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Product Design Director

San Francisco, CA, New York, NY, or Cambridge, MA

At Philo, we’re a passionate, scrappy team who set out to build the future of television, marrying modern technology with the most compelling medium ever invented. In short, we’re building the TV experience that we’ve always wanted for ourselves — one that everyone can love as much as the shows they watch with us.

In practice this means pouring care and attention into every surface of our product and company. For each member on our team, our subscribers watch around a million hours a month, so no detail is too small to sweat. We believe that lovingly crafted technology, authentic communication, and respecting our subscribers can create a more humane relationship between us and our customers.

Design and Build

At Philo we are designing, building, testing, and quite literally reinventing television across web, mobile, and connected TV platforms. Each member of our team works together on the entire product experience. It’s common to go from brainstorming backend considerations to polishing design details, from understanding how the video encoding pipeline affects performance to thinking about how to best tailor a feature to each different platform. We strive to make the experience of Philo inviting and engaging from the moment a person first learns about us through their entire tenure as a customer, and beyond.

As Product Design Director, you would contribute to the creation of the design vision across our product, from ground-breaking and user-centric product design to stunning new visual design. As a main architect of how our company expresses itself through design, you would also be a key contributor to our culture that puts people first and encourages everyone to participate in making Philo the company and product we want it to be.

Responsibilities:

  • Lead, Nurture, and Grow the Team: Help to lead, nurture, and grow the design team through strong mentorship and empathy, fostering a culture of continuous learning and development.
  • Promote High Standards: Promote a high standard of best-in-class user experience, visual, and product design across the team, ensuring our products and features are valuable, easy to use, and exhibit the highest level of craft and execution.
  • Design Reviews and Collaboration: Run regular design reviews that foster collaboration, creativity, and a shared vision. The CEO and other senior stakeholders will be an integral part of the review process, ensuring alignment with the company’s strategic goals.
  • Support Culture and Values: Help to support and scale our unique culture and values within the design team and across the organization.
  • Cross-Functional Leadership: Collaborate with teams in product organization, marketing, business, and engineering to enhance our user experience, ensuring our creative vision is realized, and that our brand is accurately reflected in our products, and our products consistently embody our brand.
  • Design System Stewardship: Work with our design team to build upon and maintain our complex design system and libraries, ensuring consistency and scalability across products.
  • Champion the Product: Be a champion of our product, creating delightful end-to-end experiences with a focus on delighting our customers.
  • Drive Innovation: Actively prototype, test, and iterate new features in collaboration with others, encouraging experimentation and integrating cutting-edge design practices.
  • Consistent Design Identity: Craft a consistent design identity and story that connects our marketing and product efforts.
  • Apply Design Principles: Work closely with internal and external teams to apply our design principles and values to improve the effectiveness of our acquisition and awareness campaigns.
  • Data-Driven Design: Work with our product designers to lead and leverage qualitative and quantitative data to drive product thinking and strategy.
  • Evolve Visual Brand: Lead the evolution of our visual brand design system, ensuring it remains relevant and impactful.
  • Advocate for Accessibility: Ensure that all products and features are designed with accessibility in mind, promoting inclusivity across diverse user groups.
  • Resource Management: Oversee the allocation of design resources, ensuring that teams are well-supported and that project timelines are met.
  • Stakeholder Communication: Regularly communicate design progress and strategy to executive leadership, articulating how design initiatives align with broader company goals.
  • Design Thinking Workshops: Facilitate workshops and training sessions to cultivate a design-thinking culture across the organization.
  • Risk Management: Identify potential design risks early in the process and develop mitigation strategies to ensure successful outcomes.
  • Budget Management: Manage the design budget, literally and figuratively, ensuring that projects are cost-effective without compromising on quality.

