leading the PALS team, which is a strategic business unit that manages the company's Protect (insurance), At Work (employer benefits), Lantern (marketplace), and Small Business (SMB) verticals. This team is focused on driving significant growth and profitability across these diverse offerings. They're responsible for the full lifecycle of these businesses, from setting strategy and managing P&L to leading execution, a wide variety of external partnerships, and member experience. The team's primary goal is to scale these businesses into the next major growth engines for SoFi.

The role

As the Design Director for the PALS team, you will be a pivotal leader, overseeing the entire design lifecycle for four distinct and innovative product lines: Protect, At Work, Lantern, and Small Business (SMB). You will be responsible for driving innovation, design execution, ensuring seamless feature delivery, and upholding operational excellence across all PALS offerings. Additionally, you’ll be responsible for connecting these products with the broader SoFi ecosystem to create a seamless and cohesive member experience.

We are specifically looking for a leader with prior experience designing for incubator teams or accelerator programs. You should be comfortable navigating the complexity of financial markets, regulatory considerations, and the unique behaviors of 0-1 teams to create new business lines that are both sophisticated and accessible..

As a senior leader in Research & Design, you’ll play a key role in mentoring and growing design talent, establishing best practices, and contributing to a strong creative culture at SoFi. You’ll also work closely with design leadership across the company to ensure consistency and excellence across all of SoFi’s financial products.

SoFi’s ambitious plans for our PALS team will only be realized with the addition of great talent—starting with you.

What you’ll do

• Define the design strategy and vision for new products and lines of business
• Collaborate with key partners including Product, Engineering, Business, Marketing & Ops
• Strategize on roadmaps and priorities with key cross-functional leaders
• Ensure strong design practices from concept to launch, resulting in high quality, polished launches.
• Model strong communication skills and ability to influence a diverse group of stakeholders
• Leverage data and research investigations to build strong points of view on product direction
• Collaborate directly with the Research & Design Leaders to ensure a coherent single SoFi experience, beyond your primary product & feature areas 
• Spearhead critical efforts in process, craft and execution 
• Mentor, inspire, and grow members of the larger Research & Design team

What you’ll need

• 12+ years of experience successfully shipping products and features from start to finish
• 5+ years leading teams of designers
• Entrepreneurial mindset and passion for building new businesses
• Expert stakeholder communication, effectively communicate design strategies, rationale, and outcomes to senior leadership and key stakeholders
• Able to deeply understand business goals and outcomes by leveraging the use of data analytics, user testing, and research to inform and validate design decisions and focus on constant improvement
• Expert in best practices in UX, design, and information architecture across responsive Web, iOS & Android
• Experience with current design tools (Figma, Adobe Creative Suite, etc.)
• Experience working in an Agile development environment using tools like Jira and Confluence
• A portfolio URL or PDF to submit with the application with examples of mobile and responsive web product design