Critical Mass

San Jose

Creative Engineering Director at Critical Mass

ON-SITE SENIOR
Posted 1 day ago
Critical Mass logo

Company snapshot

Critical Mass

Critical Mass is an award-winning full-service digital experience design agency with a relentless focus on the customer. With over 20 years of experience, 11 global offices, and 950 employees, we provide a range of services from strategy and research t...

Design Enterprise Public Relations Information Technology & Services
HQ
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Team size
1K-5K
Founded
1996

Quick Summary

Role Overview

The Creative Engineering Director leads the discipline that bridges concept and code across multiple accounts. You will set technical standards for design systems and mentor a team of engineering leads and individual contributors. This role focuses on driving innovation through AI and maintaining high standards of craft and speed.

Key Responsibilities

  • Define the vision for complex and scalable design systems across multiple platforms
  • Set the strategy for dynamic creative optimization and content application
  • Identify and champion AI tools to solve client challenges and improve workflows
  • Represent the engineering function in high stakes client presentations and new business pitches
  • Manage and mentor a leadership pipeline of engineering leads and directors
  • Enforce technical craft standards and lead the function innovation agenda

Requirements Snapshot

  • Over ten years of experience in creative technology or front end development
  • Proven track record of managing and mentoring other managers and engineers
  • Deep expertise in design systems architecture across web and social formats
  • Experience implementing AI solutions to improve client workflows and business outcomes
  • Strong ability to translate complex technical concepts for C suite audiences

Expected Impact

You will elevate the agency technical capabilities by establishing robust design system standards and integrating AI into the creative workflow. Your leadership will build a sustainable talent pipeline and strengthen client trust through technical excellence. Ultimately you will drive business growth by winning new pitches and scaling engineering processes across the organization.

A DesignJobs.World summary of the employer's posting, written to highlight scope, requirements, and fit (AI-assisted, human-reviewed). For full details, see the description below.

Job Description

Role 

Creative Engineering is the discipline that turns ideas into systems, the connective tissue between concept and code, between craft and scale. As a Creative Engineering Director, you own that discipline across accounts. You set the standards, define the vision for how our design systems are built, and make sure every team under you is pushing the same bar for craft, speed, and innovation.

Internally, you're building the bench. You manage and mentor Creative Engineering Leads, Associate Creative Engineering Directors, and the Engineers coming up behind them, setting the standard for how design systems get built and how AI gets used, not as a novelty, but as a tool that makes the work better and the team faster.

 

You Will

Ecosystem & Systems Leadership

  • Define the vision for complex, scalable design systems that hold up across websites, emails, social, in-platform interfaces, and every format in between
  • Set the strategy for how Dynamic Creative Optimization and dynamic content are applied across accounts, guiding teams on when it's the right tool for the job
  • Identify ways AI can solve client challenges or improve workflows across the function, and champion the adoption of new tools and platforms
  • Champion compliance, accessibility, and security standards across teams and clients

Client & Business Leadership

  • Represent Creative Engineering with clients and in new business creating compelling stories that win pitches and organically shape new opportunities within your craft
  • Build trusted relationships with clients as the go-to voice on what's technically possible
  • Own the narrative in high-stakes presentations, translating complex technical work into a story any audience can follow

Team Leadership & Culture

  • Manage and mentor Creative Engineering Leads, Associate Creative Engineering Directors, and engineers across the function, building a leadership pipeline beneath you
  • Lead the innovation agenda for the function piloting new tools, formats, and processes before they become standard
  • Champion talent development and culture, creating an environment where engineers want to grow and stay

Craft & Quality

  • Set and enforce the bar for technical craft across every team you oversee
  • Stay close enough to the work to catch what's broken and coach the fix, you lead by example, not just by title

 

You Have

  • 10+ years of experience in creative technology, front-end development, or a related field, with a track record of leading teams and functions
  • Proven experience managing and mentoring managers (CE Leads, ACEDs) as well as individual engineers
  • Deep expertise in design systems architecture, with experience defining vision and strategy across websites, emails, social, and in-platform formats not just execution
  • Experience using AI to solve client challenges and improve workflows, with a point of view on where the function should invest next
  • A strong presentation narrative for internal and external audiences you can walk a room of engineers or a room of C-suite clients through the same idea
  • Experience representing a function in new business and client relationships
  • A track record of building and scaling teams, processes, and standards across accounts

 

What we offer: 

  • Maternity and parental leave extra days
  • Competitive benefits packages
  • Vacation, compassionate leave, sick days, and flex days
  • Access to online services for families and new parents
  • Diversity and Inclusion Board with 12 affinity groups
  • Internal learning and development programs
  • Enterprise-wide employee discounts
  • And more…

At Critical Mass, we value our employees and offer competitive compensation and benefits packages.  If you’re looking for a challenging and rewarding opportunity to make a significant impact on the lives of our employees, we encourage you to apply for this exciting position today!

The Talent Team at Critical Mass is focused on ensuring we provide the best training, onboarding, and employee experience possible! Our new hires & employees are the future of our organization, and we want to set you up for long-term success. In an effort to do so, we expect our team to work from an office a minimum of 3 days a week.

The ask stems from our want to:

  • Strengthen opportunity for continuous learning
  • Improve collaboration and team relationships.
  • Increase employee engagement

This work model balances the need for individual flexibility while maintaining the relentless customer focus we provide at CM. We understand that not everyone may feel comfortable with this expectation, so we ask that you please let us know immediately if there are any concerns so we can help navigate accordingly.

 

 

Critical Mass is an equal opportunity employer. 

Critical Mass uses artificial intelligence in our recruitment process to enhance job postings, filter keywords during the review of prospective candidates, and, in some cases, transcribe interviews with our recruiters. Human review remains central to the process, and all hiring decisions are ultimately made by our team.

The Critical Mass Talent Acquisition team will only communicate from email addresses that use the URLs criticalmass.com, omc.com and us.greenhouse-mail.io. We will not use apps such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, or Google Hangouts for communicating with you. We will never ask you to send us money, technology, or anything else to work for our company. If you believe you are the victim of a scam, please review your local government consumer protections guidance and reach out to them directly.

If U.S. based: https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/job-scams#avoid
If Canada based: https://www.canada.ca/en/services/finance/consumer-affairs.html
If U.K. based: https://www.gov.uk/consumer-protection-rights
If Costa Rica based: https://www.consumo.go.cr/educacion_consumidor/consejos_practicos.aspx 

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