Senior Director, Product Creative Direction

Job description

Team and Role This role is part of our Product Design team, which turns a deep understanding of our users and customers into product experiences they love. Our designers bring expertise across design systems, visual design, interaction design, content design, and product design. At ServiceNow, design has an intentional seat at the table, and we partner with Engineering and Product Management from the outset. We're looking for a Senior Director of Product Creative Direction to define and evolve the visual expression of our product portfolio.

This leader will set a distinctive product visual direction, translate it into a scalable system, and help teams make complex enterprise software feel clear, coherent, modern, and unmistakably ServiceNow. This is a product-focused creative leadership role. You will work as part of cross-functional software development teams and partner across Platform and the business units to connect creative vision with customer needs, product strategy, and technical realities.

Product teams retain ownership of their product strategy, design, roadmap, quality, and delivery; this role provides shared visual direction, systems, critique, and enablement. You will also advance the responsible use of AI in creative work and make accessibility intrinsic to the product visual language. What you get to do in this role Define and champion a differentiated visual direction for the product portfolio, grounded in our brand, customer needs, product strategy, and the evolving relationship between people and AI.

Establish a clear point of view across typography, color, composition, iconography, illustration, motion, data visualization, density, and other visual foundations. Create future-state concepts, reference experiences, and exemplars that make the visual direction tangible. Work with Design Systems, Product Design, Content Design, Accessibility, Localization, and Research to translate the visual language into scalable foundations, components, patterns, and guidance.

Partner with Design Systems, Product Management and Engineering throughout the software development lifecycle so the creative direction can be applied effectively in shipped products. Define where consistency is essential, where variation creates value, and how teams can extend the system without creating a centralized bottleneck. Lead the strategy for AI-enabled creative exploration, prototyping, asset creation, system evolution, and evaluation, focusing on meaningful gains in range, speed, consistency, and quality.

Move promising AI approaches from experimentation to repeatable practice through pilots, playbooks, training, exemplars, responsible-use standards, and measurable adoption goals. Provide creative direction and hands-on critique for priority, cross-product initiatives while reinforcing product-team ownership. Partner with Brand and Marketing so the company expression and product experience tell a coherent story while remaining useful and native to interactive software.

Make accessibility intrinsic to the creative vision and visual foundations, partnering with Accessibility and Engineering to meet or exceed applicable standards, including WCAG 2.2 AA. Lead, develop, and attract exceptional visual, motion, and multidisciplinary design talent. Build the culture, enablement, and shared critique practices that help product designers and distributed visual designers understand, apply, and continually raise the visual craft bar.

Build a network of creative leaders and contributors across the business units who can extend the direction while maintaining coherence.

Qualifications

Preferred Qualifications

12+ years of experience in product design, visual design, experience design, creative direction, or a related field, including significant leadership experience shipping complex digital products. A portfolio demonstrating exceptional visual craft and creative leadership across shipped product experiences, not only brand campaigns or marketing communications. Experience defining or materially evolving a visual language across a complex, multi-product software portfolio.

Deep understanding of design systems, including visual foundations, design tokens, components, patterns, governance, contribution models, and the relationship between design and code. Demonstrated experience adopting AI-enabled creative tools and workflows and moving teams from isolated experimentation to sustained, responsible use at scale. Proven ability to influence senior executives and align multiple organizations without relying solely on reporting authority.

Expert command of typography, color, composition, interaction, motion, and information hierarchy, with the judgment to apply them to dense and complex product workflows. Strong systems thinking and the ability to connect an inspiring creative idea to the practices and adoption mechanisms required to make it real at scale. Demonstrated commitment to accessible and inclusive design, with working knowledge of WCAG and platform accessibility considerations.

Excellent communication, storytelling, facilitation, and critique skills, including the ability to make a direction compelling to executives and actionable for delivery teams. Experience leading leaders and building high-performing, inclusive creative teams.

Basic Qualifications

Experience participating in the complete product development lifecycle of web and/or software applications. Experience working as a member of cross-functional Product Management, Engineering, and Design teams. Experience leading creative teams and partnering across a complex organization. For positions in this location, we offer a base pay of $254,500 - $445,400 , plus equity (when applicable), variable/incentive compensation and benefits.

Sales positions generally offer a competitive On Target Earnings (OTE) incentive compensation structure. Please note that the base pay shown is a guideline, and individual total compensation will vary based on factors such as qualifications, skill level, competencies, and work location. We also offer health plans, including flexible spending accounts, a 401(k) Plan with company match, ESPP, matching donations, a flexible time away plan and family leave programs.

Compensation is based on the geographic location in which the role is located and is subject to change based on work location.