Senior Design Director

About Karbon

Karbon is the global leader in practice management software for growth-minded accounting firms. We provide an award-winning, highly collaborative cloud platform that streamlines work and communication, enabling the average accounting firm using Karbon to save 18.5 hours per week, per employee.

We have customers in 34 countries and have grown into a globally distributed team, with our people based throughout the US, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the Philippines. We are well-funded, ranked #1 on G2, have a fantastic team culture built on our values, are growing rapidly, and making a global impact.

About the role

We’re looking for a Senior Director of Product Design to lead our high-caliber design team as we expand our premium product position. You’ll set product design direction, scale the team and design systems, and partner with executive leadership, Product, and Engineering to deliver industry-leading capabilities in a coherent, high-quality, AI-powered practice management platform for accounting firms.

Key responsibilities

• Support and grow the design team: Coach, unblock, and enable designers to do their best work, while strengthening day-to-day collaboration with Product and Engineering.
• Develop talent: Hire and grow design talent, define expectations and career pathways, provide actionable feedback, and build a culture of learning and continuous improvement.
• Foster a constructive design culture: Model curiosity, ownership, high standards, data driven, experimentation, and thoughtful critique.
• Build scalable practices and processes: Establish lightweight, repeatable ways of working that improve clarity, speed, and consistency as we scale.
• Advocate for the customer experience: Bring the voice of accounting firms into product decisions through research, insights, support data, and customer collaboration—ensuring we solve the right problems.
• Drive measurable outcomes: Partner with Product, Customer, Sales, and Data teams to define and improve success metrics and speed through iteration and experimentation.
• Roll up your sleeves when needed: Work alongside the team to produce concepts and detailed designs for high-impact initiatives.
• Define and communicate design vision: Co-create and articulate the product experience vision with executive leadership and design, product, and engineering leaders.
• Lead trusted AI experiences: Drive AI approach to solutions that deliver user confidence and create long-term value
• Champion great design: Set a high bar for usability and aesthetics, advocate for systems thinking, and ensure quality.

What we’re looking for

• 10+ years in product design, including leadership experience in B2B SaaS
• Proven ability to lead in a scale-up environment
• Strong portfolio demonstrating complex systems design, interaction design, edge cases, and design systems
• Track record of building teams, coaching leaders/ICs, and establishing scalable design practices
• Experience delivering AI-enabled features that solve meaningful customer problems
• Clear communicator and strong cross-functional partner across Product, Engineering, and GTM
• Bonus: Vertical SaaS experience in accounting/tax/payroll/audit or professional services

Why Work at Karbon?

• Gain global experience across USA, New Zealand, UK, and Canada
• 4 weeks annual leave plus 5 extra "Karbon Days" off a year
• Flexible working environment
• Work with (and learn from) an experienced, high-performing team
• Be part of a fast-growing company that firmly believes in promoting high performers from within
• A collaborative, team-oriented culture that embraces diversity, invests in development, and provides consistent feedback
• Generous parental leave

Karbon embraces diversity and inclusion, aligning with our values as a business. Research has shown that women and underrepresented groups are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single criteria. If you've made it this far in the job description but your past experience doesn't perfectly align, we do encourage you to still apply. You could still be the right person for the role!

We recruit and reward people based on capability and performance. We don’t discriminate based on race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, lifestyle, age, educational background, national origin, religion, physical or cognitive ability, and other diversity dimensions that may hinder inclusion in the organization.

Generally, if you are a good person, we want to talk to you. 😛

If there are any adjustments or accommodations that we can make to assist you during the recruitment process, and your journey at Karbon, contact us at people.support@karbonhq.com for a confidential discussion.

At this time, we request that agency referrals are not submitted for this position. We appreciate your understanding and encourage direct applications from interested candidates. Thank you!