Experience Design Director (UI/ UX)

As the Experience Design Director, you are a high-performing leader for the studio, working closely with other discipline leaders to guide teams and ensure that our work is true to AKQA's mission and values: thoughtful, innovative, high quality, and in service of our clients and their customers.

Your role involves being an advocate for design, championing design processes and techniques across our work; demonstrating a strong sense of craft and deep expertise in digital design, assuming design custodianship for clients; fearlessly telling clients things they may know, but are afraid to hear; acting as an escalation point for the UX and Design teams across multiple projects/accounts; nurturing, and guiding project teams and direct reports; and, collaborating with interdisciplinary project teams to create innovative solutions. As the senior most creative leader for the studio, you will represent AKQA India's design capabilities, be the face for the design and creative community and will be responsible for driving growth for the creative practice.

You have world-class design craft of the highest calibre and the ability to be a truly hands-on leader—someone who sets the standard through your own practice, while mentoring and inspiring teams to deliver their very best work.

As part of the Design Leadership Team at AKQA, the Experience Design Director also provides compelling thought leadership internally and externally, is a champion of AKQA, takes an active role in demonstrating its values and its services, influences key client stakeholder relationships and influences AKQA's overall vision, product, strategy, brand and culture.

ROLE REQUIREMENTS

• Key Skills - Hands-on experience of Brand & Experience Strategy, Concept development and ideation, Story telling and pitch structuring, information architecture, Interaction design prototyping and Interface design, Landscape & competitor reviews, Digital Product design system development, Product Roadmaps definition, Service Design, Wireframes, Workshop facilitation, Visual design
• Hands-on experience and deep knowledge of industry-standard design and prototyping tools such as Figma and Adobe Creative Cloud.
• Expertise in accessibility standards and inclusive design practices (e.g., WCAG), ensuring experiences are usable by all audiences.
• Identify opportunities to improve quality and increase efficiency through cross-discipline collaborative design.
• Champion human-centred design (HCD) principles and processes ensuring outcomes meet both business and user goals.
• Apply solid user experience and service design principles while looking for opportunities to innovate.
• Demonstrate expert knowledge of all aspects of UI/ UX and the ability to apply them flexibly across a variety of project types.
• Be able to lead multiple accounts as a consultant to clients across various solution frameworks (i.e. agile).
• Lead UX / design team to deliver end-to-end experience design projects through discovery, definition, solution and build phases.
• Ensure the quality of key client relationships and engagement.
• Ensure projects are up to date on the latest UI/ UX and service design methods
• Demonstrate thought leadership in Experience Design, both to clients and to the industry as required.
• Actively participate in new business development initiatives, proactive engagement in client pitches, collaborate with technology and other disciplines within the studio and with your design peers, counterparts within the APAC regions and the AKQA network.
• Responsible for crafting the design and creative practice by establishing best practices, demonstrating thought leadership and hands on creative output and storytelling.
• Responsible for hiring new team members and mentoring them as the business grows.

QUALIFICATIONS & CHARACTERISTICS

• Provide leadership, inspire team members for innovation, encourage creative thinking and positively influence others.
• Foster a culture of proactivity, passion and energy for client's businesses.
• Encourage cross-discipline collaboration and readily provide consultation and assistance to the broader team.
• Embody a culture of continuous improvement, embracing diversity and inclusion.
• Planning of activities and work estimation for proposed work.
• Ensure output of the project is of the highest quality.
• Develop a solutions-focused team.
• Define and maintain career development plans for all direct reports, including regular check-ins.
• Develop individual team members through mentoring, internal training and external training.
• Develop case studies for Design output, innovations and processes.
• Respond effectively to client needs.
• Bring significant experience partnering with Fortune 500 companies, shaping innovative solutions at scale.
• Demonstrate an award-winning portfolio that reflects world-class work and establishes you as a recognised industry leader.

We believe great work happens when we're together, fostering creativity, collaboration, and connection. That's why we've adopted a hybrid approach including required in-office days. If you require accommodations or flexibility, please discuss this with the hiring team during the interview process.

AKQA is an equal opportunity employer and considers applicants for all positions without discrimination or regard to particular characteristics. We are committed to fostering a culture of respect in which everyone feels they belong and has the same opportunities to progress in their careers.