Digital Experience Design Director

📍 Job Overview

Job Title: Digital Experience Design Director

Company: Slate Auto

Location: Troy, Michigan, United States

Job Type: FULL_TIME

Category: Digital Experience Design / UX/UI Leadership

Date Posted: April 08, 2026

Experience Level: 10+ Years

🚀 Role Summary

• Leads the strategic vision and execution of all digital customer-facing touchpoints, including web, mobile, and in-vehicle Human-Machine Interface (HMI).

• Builds, mentors, and scales a high-performing team of UI designers, UX designers, and copywriters to deliver exceptional digital product experiences.

• Owns and evolves the digital design system to ensure consistency, accessibility, and reusability across platforms.

• Acts as a key partner to Product and Software leadership, contributing to roadmap prioritization and technical trade-off discussions.

• Drives a culture of design excellence, user-centricity, and continuous improvement within a fast-paced, agile environment.

📝 Enhancement Note: This role is positioned as a critical leadership function within Slate Auto's nascent digital product development, requiring a blend of strategic design thinking, team management, and hands-on systems ownership. The emphasis on "three legs of a stool" with Product and Software leadership highlights a collaborative, integrated approach to product development, crucial for a rapidly scaling automotive tech company.

📈 Primary Responsibilities

• Define and drive the overarching design vision and strategy for all customer-facing digital touchpoints, ensuring alignment with Slate's brand and product strategy.

• Translate business objectives and user needs into cohesive, human-centered design solutions across web, mobile applications, and in-vehicle HMI.

• Lead, coach, and develop a multidisciplinary design team, fostering a culture of craft, curiosity, and constructive feedback.

• Establish and maintain robust design systems, including component libraries, design tokens, and comprehensive documentation, to ensure UI consistency and efficiency.

• Define and refine the design team's workflow within the agile development process, optimizing collaboration with product management and engineering.

• Implement and scale a lightweight but effective UX research practice, incorporating user testing, usability reviews, and data analysis to inform design decisions.

• Partner closely with Brand, Marketing, and Vehicle Design teams to ensure a cohesive and integrated brand experience across all customer touchpoints.

• Collaborate with the in-vehicle software team to design intuitive and safe instrument cluster and HMI experiences.

• Advocate for the customer and design principles in roadmap planning, sprint reviews, and executive-level discussions.

• Drive design optimization efforts through A/B testing and multivariate testing to enhance customer experience and key performance indicators.

📝 Enhancement Note: The responsibilities highlight a significant focus on establishing foundational design processes and systems for a new automotive company. The emphasis on "pre-production to post-launch and beyond" indicates a need for someone who can build not just designs, but also the operational framework for design at Slate Auto.

🎓 Skills & Qualifications

Education:

• Bachelor’s degree in Interaction Design, Human-Computer Interaction, Product Design, Graphic Design, Computer Science, or a related field, OR equivalent professional experience.

Experience:

• 12+ years of progressive experience in product design, UX, or UI design, specifically for high-volume consumer/customer-facing digital experiences.

• Minimum of 5 years in a people leadership role, managing and growing design teams.

• Proven experience in building and maintaining comprehensive design systems based on atomic design principles, including component libraries, design tokens, and governance models.

Required Skills:

• Mastery of Figma and modern prototyping workflows; experience establishing team-wide design tooling standards.

• Deep understanding of designing for multiple digital surfaces: responsive/adaptive web, native mobile (iOS/Android), and/or embedded or in-vehicle UI.

• Strong UX research instincts and practical experience with various research methodologies, including usability testing and data-informed iteration.

• Excellent communication and presentation skills, with the ability to articulate design rationale and strategic intent to executive stakeholders.

• Proficiency in agile development methodologies and integrating design processes within sprint cycles.

• Experience leading design optimization efforts through A/B and multivariate testing to improve