A Strong Candidate Will Have:

  • Experience: 5+ years in a product design role, with an additional 3+ years in a leadership role.
  • Design and Management Skills: Exceptional design, communication, and people management skills, with a strong empathetic spirit and enthusiasm for mentoring, managing, and building a diverse and thoughtful team.
  • Strategic Vision: Ability to think high-level about product strategy and vision, and articulate that vision for both designers and non-designers.
  • Technical Proficiency: Strong understanding of technologies and their impact on design decisions.
  • Product Design Leadership: Capability to produce and lead others in product design releases, with experience using user research and analytics to inform design decisions.
  • Design Principles Mastery: A deep understanding of design principles and how those principles can be extended to accommodate functional needs, ensuring products are accessible and inclusive.
  • End-to-End Ownership: Ability to own the end-to-end design process from concept through implementation.
  • Diversity and Inclusion Experience: Experience designing with and for diverse groups of people, with a focus on accessibility and inclusivity.
  • Conflict Resolution: Strong conflict resolution skills to navigate challenges that arise within cross-functional teams.
  • Portfolio: A robust portfolio demonstrating a track record of successful product designs and design leadership.
  • Emotional Intelligence: High emotional intelligence to effectively manage team dynamics and foster a positive work environment.
  • Adaptability: Ability to thrive in a fast-paced, ever-changing environment, with a focus on continuous improvement and learning.
  • Leadership in Remote Environments: Experience managing and leading design teams in remote or hybrid work environments.
  • Unique Perspective: A strong and unique perspective and aesthetic that stands out from established conventions, driving innovation and creativity.

Reporting Structure:

  • This role reports directly to the CEO, ensuring that design initiatives are closely aligned with the overall business strategy. The CEO will also be actively involved in the design review process, providing feedback and guidance to help steer the team toward success.

More About Philo

At Philo, we’re a company that puts people first—both our subscribers and our team. Our philosophy is to empower our colleagues to do their best work while supporting each other in pursuing shared goals. We value pragmatism, pride in our work, and passion. Transparency and openness are fundamental to our company culture. We are committed to diversity and inclusion as we grow the Philo team and shape the future of TV. We believe that a diverse set of voices and perspectives on our team enables us to innovate faster and create the best experience for our subscribers.

Philo offers access to top-rated networks, including AMC, BET, CMT, Comedy Central, Discovery, Food Network, Hallmark, HGTV, History, Investigation Discovery, Lifetime, MTV, Nickelodeon, OWN, VH1, WE tv, and more, along with groundbreaking originals and blockbuster movies included with AMC+. Our service also includes 80+ free channels and premium add-ons like STARZ and MGM+.

Our extensive library boasts over 75,000 titles, and our unlimited DVR allows users to save their favorite shows and movies for up to a year, skipping ads for a seamless viewing experience. Stream on up to three devices simultaneously, whether on your phone, tablet, laptop, or TV using Roku, Apple TV, Fire TV, Samsung TV, Android TV, Vizio TV, or Chromecast.

Philo is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in New York and Cambridge, MA. Our leadership team includes a co-founder of Facebook and alums from Meraki and HBO, backed by NEA and industry partners like Discovery, Viacom, AMC, and A&E.

Join us at Philo and be part of a team that's shaping the future of TV!

Project Start Date: ASAP
Status: Full-time
Location: San Francisco, CA, New York, NY, or Cambridge, MA
Compensation: Includes annual salary between $180K - $230K depending on experience and location, company stock options and health benefits

We value a diverse and inclusive workplace and we welcome people of different backgrounds, experiences, skills, and perspectives. Philo is an equal opportunity employer. We believe that everyone does their best work when they are supported by each other and the company, and we offer a generous set of benefits to make sure the Philo team is happy and healthy. Here is a sampling of the benefits we offer our team:

  • Full health, dental and vision coverage for you and your family
  • 401(k) plan with employer contributions (we match 100% of deferrals up to 3% of pay and 50% of the next 2% of pay)
  • Flexible working hours
  • Up to 20 weeks of fully paid parental leave
  • Unlimited paid time off for vacation and sick leave
  • $2,000 annual vacation bonus (we pay you to take a two week vacation)
  • $5,250 annually for professional development and educational assistance
  • $1,250 annual home office + TV stipend during first year of employment ($250 annually thereafter)
  • $500/month ($6,000/year) bonus for employees who commit to working at least 3 days per week in our offices, plus generous commuter benefits ($315/month towards transit, rideshare, bike rental, or parking at our HQ office in San Francisco)
  • Free Gympass subscription — an all-in-one corporate benefit that gives employees the largest selection of gyms, studios, classes, training and wellness apps
  • Dog-friendly office
  • And much more!

For California Residents: Philo’s CCPA Notice at Collection – Employees, Applicants, Owners, Directors, Officers and Contractors

Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

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