Director, Product Design

1 day ago

Toronto, Ontario, Canada GS1 Canada Full time
Director, Product Design

Department: Industry Managed Solutions (IMS)

Employment Type: Permanent - Full Time

Location: Toronto, ON


Description
Role Summary 

At GS1 Canada, we enable industry and healthcare stakeholders to share trusted, standardized product data that drives transparency, efficiency, and better outcomes for Canadians. Our digital platforms connect retailers, manufacturers, healthcare providers, and consumers with accurate, interoperable information across the supply chain. As we evolve our design function, we're looking for a Director of Product Design to elevate user experience into a strategic, high-impact capability at the heart of our mission.
This is a true player-coach role: you'll define the design vision and strategy while also rolling up your sleeves to produce UX flows, prototypes, and polished UI. You'll introduce clarity, process, and rigor; champion user research and insights; and build a culture where design is seen as essential, influential, and deeply integrated into GS1 Canada's product strategy

This is a hybrid role, requiring periodic in-person attendance.


Key Responsibilities
Elevate Design Into a Strategic, High-Impact Function
  • Define the long-term design vision and translate it into a clear, actionable strategy and roadmap.
  • Build a culture where Product Design is a strategic partner across Product, Engineering, Data, and Industry teams.
  • Reset expectations around experience quality, process, and user-centered design.
 Lead Design Strategy Across the Product Portfolio
  • Partner with Product leadership to influence roadmap decisions using user insights, experience principles, and holistic design thinking.
  • Own the end-to-end experience strategy across GS1 Canada's digital platforms, ensuring coherence, clarity, and usability.
  • Establish design principles and patterns that scale across complex workflows and data ecosystems.
Hands-On Design Execution
  • Personally design UX flows, wireframes, prototypes, and high-fidelity UI for major initiatives.
  • Collaborate closely with Product and Engineering to iterate quickly and ensure experience quality.
  • Champion accessibility, simplicity, and a consistent design system.
Build a Modern Design Process & Operating System
  • Introduce design rituals that elevate collaboration and design outcomes.
  • Mature and expand our design system and reusable component library.
  • Implement workflows that balance velocity with quality.
Own User Research & Insights
  • Lead a practical, actionable research approach that informs product decisions.
  • Identify research priorities and synthesize insights into clear recommendations.
  • Build lightweight measurement frameworks to track UX improvements.
Own Design Tools & Data-Driven Decision Making
  • Own and optimize design tools (e.g., Figma).
  • Develop strategies for leveraging behavioral data and insights to improve usability.
  • Ensure design decisions are grounded in evidence, not assumptions.
Integrate AI Thoughtfully Into the Experience
  • Identify opportunities to incorporate AI into workflows, automation, and decision support.
  • Partner with Product & Engineering to design intuitive and trustworthy AI-enabled experiences.
  • Bring awareness of emerging AI UX patterns into GS1 Canada's product strategy.
Lead and Mentor the Design Team
  • Manage and develop designers, providing clear direction and coaching.
  • Foster a creative, high-performance culture.
  • Shape future team structure and hiring as the function grows.

Skills, Knowledge & Expertise
  • 8+ years in UX/UI or Product Design (B2B SaaS or data-driven platforms required) with leadership experience.
  • Proven track record of leading design teams in fast-paced, agile environments.
  • A player-coach who excels in both strategy and hands-on design execution.
  • Experience elevating a nascent design function into a strategic, influential capability.
  • Portfolio showcasing strong UX thinking, UI craft, and complex workflow design.
  • Strong systems thinker with experience building design systems.
  • Skilled in user research, usability testing, analytics, and insight synthesis.
  • Familiarity with AI UX patterns and designing AI-enhanced experiences.
  • Proven ability to influence cross-functional partners and raise the quality bar.
  • Hands-on proficiency with modern design tools (Figma required).
  • Entrepreneurial experience and mindset are not required but are considered an asset.

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