About the Job: LaunchDarkly is hiring a UX leader to own design for the Foundation pillar, the part of the product that determines how new developers discover, try, and adopt LaunchDarkly. " As the UX Pillar Lead for Foundation, you will sit in the product triad alongside Product Management and Engineering. You'll manage a team of 5 to 7 UX designers working across Foundation and related surfaces.

Foundation's activation challenge is concrete. Roughly 90% of developers who try LaunchDarkly never connect an SDK, and under 1% engage with the features that differentiate us: guarded releases, experimentation, observability. The team is executing against a detailed, evidence-based strategy to fix that.

Your job is to own the design quality and provide the design leadership that makes it work, because you understand developer experience implicitly. The Foundation’s near-term strategy is not waiting to be discovered. The activation problem is specific, the evidence is clear, and the triad has momentum.

This role is for someone who wants to lead execution against a well-defined direction, not build an org from scratch or define the problem set at the outset.

Responsibilities

: Design quality and planning Lead UX strategy and design quality for the Foundation pillar: the trial experience, activation flows, onboarding, and packaging surfaces that determine whether a developer stays. Hold the Foundation pillar to the UX quality bar across all surfaces. When something ships from Foundation, it should meet the established standards.

Maintain current design capacity planning: scoped, estimated, and sequenced work that gives the teams accurate visibility into what UX can deliver and when. Triad partnership Sit in the Foundation triad as a co-owner of product direction alongside PM and Engineering. Bring user evidence, design perspective, and experience strategy to prioritization, not just execution.

Advocate for users in roadmap conversations. " before the team commits, not after. People development Manage and develop a team of 5–7 UX designers, including Staff and Senior ICs.

Provide specific, actionable feedback that builds capability on the wider team. Run and participate in UX critique. Give direct, specific feedback and build critique culture within the design team, and within the wider organization.

Org and cross-pillar work Lead cross-pillar design coordination for surfaces that span Foundation, Experimentation, Guardian, and AgentControl. Identify and resolve experience seams before they ship. Partner with the Head of UX on hiring, org planning, and quality standards for the broader UX function.

About You: You believe design leadership is a craft, not a title. You've thought carefully about what good management looks like, and your direct reports can describe specific ways they've grown under you. You hold a high bar on quality and don't fold on it when timelines tighten.

You can make the case for quality in terms your PM and engineering partners find compelling. You're energized by activation UX: the space between a developer signing up and building something real. That's some of the most interesting and high-leverage product design work out there.

Your engineering and PM counterparts would describe you as a peer, not a vendor. You show up to triad conversations with a perspective, you bring evidence, and you commit once a call is made. Foundation's problems are real, specific, and evidence-backed.

You want problems with clear evidence behind them, not vague mandates. You understand how developers experience products from the inside. You've used SDKs, worked on design systems, or built alongside engineers long enough to know where the friction lives.

Director, UX