Innovation Head of Design

Head of Design

At BBH, Partnership is more than a form of ownership—it’s our approach to business and relationships. We know that supporting your professional and personal goals is the best way to help our clients and advance our business. With a 200-year legacy and a shared passion for what’s next, this is the right place to build a fulfilling career.

AI-NATIVE FINANCIAL SERVICES PLATFORM

Our mission is to reinvent how financial services firms create, manage, and execute their data integrations and transformations. Today that process stretches across multiple teams, tools, and handoffs - slow to build, expensive to maintain, and nearly impossible to change. We collapse it into a single AI-native platform that business users can operate without writing a ticket, while engineering teams retain the governance and security controls they require.

We're growing our founding team now.

About The Role

We're looking for a Head of Design to be our founding design leader - the person who defines what our product looks and feels like to financial services users, builds the design function from zero, and sets the quality bar that will differentiate us in the market.

In financial services data tooling, design is almost always an afterthought. Interfaces are dense, opaque, and built for technical users who have no alternative. We believe that's the wrong approach. Our product needs to be trusted by IT and operated by business users - that requires design that is both precise and accessible. You'll own that challenge from day one.

This is a player-coach role with a product-first mandate. You'll be hands‑on in Figma daily while also hiring and growing the design team, shaping brand alongside product, and advocating for design as a competitive advantage in an engineering-dominant organization.

Responsibilities

Design Vision & Strategy

• Define and execute the product design vision for the entire platform
• Establish design principles and quality standards that guide every product decision
• Make high‑judgment UX trade‑offs – especially around AI interaction patterns, information density, and the business user vs. IT user divide
• Represent design in company strategy discussions and partner with product and engineering leadership on roadmap decisions

Product Design

• Lead design for complex, data‑intensive experiences – integration configuration, transformation building, workflow monitoring, execution results, and audit log views
• Design AI‑native interaction patterns: transformation generation from natural language, streaming outputs, accept/reject/edit flows, AI confidence communication, and human‑AI control handoffs
• Create UX frameworks that accommodate rapidly evolving AI capabilities – models and features change frequently, and the design must flex accordingly
• A fierce defender of user needs and the jobs to be done, all while making high‑judgment UX trade‑offs
• Conduct and synthesize user research with financial services audiences – both business users and IT personas

Design System

• Build a comprehensive design system from scratch – components, tokens, patterns, and guidelines
• This is day‑one work; there is no existing system to inherit
• Set the craft bar for typography, spacing, interaction details, and polish
• Ensure the design system scales to support product and brand as the team grows

Team Building & Design Operations

• Recruit, hire, and mentor a design team – starting solo, growing to 3‑5 designers within 12‑18 months
• Establish design processes: critique sessions, design reviews, handoff workflows, and async collaboration practices
• Foster a culture of design excellence within an engineering-dominant organization

Brand & Marketing

• Oversee brand identity, visual language, and marketing design – website, launch pages, product communications, and conference materials
• Ensure visual consistency across product and marketing touchpoints
• Direct key marketing moments – product launches and release communications

Requirements

Experience

• 7+ years product design; 2+ years in a design leadership or senior IC role
• Player‑coach track record – has led or mentored designers while remaining hands‑on

Portfolio (Required)

• Must demonstrate complex, data‑dense, or technical B2B product work
• Consumer‑only portfolios will not be considered – our product is enterprise‑grade and technically demanding
• Must show both strategic design thinking and execution craft

Technical & Domain Skills

• Expert Figma proficiency – components, variables, auto‑layout, prototyping, Dev Mode handoff
• AI product design experience – has designed for non‑deterministic outputs, streaming interfaces, or human‑AI collaboration
• Built a design system from scratch – not just contributed to one
• Technical fluency – comfortable participating in architecture and engineering discussions; understands how software is built
• Startup experience – has operated in ambiguous, resource‑constrained environments where shipping comes before perfection

Nice to Have

• Financial services, fintech, or data platform design background
• Data visualization design – tables, charts, dashboards, and analytical interfaces
• Front‑end code capability (HTML/CSS or Angular) for prototyping or design system implementation
• Published writing, conference talks, or open‑source design contributions
• Accessibility expertise for enterprise and compliance environments
• Experience with motion and interaction design for complex state transitions

Why Join Us

• Category‑defining work – AI‑native data integration and transformation for financial services doesn't exist yet. You'll help build it from the ground up.
• Enterprise backing, startup speed – The credibility, domain expertise, and runway of an established enterprise combined with the pace of a startup. This is an unusual opportunity.
• Foundational team – You'll be among the first in‑house hires. You'll set architecture, culture, and standards – not inherit them.
• Competitive package – Market‑rate salary and comprehensive benefits. Equity is available for select roles. Poland‑based team members receive private healthcare (Medicover or Luxmed), Multisport card, home office setup budget, and professional development budget.

Salary Range

$140,000 – $190,000 base salary + annual target bonus

BBH and its affiliates’ compensation program includes base salary, discretionary bonuses, and profit‑sharing. The anticipated base salary range(s) shown above are only for the indicated location(s) and may differ in other locations due to cost of living and labor considerations. Base salaries may vary based on factors such as skill, experience and qualification for the role.

BBH's total rewards package recognizes your contributions with more than just a paycheck—providing you with benefits that enhance your experience at BBH from long‑term savings, healthcare, and income protection to professional development opportunities and time off, our programs support your overall well‑being.

We value diverse experiences and transferrable skillsets. If your career hasn’t followed a traditional path, includes alternative experiences, or doesn’t meet every qualification or skill listed in the job description, please do go ahead and apply.

We are an equal opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, national origin, age, genetic information, creed, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other protected status under federal, state or local law.