Director, Product Design

Role

The Director, Product Design will lead the Product Design practice for Manulife’s Canada segment, driving vision, quality, and effective delivery across web and native mobile experiences. This role partners with Research, Product, Engineering, DesignOps & AI, and senior leaders to embed responsible AI, modernize workflows, and scale design capability.

Key Responsibilities

• Strategic design execution (25%): Turn insights into measurable experience improvements; partner across Research, Service Design, Engineering, Product, and senior leadership to deliver business impact. Drive AI‑powered design pilots and set guardrails for responsible adoption.
• Leadership & team development (25%): Lead and grow the design practice; set quality bars and outcomes for Design Leads; recruit, retain, mentor, and upskill teams. Define capability needs and secure resources and training budgets.
• Design delivery & operational excellence (30%): Partner with DesignOps to scale design systems, processes, and tooling; define and track design OKRs (task success, adoption, utilization, time to value). Champion inclusive design and maintain WCAG 2.0 AA conformance while progressing toward WCAG 2.2 AA.
• Cross‑functional influence & communication (20%): Represent design at senior tables, align design execution with strategic priorities, and contribute to the global design leadership community.

Requirements

• 10+ years in product design, including 3+ years leading product design teams.
• Deep expertise across the full product lifecycle (discovery through launch) and strong facilitation of crits, design decision‑making, and QA for web and native mobile.
• Hands‑on experience using AI‑assisted workflows (including vibe‑coding) with the judgment to apply appropriate guardrails and ensure responsible use.
• Portfolio demonstrating measurable outcomes (2–3 case studies showing impact on adoption, satisfaction, efficiency, or revenue‑adjacent metrics).
• Working knowledge of inclusive design and accessibility standards (AODA/WCAG).
• Strong proficiency with Figma and modern design/prototyping tools.

Location & Working Arrangement

• Primary location: Toronto, Ontario. Working arrangement: Hybrid.

Compensation & Benefits

• Referenced salary range (Toronto): 125,100 CAD – 175,100 CAD. Employees may also participate in incentive programs tied to business and individual performance.
• Benefits include health, dental, mental health, vision, short‑ and long‑term disability, life and AD&D insurance, adoption/surrogacy and wellness benefits, employee/family assistance plans, retirement savings plans (including pension and a global share ownership plan with employer matching), financial education and counseling, and generous paid time off and statutory leaves.