Associate Director, Research & Design
Fueled is a leading digital strategy, design, and engineering agency. We are a 300+ person team that has designed and built hundreds of digital products and experiences for brands like Google, Apple, The New York Times, ESPN, Victoria’s Secret, MGM Resorts, Albertsons, and CLEAR.
As an Associate Director, Research & Design, you’ll help shape how research-led design shows up in the products we build — and how our teams collaborate to build them well.
This role blends hands-on craft leadership with mentorship and influence. You’ll work closely with a Director to advance a shared vision while partnering across Product, Engineering, and Growth to embed research into design decisions, guide teams through ambiguity, and deliver work that reflects Fueled’s standards for clarity, quality, and impact.
Intentionally remote and globally distributed across six continents, our team thrives in a culture that values flexibility, creativity, and cutting-edge technology. Together, we’re shaping the future of digital experiences.
What you will do:
- Translate research into meaningful product outcomes, ensuring insights actively shape product direction, experience quality, and long-term value for users and businesses.
- Lead research and design decisions across engagements, balancing craft, feasibility, and impact while helping teams navigate complexity with confidence.
- Build trust and alignment with clients and cross-functional partners, facilitating conversations that bring product, engineering, and design together around shared goals.
- Strengthen Fueled’s design practice through your influence, setting a high bar for quality, curiosity, and collaboration while helping teams grow and do work they’re proud of.
- Step into active, complex work early, shaping research and design direction for multi-platform products used by millions.
What you will achieve:
- Establish clear research and design direction across key engagements, enabling teams and clients to move through ambiguity more confidently and make stronger product decisions earlier.
- Improve how research consistently informs product outcomes, with insights reflected in usability, experience quality, and measurable business impact.
- Build durable client partnerships by serving as a trusted thought partner who can guide complex conversations and align diverse stakeholders.
- Elevate the craft and confidence of design and research teams through mentorship, feedback, and shared standards that raise the quality of work across projects.
- Contribute to the ongoing evolution of Fueled’s design practice, shaping how we collaborate, research, and design as a growing, remote-first team.
About you:
- You bring 8–12+ years of experience in research, design, or product roles, including agency or consultancy experience and depth in user research, service design, UX/UI design, content strategy, or a related mix.
- You’re comfortable in ambiguity and skilled at creating clarity, helping teams move forward even when the path isn’t obvious.
- You ground decisions in insight, using research, data, and lived user context to guide strategy while acting thoughtfully with incomplete information.
- You lead through influence, not hierarchy, building trust with designers, researchers, product partners, and clients through empathy and clear thinking.
- You care deeply about craft and outcomes, holding a high bar for quality while staying pragmatic about timelines, constraints, and real-world impact.
Benefits & Salary Range
We offer competitive salaries and benefits. Compensation is determined based on a variety of factors, including relevant experience, other job-related qualifications, geographic location, and business needs.
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