Director of Product Design

News Corp's Avail is seeking a Director of Product Design in Austin, TX (onsite). You will own Avail's design system, grow and mentor the design team, and partner with Engineering and Brand to ship accessible, cohesive experiences across Avail's Renter, Landlord, and Public surfaces.

Benefits

• Inclusive and competitive medical, Rx, dental, and vision coverage
• Family forming benefits
• 13 paid holidays
• Flexible time off
• 8 hours of paid Volunteer Time off
• Immediate eligibility into the company 401(k) plan with 3.5 percent company match
• Tuition reimbursement program for degreed and non-degreed programs
• 1:1 personalized financial planning sessions
• Student debt retirement savings match program
• Free snacks and refreshments in each office location

How we work

We balance creativity and innovation on a foundation of in-person collaboration. For most roles, our employees work three or more days in our offices, where they have the opportunity to collaborate in-person, adding richness to our culture and knitting us closer together.

What you’ll do

• Own the Avail design system, defining and evolving components, patterns, and tokens for Avail's Renter, Landlord, and Public surfaces, and drive adoption across the design team
• Raise the bar on product and feature design by setting the end-to-end quality standard and guiding feature work to keep the experience cohesive as the product grows
• Make accessibility the default by building accessible patterns and tokens into the system and growing the team's fluency so a11y is designed in from the start
• Keep design and code in lockstep by partnering with engineering to align components and advance a connected toolchain between Figma and the codebase
• Document so the system scales with clear, accessible documentation and contribution processes for every component
• Make the case for the system by translating the value of design systems and accessibility into language that Product, Engineering, and executives care about, grounded in business and quality metrics
• Plan a roadmap that ships by sequencing systems and accessibility work into a prioritized plan aligned with engineering releases and product timelines
• Extend the system to the brand by collaborating with Brand and Marketing on consistency across external-facing assets and maintaining icon and illustration libraries
• Grow the team by mentoring and managing product designers, supporting their craft and career development, and ensuring coverage across projects
• Run a lean design practice in collaboration with RDC design leadership on capacity, tooling, and process, keeping Jira and Confluence workflows healthy
• Lead as a player-coach by balancing strategic leadership with hands-on design, building, and shipping components alongside the team
• Architect and implement the system by moving designs from Figma into production code, drawing on past experience launching and maintaining systems in real-world codebases
• Incorporate AI into the design workflow by exploring and piloting AI-assisted tools to automate routine documentation, optimize handoff, and accelerate the design-to-code pipeline

What you’ll bring

• 10+ years of experience in the design industry
• 3+ years in a product-led organization
• 5+ years providing design direction and mentoring in a leadership role
• 5+ years leading a design systems and product design team
• Proven implementation track record deploying and maintaining design systems inside active engineering codebases and production environments
• A doing mindset with a portfolio showing comfort designing tokens, complex components, and managing a team roadmap
• Practical AI experience with design tools, LLMs, or automation workflows to optimize design operations
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience
• A strong visual aesthetic and design point of view
• Experience delivering multiple projects simultaneously with cross-disciplinary teams
• Experience with capacity planning and workload management
• Knowledge of Figma, JIRA, and project management tools
• Informed and strong opinions, loosely held
• Practitioner of user-centric processes and design thinking principles
• Exemplifies a We, Not Me attitude

Technologies

• Figma
• JIRA
• Confluence