Job Title: Senior Design Director, Growth
Department: Design
Manager: Executive Director, Design & Experience
The Role:
Happy Cog is looking for a Senior Design Director to help grow its business in emerging markets and deepen existing client partnerships through strategic digital experiences. The person who will thrive in this role is part strategist, part designer, part product leader: they excel at identifying opportunities to evolve marketing websites into comprehensive digital platforms that deliver measurable business value.
What You'll Build:
- Large-scale marketing websites and digital platforms for brands, institutions, and organizations
- Content-rich digital experiences that balance marketing goals with user needs
- Customer journey optimizations across touchpoints
- Interactive components and tools that enhance lead generation and conversion
- Design systems that scale across marketing properties
- Strategic roadmaps for evolving traditional websites into dynamic marketing platforms
Key Responsibilities:
- Lead strategy and design on new projects, from initial discovery engagements to comprehensive, multi-phase marketing websites and platforms
- Drive ongoing research initiatives including stakeholder interviews, user testing, and competitive analysis, maintaining a practice of continuous discovery to inform strategic decisions
- Shape and own digital experience vision, working closely with clients to define success metrics and KPIs that drive marketing effectiveness
- Transform initial website projects into long-term strategic partnerships by demonstrating measurable business impact; identify opportunities to expand service offerings (e.g., front- and back-end development, SEO, Analytics) based on performance and user needs
- Develop and maintain outcome-driven roadmaps that balance quick wins with strategic initiatives, using both qualitative and quantitative inputs
- Guide clients through optimization cycles, using data and user feedback to inform site evolution and strategic growth
- Drive continuous improvement through regular assessment of site metrics, user behavior, and business outcomes
- Prioritize features and enhancements based on marketing impact, technical feasibility, and user value
- Lead and mentor a growing team of designers, helping them understand the connection between design decisions and business outcomes
- Draft proposed design and digital strategy approaches for RFP responses and represent Happy Cog's capabilities in client presentations
Skills & Qualifications:
- Strong track record of growing initial website engagements into comprehensive digital experiences
- Experience in outcome-driven digital strategy, including content strategy, conversion optimization, and stakeholder management
- Proven ability to build consensus among disparate stakeholder groups and align teams around shared objectives
- Skilled at bridging marketing needs, business goals, and technical constraints to create viable digital strategies
- Experience facilitating discovery workshops and stakeholder interviews
- Strong data literacy and ability to use analytics to inform website optimization
- Excellent communication skills with ability to translate complex concepts into clear, actionable recommendations
- Proven ability to synthesize research and observations into jargon-light, insight-rich strategy and creative briefs
- Can lead a team through all aspects of website design process, from discovery and definition through delivery and iteration
- Expert at digital experience design, from big-picture user experience strategy to page-level UI
- Proficient in Figma and able to produce testable prototypes of appropriate fidelity
- Understanding of agile methodologies and how to adapt them to client needs
What Success Looks Like:
- Initial website projects consistently grow into long-term digital partnerships
- Client teams view you as a strategic partner in achieving their marketing and business objectives
- Digital experiences under your leadership show measurable improvement in key performance metrics
- Design team members grow their strategic capabilities and business acumen
- Clients consistently expand their engagement scope based on demonstrated value
Salary range for this position is $120,000 - $150,000 per year, depending on experience
What we offer:
- Healthy work/life balance
- A creative environment to do the best work of your career
- An amazing team of developers, designers, marketers, and project managers.
- Paid Parental Leave
- Paid vacation and sick time off
- Health, Dental, and Vision insurance
- Retirement plan with company matching
About Happy Cog:
Happy Cog is a growing interactive agency of 80+ people, all working 100% remotely.
We design, develop, and market websites and mobile apps for a wide variety of clients -- everyone from small startups, to Fortune 100s. Projects we've recently worked on have included online ordering platforms for restaurants, custom content management systems for law firms, an economic mobility research platform, and many more.
We are looking for great people to join our team, so if you don't check all the boxes, but believe you can do the job, reach out and tell us why – your experience might be just what we're looking for!
Happy Cog is an equal opportunity employer and considers applicants for all positions without regard to race, color, religion or belief, sex, age, national origin, citizenship status, marital status, protected veteran status, genetics, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, physical or mental disability.
We are also proud to have been on the Inc 5000 list of America's fastest growing companies for 7 years in a row! For more information go to our website: https://www.happycog.com.
