Director of Product Design

About FMX and Role Overview

FMX develops cloud-based SaaS software for facility maintenance and management, serving sectors like education, property management, and manufacturing. We're seeking a Director of Product Design to lead design strategy, manage our design team, and actively contribute to design execution. This hybrid player/coach role balances hands-on design for a product-suite trio with leadership responsibilities to elevate design quality and team growth across the company.

Team Context

• You will be embedded as the lead designer in a single product-suite trio, with final assignment during onboarding.
• You will manage a team of three Product Designers and one User Researcher, sharing resources across trios running at different cadences.
• The organizational structure revolves around suite-based triads owning similar customer-focused products.
• Reporting to the VP of Product, you will join Product and Engineering leadership to define design leadership within FMX.

Working Approach

• Solutions are validated early with customers using interactive, coded, or hybrid high-fidelity prototypes.
• Designers collaborate closely with engineers during concept creation, engaging in ideation, interaction design, and prompt-driven exploration as a joint, iterative process.
• Delivery operates as a continuous flow with rapid discovery and iteration cycles.
• Work proceeds swiftly through concept creation, testing, learning, and revision.

Key Responsibilities

• Design Ownership: Manage design for a product-suite trio by framing problems, mapping user flows, and validating solutions directly with users.
• Leverage AI-driven design and prototyping tools to rapidly explore and test workflows and UI patterns alongside engineers.
• Conduct rapid usability tests on concept prototypes to refine and improve designs prior to delivery.
• Strategic Leadership: Define and maintain the design vision across all product suites, aligned with company product and business goals.
• Develop and execute a roadmap to elevate FMX's design maturity, bringing external perspectives on AI-augmented workflows and deciding their adoption.
• Team Development: Manage, mentor, and grow the design staff through structured feedback, career planning, and resource allocation.
• Create a protective environment allowing designers to focus by shielding them from misalignment and advocating design priorities with other teams.
• Recruit, onboard, and build scalable team structures and career progression frameworks.
• Craft & Quality: Set and uphold high design standards across product suites to ensure user experience consistency.
• Oversee the design system, including component libraries and interaction patterns, maintaining modern, coherent UX aligned with user roles.
• Establish standards for AI-accelerated design workflows to balance speed with quality, accessibility, and ethical considerations.
• Cross-Functional Partnership: Collaborate with Product and Engineering leadership to integrate design into project scoping and delivery.
• Promote design and user research value to executive and cross-departmental stakeholders using usability metrics, analytics, and outcome data.

Required Qualifications

• A minimum of 8 years' experience in product or UX design, including several years managing and growing design teams.
• Proven ability to set design strategy and elevate design function maturity beyond project execution.
• A strong design portfolio demonstrating critical evaluation skills and discerning high-quality work.
• Experience with AI-assisted design tools and an understanding of their appropriate application and limitations.
• Previous ownership of a design system and design standards spanning multiple teams or products.
• Expertise in user-centered design, user research methodologies, usability testing, and data-informed decision-making.
• Outstanding communication skills and executive presence, capable of influencing peers and maintaining team alignment asynchronously.
• Comfortable working remotely in a dynamic, fast-paced environment.
• Expert knowledge of Figma is highly preferred.
• Alignment with FMX core values: Teamwork, Excellence, and Integrity.

Benefits and Work Environment

• Significant impact on product direction and company future.
• Competitive benefits package including fully paid health, dental, and vision insurance.
• Remote-first culture with access to an office workspace as needed and annual company-wide in-person events.
• Home office stipend including company hardware and up to $500 for equipment/furniture, plus $60 monthly contribution to internet costs.
• Generous paid and unplanned time off policies.
• Flexible scheduling to accommodate personal appointments.
• Casual dress code.
• Supportive, collaborative, and transparent team culture valuing continuous improvement and work-life balance.

Compensation

The position offers a base salary range of $140,000 to $160,000 annually, complemented by a company performance bonus and comprehensive benefit offerings such as 401(k), short and long-term disability, and life insurance.

Additional Information

• Location: Position is fully remote anywhere within the United States.
• Onboarding requires spending the initial week onsite at FMX's Columbus, Ohio office.
• Equal opportunity employer committed to a drug-free workplace.
• The company's policy and work environment standards are detailed in the FMX Teammate Handbook.