Director of Product Design

The posting, as Help Scout wrote it

WHO WE ARE

Help Scout started in 2011 with a simple premise: support software should treat customers like people, not tickets. 3+ billion conversations later, more than 10,000 companies use Help Scout to grow relationships with customers of all types, from clients to patients and beyond.

Now we’re in a new chapter: not only building AI that gives teams more space to focus on the customer experience, but also reimagining how we operate in an AI-native world. That means shipping and learning faster, without compromising on craft. Great work here carries a strong opinion and sweats the details, regardless of the tools we use to drive it.

We’ve been a fully remote team https://articles.helpscout.com/blog/remote-culture/ since day one, with 120+ teammates now all over the world. It’s a culture where you’ll be trusted to take ownership, stay curious, and raise the quality of work around you. It comes with clear expectations and a team that will push you to do some of the best work of your career.

If that kind of challenge gives you energy, we’d love to meet you.

YOUR IMPACT

Help Scout has earned something most software companies never get: genuine trust. 10,000+ businesses use us because we've always believed that customer relationships are the business, and that every interaction should feel like it came from someone who cares. That trust took a decade to build, and now it's the foundation for something bigger.

A lot of that trust is design. When customers tell us why they picked Help Scout over the alternatives, and when they recommend us to someone else, the reason they give most often is that it is easier to use and it feels better to work in. That's why our top source for new customers comes from human and agent referrals. Our user experience is one of the strongest advantages we have, and as Director of Product Design you'll be directly accountable for keeping our quality high as we accelerate our growth.

ABOUT THE ROLE

• Lead our product design team as a player/coach. Manage and develop a small team of experienced product designers and stay close to the work through critique, design reviews, and occasional projects of your own. Your most senior individual contributors carry the most complex design problems; your job is to make sure the whole team's work meets the bar. Set clear expectations for craft and ownership and build a culture where critique and feedback make the work better.
• Turn great design judgment into something that scales. Own the design principles, standards, guardrails, and decision record that make a Help Scout experience feel like Help Scout, so designers, engineers, and AI agents can create high-quality experiences with more speed and autonomy. Your most senior designers author the interaction models and product patterns that sit underneath them.
• Be accountable for our design system as a product. Set the priorities and resourcing for the Help Scout Design System (HSDS), drive its adoption acros

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you and your dependents.

HIRING GUIDELINES

All roles at Help Scout are fully remote. Some positions have specific location requirements. For roles outside the U.S. and Canada, we work with teammates as independent contractors under country-specific agreements.

We do not sponsor visas. Teammates must already be authorized to work from their home country.

We are an equal opportunity employer and are committed to building a company that embraces and celebrates diversity and inclusion https://www.helpscout.com/dei/. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We have read the studies and understand that diverse teams build better products, bring more perspective to the table, contribute to a company’s financial success, and help foster a more inclusive environment for all employees, but the bottom line is that it's the right thing to do.

To provide you with the best experience, we can support you with accommodations or adjustments at any stage of the recruitment process. Simply inform our recruitment team during your conversation with them.

A NOTE ON THE USE OF AI IN OUR INTERVIEW PROCESS

While we understand that AI is an important tool in a modern skillset, we ask that you do not utilize AI assistants live on our interviews. Of course, use any tools you need to prepare! But we'd like for you to have a real human-to-human conversation with our team.

On our end, we utilize a platform called Brighthire as a notetaker and review tool to ensure a fair and transparent hiring process.

Beware of scammers! All legitimate communication from Help Scout regarding your application will come directly from an @helpscout.com http://helpscout.com email address and through our applicant tracking system, Ashby. We will never ask for personal financial information or conduct interviews outside of these official channels.