Senior Director, Creative

About the role

Braze is hiring a Senior Director, Creative to lead and expand its design organization as a key pillar of the Creative and Brand team. This leadership role blends visual excellence with team building, operational scale, and strategic partnership. The position calls for someone who can set a demanding creative standard, strengthen the design team through mentorship, and ensure design output supports broader brand and business goals.

The role is based in Chicago, IL and is structured as an onsite full-time position.

What you will do

• Guide and grow a strong, idea-driven design team that spans brand, motion, and broader creative disciplines.
• Hire and shape teams with a focus on sharp thinking, strategic judgment, and design taste, not only production skills.
• Define a clear quality benchmark for design work, craft, and creative thinking, and hold the team to it.
• Take timely action when performance falls short, always with the long-term strength of the team in mind.
• Coach junior leaders so they can own projects, responsibilities, and team leadership duties.
• Distribute leadership throughout the team so designers and emerging leads can work independently and confidently.
• Set expectations, growth pathways, and feedback loops for people at every level.
• Create scalable systems, workflows, and repeatable processes that keep output consistently strong as the team grows.
• Spot bottlenecks in briefing, review cycles, production, and delivery, then improve them proactively.
• Work with Creative Ops and Marketing Ops to make design operations fit organizational growth.
• Develop templates, frameworks, and visual systems that speed up work without lowering quality.
• Balance excellent craft with efficient delivery so the team can produce strong work at scale.
• Work closely with strategy partners to ensure design is grounded in clear strategic intent.
• Turn research, positioning, and brand frameworks into scalable visual expressions.
• Evaluate strategy through a design perspective and refine ideas into emotionally effective creative.
• Ensure design decisions support brand and business outcomes, not just aesthetic preferences.
• Promote concept-first thinking so ideas lead the visuals, rather than the reverse.
• Collaborate early with strategy leadership to shape direction and define success criteria.
• Align the team around shared strategic frameworks instead of isolated project briefs.
• Translate strategy into clear visual direction that supports faster execution.
• Build strong working rhythms with strategy partners through working sessions, reviews, and checkpoints.
• Identify and resolve gaps between strategy and implementation before they become problems.
• Partner with senior leadership to align creative direction with company priorities.
• Build trusted relationships across Brand, Product Marketing, Demand, Events, Content, and Comms.
• Serve as the final approver on brand visual direction.
• Anticipate creative needs and risks across functions and create processes to handle them.
• Represent design as a strategic partner across the organization.
• Own and evolve the brand’s visual identity and design systems across every touchpoint.
• Direct work across brand and campaign design, web and digital experiences, event and experiential marketing, paid media, out-of-home, motion, internal brand assets, and presentations.
• Work closely with motion designers so movement is integrated into the brand system.
• Manage freelancers, vendors, and production partners to maintain quality and consistency.
• Contribute hands-on design work when strategic or conceptual leadership is needed.

Who you are

• You have 15+ years of professional design experience, including senior leadership responsibility.
• You bring 5+ years of people management experience and have built or evolved teams over time.
• You have a track record of leading high-performing creative teams with strong conceptual thinking.
• You think strategically and can connect design choices to brand and business results.
• You are comfortable making tough people decisions when quality or scale requires it.
• You have worked in both agency and in-house/client-side environments.
• You are fluent in Adobe Creative Suite, Figma, and motion basics.
• You are confident working with developers, strategists, and senior stakeholders.

Success in this role looks like

• The design team consistently produces smart, visually strong work at scale.
• There are clear systems for concepting, execution, review, and delivery.
• Junior leaders increasingly own meaningful work, reducing dependency on senior management.
• Performance issues are handled quickly and constructively.
• Strategy and design are tightly connected, with fewer execution mismatches.
• Cross-functional partners see design as a strategic collaborator, not merely a service provider.
• The brand feels coherent, intentional, and emotionally engaging across channels.
• You proactively bring solutions based on your understanding of the business and partner needs.

Compensation and rewards

For candidates in the United States, the expected starting pay range is $137,000 to $205,000 per year. The expected On Target Earnings range is $163,000 to $245,000 per year, including bonus or commission. Final compensation can vary based on location, role-related skills, knowledge, and experience.

This role also includes a comprehensive Total Rewards package with equity in the form of restricted stock units (RSUs).

Benefits

• Competitive pay that may include equity
• Retirement plans and employee stock purchase plans
• Flexible paid time off
• Medical, dental, vision, life, and disability coverage
• Family support, including fertility benefits and equal paid parental leave
• Career development support through learning platforms, formal career pathing, and a yearly learning stipend
• An in-office experience designed to encourage community, collaboration, and innovation
• Volunteer opportunities, including an annual company-wide Volunteer Week and donation matching
• Employee Resource Groups that offer community and support
• A collaborative, transparent, and fun culture recognized as a Great Place to Work

About Braze

Braze is a customer engagement platform that helps brands create more meaningful interactions through personalized experiences. Its platform combines cross-channel messaging, journey orchestration, AI-powered decisioning, and optimization so companies can engage customers more effectively. The company is headquartered in New York and has offices across major cities around the world.

Equal opportunity and application note

Braze is committed to fair, accessible, and inclusive hiring. Candidates of all backgrounds are encouraged to apply, including those who may not match every listed qualification exactly.