Associate Director, Product Design (UI)

We are Nurun, an agency that lives at the crossroads of creativity and technology. We create digital experiences that help to grow brands and transform organizations. We are hybrids who organize our work around multi-disciplinary collaboration. Our vision: humans first, technology second. Always the same ingredients, but never the same recipe: we adapt ourselves as needed to ensure the excellence of our products.

We’re a large group of diverse professionals gathered across Toronto, Montreal, Quebec City, Windsor, and even Saskatchewan! Who are these professionals? We organize as teams of UX and UI designers, developers, client partners, project managers, strategists, and business designers (don’t worry, we’ll teach you what that is). Won’t you consider joining us?

Overview

As an Associate Director, Product Design (UI), you will lead and mentor a high-performing team of UI designers dedicated to crafting visually compelling, pixel-perfect interfaces for human-led AI products. You will champion visual design excellence, UI consistency, and inclusive design practices across all product development cycles — ensuring every interface is polished, accessible, and delightful.

Responsibilities

Your role is to balance creative craft with practical execution — translating complex business goals and user needs into cohesive visual design systems and actionable UI roadmaps. You'll facilitate strong cross-functional partnerships with front-end development, product management, and UX research teams, ensuring that every design is faithfully implemented and visually consistent.

You’ll foster a culture of continuous visual innovation, inclusion, and bold experimentation, while upholding rigorous UI quality standards in a dynamic, fast-paced environment.

Additionally, you will work closely with client partners to ensure UI design initiatives align with their brand identity and business objectives.

By nurturing client relationships and promoting design transparency, you will help deliver tangible value, drive business growth, and reinforce Nurun's reputation as a trusted partner in world-class interface design.

Focus Areas

• Lead UI Design Direction: Elevate client experiences through exceptional visual design, setting the bar for interface quality and showcasing Nurun's creative capabilities.
• Integrate Visual Trends & Research: Stay ahead of UI trends, emerging design patterns, and platform guidelines to inform solutions that benefit clients and fuel Nurun's design R&D and reusable assets.
• Facilitate Cross-Functional Teamwork: Align UI design, front-end development, and product functions to ensure scalable, consistent visual impact across clients and Nurun's offerings.
• Prototype & Validate Visually: Rapidly build and test high-fidelity UI prototypes to drive client transformation and create reusable design components and pattern libraries.
• Iterate with Data: Apply UI performance metrics (e.g., interaction rates, visual accessibility scores, design consistency audits) to deliver measurable outcomes and grow Nurun's reputation for design excellence.

Qualifications

• Experience: Demonstrated experience (12+ years) in leading UI design teams and managing complex visual design projects, with a proven track record of delivering polished, high-quality user interfaces.
• Design Leadership: Proven ability to lead, inspire, and manage a team of UI designers, fostering a culture of craft excellence and visual consistency.
• UI Expertise: Extensive experience in user interface design, with deep knowledge of visual design principles, typography, layout, color theory, iconography, and design systems.
• AI-Driven UI Experience: Experience designing intuitive and visually engaging interfaces for frontier technologies such as AI and agents, with a solid understanding of their unique UI challenges (e.g., conversational interfaces, adaptive layouts, data visualization).
• Strategic Vision: Ability to define and articulate a compelling UI design vision that aligns with business goals and brand identity, translating objectives into tangible design standards, component libraries, and visual roadmaps.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Exceptional ability to partner effectively with front-end development, product management, UX research, and brand teams to ensure pixel-perfect implementation.
• Usability & Accessibility: Commitment to the highest standards of visual accessibility, inclusive design, and adherence to WCAG guidelines to ensure interfaces are usable by all.

Preferred Qualifications

• Leadership Experience: 5+ years in a leadership role within UI design, including team management, creative direction, and designer career development.
• Agile: Experience working in agile, cross-functional teams alongside front-end developers, product managers, and UX researchers to deliver high-quality interfaces on tight timelines.
• Tools: Strong command of modern UI design platforms (e.g., Figma, Sketch), prototyping tools, plugin ecosystems, design token management, and emerging agentic design tools.
• Change Management: Experience leading UI design teams through organizational or technological change, including design system migrations, tooling transitions, and evolving brand guidelines.
• Global Products: Experience designing scalable, visually consistent interfaces for global or multilingual products, with a strong understanding of localization, RTL layouts, and culturally adaptive UI patterns.
• Stakeholder Management: Strong skills in managing and aligning diverse stakeholder groups — from brand teams and creative directors to engineering leads — ensuring UI decisions are well-communicated and supported.

Why Nurun?

• For our working philosophy and entrepreneurial spirit;
• For an approach to our projects based on understanding human needs;
• For the chance to work on large-scale digital projects for major clients around the world;
• For our competitive offer and wide range of social benefits from day one;
• For the option of a hybrid work arrangement, with three days per week in the office at locations in Toronto, Windsor, and Montreal;
• For a flexible schedule that truly allows work-life balance;
• For a personalized development plan supported by our continuing education platforms;
• For a rich collaboration with passionate and talented experts.

Additional Information

The salary range for this position is $120,000–$150,000 per year, based on experience, skills, and relevant certifications. We believe in pay transparency and are committed to offering competitive, market-aligned compensation.

We use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of our hiring process, such as reviewing applications or analyzing resumes. These tools assist our recruitment team but never replace human decision-making. We believe in a human-first approach, where your experience and potential are recognized by people.

Saatchi & Saatchi is committed to building a diverse workforce representative of our community. We encourage and are pleased to consider all qualified candidates, without regard to race, colour, citizenship, religion, sex, marital / family status, sexual orientation, gender identity, aboriginal status, age, disability or persons who may require an accommodation, to apply. If you require a specific accommodation please contact Human Resources at 416-925-7733 or by email at inquiries@publicisna.com.

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