Chief Design Officer (CDO)

Location : Hyderabad || Employment Type : Full-Time || Experience Level : 10+ years

Job Summary :

We are looking for an experienced and visionary Chief Design Officer (CDO) to lead our organization’s overall design strategy and drive design excellence across all digital and physical touchpoints. As a member of the executive leadership team, the CDO will shape the company’s design culture, elevate user experience standards, and ensure that design plays a central role in product innovation, brand identity, and business growth.

Key Responsibilities :

Strategic Leadership & Vision :

• Define and execute the company-wide design vision, strategy, and roadmap.
• Build and champion a strong design culture that values creativity, user-centered thinking, and innovation.
• Partner with executive leadership to align design initiatives with business goals.

Design Team Leadership :

• Lead, mentor, and grow multidisciplinary design teams including UX/UI, research, product design, visual design, brand design, and content design.
• Establish scalable design processes, design systems, and best practices across teams.
• Foster collaboration between design, product, engineering, marketing, and business stakeholders.

Product & Experience Innovation :

• Oversee design quality across all products, ensuring consistency, usability, accessibility, and aesthetic excellence.
• Guide the creation of world-class user experiences across web, mobile, and emerging platforms.
• Promote experimentation, rapid prototyping, and data-informed design decisions.

Brand Ownership :

• Shape and protect the brand identity, ensuring cohesive representation across digital, print, marketing, and customer touchpoints.
• Drive the evolution of the brand to support future growth and market positioning.

User Research & Insights :

• Advocate for user research and customer insights as foundational inputs in design decisions.
• Build frameworks for continuous discovery, usability testing, and feedback integration.

Operational & Organizational Leaderships :

• Manage design budgets, tools, and resource allocations.
• Represent design in executive meetings, strategic discussions, and stakeholder reviews.
• Ensure the design organization scales effectively as the company grows.

Required Skills & Qualifications :

• 10+ years of experience in design leadership roles (Product Design, UX, UI, Creative Direction, or similar).
• Proven experience building and managing large, multi-disciplinary design teams.
• Strong portfolio demonstrating strategic thinking, product impact, and design excellence.
• Deep understanding of design systems, user-centered design, visual design, UX principles, and design operations.
• Exceptional executive communication, presentation, and influencing skills.
• Ability to balance creativity with pragmatic decision-making.
• Experience collaborating with product, engineering, marketing, and leadership teams.
• Strong understanding of business metrics and how design contributes to growth.

Preferred (Good to Have) :

• Experience in fast-scaling tech companies, SaaS, or enterprise digital products.
• Familiarity with human-centered innovation frameworks (Design Thinking, Service Design, etc.).
• Understanding of emerging technologies (AI, AR/VR, Web3) and their impact on design.
• Experience with global products, localization, and cross-cultural design practices.

What We Offer :

• A strategic role with the opportunity to shape the future of the company’s design vision.
• Authority to make high-impact decisions on product, brand, and customer experience.
• A collaborative leadership environment focused on innovation.
• Competitive executive compensation, benefits, and performance rewards.
• Freedom to build, scale, and evolve a world-class design organization.

If this role excites you, submit your application here: Apply