Senior Design Director, Publishing Platform

****Owning the line between scale and expression.**** You’ll be the principal decision-maker on one of the most consequential design tensions in the business: what gets unified and what stays bespoke. You’ll develop principled frameworks for when the system should hold the line and when a brand’s unique voice warrants something purpose-built — and you’ll be a credible, evidence-based advocate for both sides of that argument. Expression here means the full user experience: typography that makes long-form reading a pleasure, interactions that feel effortless across reading, watching, and play, ad experiences that don’t undermine editorial trust, and accessibility that ensures great content reaches everyone.****Leading through craft, not just process.**** This is a player-coach role: You’ll be in the work when it matters, in reviews, in critiques, and occasionally in the details, because that’s how you set the standard and build the capability of those around you. You’ll know when to get close and when to step back, and you’ll use both to grow your team. You’ll lead the forums, rituals, and culture that make craft excellence the norm, not the exception.****Bringing technical depth and forward-looking thinking.**** You’ll bring genuine technical fluency across front-end technologies, design systems, and component architecture. You’ll understand the implications of design decisions at the platform level and care deeply about what those decisions mean for the reader’s actual experience: Core Web Vitals, load times, ad rendering, and the p95 user who isn’t on a fast connection with a new device. You’ll partner closely with your Product and Engineering counterparts to ensure design and technology strategy are tightly aligned, not just coordinated.* You’re energised by building in complexity — you’ve led design through significant change before and know how to create momentum and confidence in a team while the ground is shifting* You’re a genuine player-coach: you lead through others, but you’re not above getting into the details, and your team knows the difference between your involvement being a signal of support and a signal of concern* You have deep craft instincts — for typography, systems, interaction, and the reading experience — and you hold the line on quality even under pressure* You think across the system and the story simultaneously: you understand that a great design system exists to enable brand expression, not constrain it* You have a real, working relationship with AI tools — not as a talking point, but as part of how you actually design and lead* You’re fluent in multi-brand complexity: you’ve worked across genuinely different editorial cultures within a shared platform, and you have principled views on governance and flexibility* You operate through influence and clarity, not authority — you’re as comfortable in a conversation with a CTO as with a junior designer, and you build trust quickly across both* You’re resilient and low-ego — you can navigate ambiguity, absorb pressure, and keep your team steady without pretending everything is fine* Substantial experience leading platform-level, systems-oriented design — including design systems, component libraries, or shared publishing tooling — with a track record of shipping at scale across multiple brands or product lines* Deep technical fluency: front-end architecture, design tokens, component design, theming systems, accessibility, and performance trade-offs at a level that earns genuine credibility with engineering partners* A hands-on, evolving relationship with AI tooling — someone who has already changed how they work because of it, and is actively curious about what changes next* A sophisticated understanding of typography, narrative structure, visual storytelling, and the particular design challenges of publishing products* Demonstrated ability to lead as a player-coach: setting standards through doing, raising the craft of those around you, and building team capability through proximity to the work* Experience leading design teams through significant change or organisational flux — building confidence and momentum while the environment is shifting* Proven ability to attract, develop, and grow senior design talent, including emerging people managers, across a global and distributed organisation* Comfort thinking about org design: how to structure a team, where to specialise, how to evolve the team shape as the portfolio grows* A principled, clear-eyed approach to the tension between platform unification and brand expression — with experience making and defending these calls in complex multi-brand environments* Fluency in the commercial dimensions of a publishing platform — subscriptions, advertising, loyalty — sufficient to inform and partner credibly with Product leadership on strategic decisions* Excellent communication, facilitation, and storytelling skills — able to influence senior stakeholders and technical partners alike, and build alignment across competing priorities* Experience leveraging OKR frameworks to connect design direction to measurable business outcomes* Experience working in media, publishing, or content-led consumer products* Experience working in large global organisations with distributed teams across multiple time zonesPlease submit your CV and cover letter/portfolio, which highlights why you’d love to take on this role and why you’re a great match for what we’re looking for.We offer a range of tools to support your wellbeing, including core hours, 10 remote days (from home or a country with a Condé Nast office location), access to our Employee Assistance Programme, corporate gym membership and cycle to work scheme.Condé Nast is a global media company home to iconic brands including Vogue, GQ, AD, Condé Nast Traveler, Vanity Fair, Wired, The New Yorker, Glamour, Allure, Bon Appétit, Self and many more. Headquartered in New York and London, the company produces award-winning journalism, content and entertainment for every platform today and operates in 32 markets worldwide including China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Spain, the U.K. and U.S., and Taiwan.At Condé Nast we value diversity of background, views and cultures. We celebrate people for their personal qualities, their skills and contributions. And we recognize the power our brands have to influence and shape culture, catalyze action and help make our world a better place for all.For more information, please visit condenast.com and follow @CondeNast and @CondeNastCareer for Twitter and @condenastcareers for Instagram.#J-18808-Ljbffr…