Director, Experience Design (Distributed, Canada)

Thinkific is a software platform that gives anyone the ability to easily create and sell online courses, build vibrant communities, and monetize memberships. We believe in impactful and innovative work: our team of 260+ Thinkers is building and expanding an incredible product that empowers Creator Educators and businesses around the globe while working collaboratively to learn, grow, and succeed together. Join us to see how we’re building one of the best workplaces in Canadian tech!

We believe every candidate should have a fair, inclusive, and overall great experience when exploring a new role with Thinkific. That starts with outlining our hiring process so you know what to expect every step of the way—click here to learn more: https://thnk.cc/whattoexpect

Are you a passionate design leader, who is motivated to drive impactful user experiences for our Creators? We’re looking for a Director, Experience Design to join us at Thinkific.

As a Director, Experience Design at Thinkific, you will lead the discovery and delivery of our most impactful Experience Design initiatives. Reporting to the VP, Experience Design & Research (XDR), your leadership will be instrumental in managing resources, optimizing capacity, and fostering growth within our talented team of Experience Designers, ensuring exceptional quality and efficiency in our deliverables.

Your goal will be to lead and support our design team, influence our design strategy, and ultimately deliver high-quality experiences for our customers. Here’s how you’ll accomplish this:

• Gather business and user insights and apply strategic thinking to influence our long-term vision for how we create and deliver outcomes for our customers
• Articulate and communicate a UX strategy, fostering alignment within the XDR team, the wider Research & Development team, and across Thinkific
• Work collaboratively to ensure that design efforts are advancing customer goals, and facilitate discussions to enable cohesion and improve experience quality across the customer lifecycle
• Establish and maintain Experience Design principles, processes, systems, and standards to build a best-in-class product aligned with our strategy, and actively coach and uphold these standards throughout the product development process
• Inspire, develop, and grow a team of UX designers to achieve shared goals while fostering a culture of continuous improvement and ensuring healthy, sustainable team capacity

The person we have in mind likely:

• Has at least 3-5 years of experience leading high-performing teams at an established product organization
• Has managed the capacity and career development of at least 4 reports, and has a track record of empowering their teams to deliver results quickly and incrementally
• Is eager to facilitate design thinking processes and rituals across multiple initiatives, fostering a healthy culture of critique
• Can direct design guidelines at scale, including a design system, content strategy, and design principles
• Has influenced or led design strategy initiatives resulting in significant business outcomes
• Is experienced in working with UX researchers in a continuous discovery environment
• Embraces a servant leadership mindset, with the team as their primary focus
• Loves to learn and grow. They’ve found (and keep looking for) ways to level up their skills in this field, whether that’s through formal education, gaining professional experience, or maybe even building their own business

These things would also be nice, but we think you could learn them on the job:

• Experience running lean experiments and working with qualitative and quantitative data to make quick decisions and iterate toward outcomes
• Experience in conversion rate optimization
• Has worked with Creators or has a passion for the Creator customer

The recruitment compensation range for this position is $175,000 - 217,000 CAD

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging & Accessibility

This is just our initial idea of who we’re looking for! At Thinkific, we know that people have unique career journeys. If your experience is close to what we’ve described but you feel that you might be missing a few of the requirements, please still apply! We believe in equal opportunity and are committed to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging across every facet of our business.

We’re also committed to providing a comfortable and accessible interview experience for every candidate. If there are any accommodations our team can make throughout our hiring process (big or small), please let us know.

What you can expect if you join Thinkific:

👏 An amazing team of talented, passionate, and kind Thinkers. Together, we’ve built an amazing, award-winning culture—we’re a Certified Great Place to Work and one of Canada's Top Small & Medium Employers!

🚀 The chance to build, improve, and innovate on a platform that’s driving positive impact for thousands of businesses and millions of students around the world.

💸 A competitive compensation package including base salary, equity, team-wide bonuses, and an Employee Share Purchase Plan.

🌴Flexible Paid Time Off to maintain mental and physical health. Our team is encouraged to take a minimum 4 weeks of vacation, plus Thinker Holidays (extended long weekends in the summer) and time off for the December holiday season.

🩺 Health Benefits and Wellness: Comprehensive benefits starting on Day 1 include health, vision, and dental coverage for you and your family, $3,000 for mental health care, a short-term health plan, and an additional health or personal spending account. Plus, family friendly benefits include generous parental leave top-ups for up to 32 weeks, as well as fertility coverage and personalized return to work options.

💻 Flexible Work. Choose to work from home from anywhere in Canada, at our Vancouver HQ, a co-working space, or anywhere there’s wifi for a change of scenery.

⬆️ Learning & Growth. An annual $1500 USD Learn and Grow fund for conferences, seminars, or courses, plus training, mentorship, coaching, and internal promotion opportunities.

🏡 A home office setup so you’re ready to succeed with a company-owned Macbook Pro and a budget to order a desk, chair, or any accessories to help you work comfortably and productively.

🍦Eats and Treats. $50 CAD per month to treat yourself with snacks, lunch, or groceries to cook at home.

💙 A place where you can bring your whole self to work. We know that different perspectives lead to amazing ideas, more innovation, and, ultimately, our success as a company. We welcome applicants of all backgrounds, experiences, beliefs, identities, and statuses. Whoever you are—we can't wait to meet you!

The Thinkific Vancouver office operates on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm(Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh(Squamish), and Sel̓íl̓witulh(Tsleil-Waututh) Nations of the Coast Salish People. We encourage everyone to learn more about the original caretakers of the land that you currently occupy.