Lead The Athletic’s product design vision and organization of approximately 10 designers. Develop prototypes and strategic concepts for a next-generation sports app, influence product direction using data-backed perspectives, and remain hands-on with design reviews, Figma, and prototyping. Establish AI-native design tools and workflows, coach team members, manage performance, and collaborate with executive leaders across engineering, product, data, marketing, and commercial functions. The role is remote in the U.S. or Canada and requires regular travel.
About Us
Powered by one of the largest global newsrooms in sports media, The Athletic brings sports fans the most comprehensive stories about the teams, sports and athletes they love. The Athletic’s newsroom of 500+ full-time staff delivers in-depth coverage of hundreds of professional and college teams across more than 47 North American markets and all 20 football clubs in the English Premier League, as well as many Championship clubs.
About the Role
The Athletic is redefining what a sports app is. We need a design leader who is hands-on, opinionated, and genuinely obsessed with sports, with a clear vision for what the "essential sports app" becomes over the next several years.
This role is reporting into our Chief Product Officer.
This role is 100% remote for candidates based in the United States or Canada.
Responsibilities
- Product vision and prototyping the future. We want working prototypes and opinionated concepts that demonstrate what the next-generation sports app looks like, and where the biggest opportunity is for us to lead. You own the process and the design output behind ongoing strategic visioning with cross-functional leadership, driving toward decisions the exec team rallies behind.
- A strategic voice in product direction, with real weight in the business. You bring informed, data-backed points of view to planning, and help design shape where the product goes. You partner directly with the VP Eng, the VP Data, and the CPO on the business priorities and metrics that matter, and you make sure design has a seat at the table.
- Day-to-day craft leadership. You stay in the work: reviewing flows, jumping into Figma, and prototyping directly alongside your team.
- AI-native transformation of the design practice. You set the direction for how design works in an AI-native world, covering tools, workflows, and team structure, so that velocity and craft rise together.
- Org leadership and performance. You build, coach, and manage a design org (~10) that can operate at this level, with clear accountability for what each team and person delivers.
- Collaboration. You are part of the leadership team of The Athletic. As such, your role goes beyond “design” and you work hand in hand with the other leads (engineering, product, data, marketing, commercial etc.).
Requirements
- Someone who is a sports fan first, who uses the product, has opinions about it, and lets that passion show up in the work.
- A design leader with a track record of hands-on craft at senior levels. We want to see recent, personal work.
- Experience leading a design org through a step-change in how it works, ideally involving AI tooling and workflow, at a company shipping consumer product at scale.
- Strong, well-argued opinions about what makes a sports product, or a comparable habit-forming consumer product, great, along with the conviction to defend them in a room of product and engineering leaders.
- Comfort operating in ambiguity.
- Nice to have: experience starting or running your own company or side project.
- This is a remote-based role requiring some regular travel.
The annual base salary range for this role is $270,000.00 - $295,000.00 USD. The total compensation offered for this position may vary based on factors such as education, experience, skills, and location. It may also include non-cash rewards and benefits. The base salary range is subject to change and may be modified in the future.
For roles in the U.S., dependent on your role, you may be eligible for variable pay, such as an annual bonus and restricted stock. Benefits may include medical, dental and vision benefits, Flexible Spending Accounts (F.S.A.s), a company-matching 401(k) plan, paid vacation, paid sick days, paid parental leave, tuition reimbursement and professional development programs.
For roles outside of the U.S., information on benefits will be provided during the interview process.
We are excited to learn more about you and your experience. To keep our hiring process as fair and authentic as possible, we ask that you submit your own work and not use GenAI tools to generate substantive content during the application and interview process. If you are a candidate for a technical role, we will let you know what specific tools you are permitted to use for your technical assessment.
The Athletic Media Company is an equal opportunity employer and enthusiastically encourages people from all backgrounds and experiences to apply. The Athletic will consider all applicants without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, physical and/or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, age, sexual orientation, military or veteran status, or any other protected characteristic under applicable law.
Click here to review our Applicant Privacy Notice, which describes how and when The Athletic Media Company collects, uses, and shares certain personal information of job applicants and prospective employees.
Beware of fraudulent job recruiting schemes! Our recruiters use [email protected] exclusively, and our team members will use an email address with @theathletic.com domain. We do not conduct interviews via text or instant message and we do not ask candidates to download software, to purchase equipment through us, or to provide sensitive personally identifiable information, such as bank accounts or social security numbers. If you have been contacted by someone claiming to be a member of the recruiting/HR team at The Athletic but operating from a different email address about a job offer, please report it as potential job fraud to the law enforcement and to [email protected].
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