Associate Director of Creative

We're building the future of advertising and are looking for the minds to help us do it.

Darkroom is a progressive omnichannel growth marketing agency focused on retail, e-commerce, and consumer businesses. We have been recognized as one of the fastest growing private companies in America by Inc. 5000 (2023), a top 1% digital advertiser by Varos (2023), and our founders were named Forbes 30 Under 30 recipients for Marketing and Advertising North America (2024).

We are hiring an **Associate Director of Creative** - a visionary leader with a strong design background who thrives in both managing creative talent and driving high-quality design execution across various platforms. You’ll combine strategic oversight with hands-on involvement, ensuring that every design project meets the highest standards of excellence.

This role requires a balance of leadership and creativity in a fast-paced, collaborative environment, where you’ll work closely with marketing, product, and development teams to ensure the alignment of design goals with broader business objectives. Your ability to drive creative strategy and manage multiple projects with precision will be essential to your success. Darkroom is a career incubator for ambitious talent looking to operate at the intersection of business, design, and innovation.

**Management Responsibilities**:

- Manage a team of designers, starting with 2-4 direct reports and expanding as the team grows. Provide support in strategy, project management, design feedback, performance evaluation, and handling escalations.
- Conduct weekly 1:1s with direct reports to assess client health, offer feedback, and oversee career development.
- Ensure high-quality work output from direct reports, focusing on visual craft, UX expertise, and meeting deadlines.
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams, including marketers, strategists, developers, and clients, to develop project plans, understand business objectives, and address client issues.
- Refine internal processes for client work in coordination with the Director of Creative. Provide training and feedback to enhance the skills of the design team.

**Senior Individual Contributor Responsibilities**:

- Lead 1-2 UI/UX engagements as needed, focusing on creating branded e-commerce websites.
- Emphasize branded UI, conversion-focused UX, and clarity in design approaches.
- Present design work to clients, explaining design choices based on effective reasoning and UX principles.
- Manage design projects independently from discovery to hand-off, adhering to timelines and collaborating with developers to ensure feasibility.
- Develop component systems and maintain design guidelines for consistency.
- 3-6+ years of senior-level design experience, with at least 1 year of people management experience preferred. Must have experience in responsive web design.
- Digital portfolio showcasing web design and branding skills, including color theory, hierarchy, composition, and typography.
- Self-motivated, proactive, and detail-oriented with a strong sense of ownership.
- Experience collaborating with developers and documenting designs for development hand-off.
- Comfortable with client-facing responsibilities in English, including leading discovery calls and resolving client feedback.
- Capable of providing constructive internal feedback and guiding direct reports to improve their work.
- Ability to tackle ambiguous problems, understand business challenges, design solutions, and execute them effectively.
- Proficiency in Figma, including features like Auto Layout, Components, and Variants, is essential.
- Experience with Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator) is required.
- ** Bonus**: Experience in e-commerce or hospitality website design, familiarity with HTML/CSS or frameworks like Tailwind.

**What it's like to work at Darkroom**:
Our team is our most sacred asset, and we offer highly competitive salaries and the following perks:

- Unlimited Vacation Policy, and Holidays: Rebooting is one of the most important parts of growth. At Darkroom, you have access to a flexible vacation policy, and 10 holidays throughout the year to keep you recharged and sharp.
- Location, location, (or no) location: Remote-first culture with a strong community base. With Hubs in LA, The Bay Area, New York, Philly, Sao Paulo, Lisbon, and Eastern Europe.
- Endless opportunities for growth: Our agency is founded on an interdisciplinary approach, giving Darkroomers insights into services far beyond your job description. Grow your skills and interests beyond your niche and stay at the forefront of the industry through total immersion in cross-functional collaboration.

**Equal Opportunity Statement**

Darkroom is an equal opportunity workplace—we are dedicated to equal employment opportunities regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national orientation, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity, or Veteran status. We al