Published: Jan 16, 2026 - The Design Lead oversees the creation of comprehensive user experiences by shaping product, brand, marketing, and content strategies across diverse applications. This role manages design teams, collaborates with key stakeholders, and guides research and client meetings to drive project direction. The lead also develops prototypes, produces interaction documentation, and delivers innovative solutions for complex client challenges.

Tips for Design Lead Skills and Responsibilities on a Resume
1. Design Lead, BrightRiver Creative Studio, Austin, TX
Job Summary:
- Lead multiple projects simultaneously from ideation to execution
- Apply HCD principles and strategic design thinking to transform systems and services, and create cross-platform, multi-channel digital experiences
- Bolster a collaborative, creative environment that embraces experimentation and learning on projects
- Actively collaborate with designers, researchers, product managers, engineers, and other team members to conceive and ship transformative experiences
- Direct project design outputs through constructive and critical feedback, hands-on contributions, and strategic communication
- Collaborate with design managers to develop designers' skills and capabilities
- Contribute to defining and improving the design culture of critiques, testing, research and education, while helping to guide the future of TWG's design process
- Contribute to managing client relationships, advocate for TWG's design process
Skills on Resume:
- Lead Projects (Soft Skills)
- Strategic Thinking (Hard Skills)
- Collaborative Leadership (Soft Skills)
- Cross-Functional Coordination (Soft Skills)
- Design Direction (Hard Skills)
- Talent Development (Soft Skills)
- Process Improvement (Hard Skills)
- Client Management (Soft Skills)
2. Design Lead, Maple & Oak Digital, Portland, OR
Job Summary:
- Owning design problems end-to-end, from initial concept through shipping and beyond
- Creating wireframes and prototypes to solve difficult UX problems
- Obsessing over the details of visual design
- Building a consistent brand and experience across all aspects of the product
- Designing systems to make simple, elegant experiences that belie the complexity of the underlying technology
- Working with the product to define requirements, not just translate them to design
- Identifying future opportunities, working as a key thought partner to counterparts in product, engineering, and ops
- Collaborating with engineers to build amazing designs
- Ship, measure, and improve designs based on quantitative and qualitative feedback
Skills on Resume:
- UX Prototyping (Hard Skills)
- Visual Design (Hard Skills)
- Brand Consistency (Hard Skills)
- System Design (Hard Skills)
- Requirement Definition (Soft Skills)
- Opportunity Identification (Soft Skills)
- Cross-Functional Collaboration (Soft Skills)
- Design Iteration (Hard Skills)
3. Senior Visual Design Lead, BluePeak UX Agency, Denver, CO
Job Summary:
- Develops and executes strategies across multiple product touch points (physical and digital)
- Focus on design language, quality, and making sure that the product design appropriately reflects and expresses the brand
- Provides meaningful guidance on all visual and brand implementations
- Collaborates with designers and partners across the business to evangelize and advocate for the team's designs
- Finds solutions that balance the business vs. user needs, resolves conflicts through strong collaboration and partnership
- Proactively identifies opportunities for process improvement and efficiency opportunities
- Manages deliverables, schedules, and costs for multiple ongoing projects, ensuring that goals, objectives, timelines, and budgets are met in accordance with program and organizational roadmaps
- Possesses leadership qualities to influence, mentor and promote collaboration across peers and partners
Skills on Resume:
- Design Strategy (Hard Skills)
- Brand Alignment (Hard Skills)
- Visual Guidance (Hard Skills)
- Design Advocacy (Soft Skills)
- Needs Balancing (Soft Skills)
- Process Improvement (Hard Skills)
- Project Management (Hard Skills)
- Collaborative Leadership (Soft Skills)
4. Design Lead, NovaPath Interactive, Raleigh, NC
Job Summary:
- Join a product team and own design throughout the product development lifecycle, from discovery and research all the way to detailed interactions and polished visuals
- Partner with Engineers, Data Scientists, PMs, and CX to elevate the product experience for individual clients (B2C), government agencies (B2B), and Promise internal teams (Operations and CS)
- Work closely with a marketing agency and internal stakeholders to define and boost the Promise brand across different audiences and verticals
- Technical and personnel management of the Logic Design Team
- Technical management of the micro-architecture and logic design of Machine Learning ASICs
- Collaborate with the Architecture and Software teams on the definition of the ASIC architecture and micro-architecture
- Collaborate with Product Marketing, Architecture, Verification and Physical Design teams towards optimal area, performance and power targets
- Aggressively drive low-power techniques, DVFS, multiple voltage domains, and power states
- Collaborate with the Silicon Validation Team towards efficient and timely silicon bring-up and validation
- Collaborate with the Office of the CTO, Technologists and Architects in the definition of Groq’s Silicon Roadmap
Skills on Resume:
- Product Design (Hard Skills)
- Cross-Functional Collaboration (Soft Skills)
- Brand Development (Hard Skills)
- Team Management (Soft Skills)
- Logic Design (Hard Skills)
- Architecture Coordination (Hard Skills)
- Power Optimization (Hard Skills)
- Silicon Validation (Hard Skills)
5. UX Design Lead, PixelForge Innovations, Columbus, OH
Job Summary:
- Refine the Design strategic and experience design philosophies, processes and systems to improve the quality of output
- Lead experience design engagements with key clients including designing and running workshops, presenting outputs and pitching in solutions
- Work alongside the creative craft to ensure Dentsu delivers world-class experiences, providing strategic guidance and design thinking to solve the right client problems and grow their businesses
- Develop customer journey maps, user flows, wireframes, information architecture, user stories and prototypes based on user needs
- Work with Visual Designers to bring the wireframes to life with beautiful design
- Work alongside the delivery and client services teams to support the planning of client strategies and engagements to ensure efficient and effective approaches
- Mentor the wider team to build design thinking skills and capabilities among the strategy, creative and experience design teams
- Work closely with Agency Heads to grow client relationships
- Help drive key new business pitches
- Help to onboard new employees to drive understanding and investment in HCD principles
- Proactively identify opportunities to integrate with other crafts to deliver holistic approaches and solutions across Dentsu's offerings
Skills on Resume:
- Design Strategy (Hard Skills)
- Workshop Leadership (Soft Skills)
- Experience Design (Hard Skills)
- Journey Mapping (Hard Skills)
- Visual Collaboration (Soft Skills)
- Client Planning (Soft Skills)
- Team Mentorship (Soft Skills)
- Relationship Building (Soft Skills)
6. Design Lead, HarborLine Media, Charleston, SC
Job Summary:
- Lead a team consisting of a 3D Motion Designer, a Graphic Designer and a 3D Intern
- Ensure that design and branding are consistent throughout all channels (website, socials, still images, videos, etc.)
- Help create conceptually interesting, clear and cohesive narratives
- Lead storyboarding, style frames and mood boards
- Art Direct the avatars, poses, lighting, camera angles, environments, video editing, music, motion graphics, visual effects, cloth simulation and colour correction processes
- Create planning timelines together with the Production team
- Oversee the budgets/resources to execute and know how to work within the limitations
- Create consistent feedback rounds and translate them back to the teams clearly, alongside set tasks
- Organizing creative project reviews with the teams to improve their process
Skills on Resume:
- Team Leadership (Soft Skills)
- Brand Consistency (Hard Skills)
- Narrative Development (Hard Skills)
- Storyboard Direction (Hard Skills)
- Art Direction (Hard Skills)
- Project Planning (Soft Skills)
- Budget Oversight (Hard Skills)
- Feedback Management (Soft Skills)
7. Design Lead, Redwood Experience Lab, Sacramento, CA
Job Summary:
- Responsible for applicable activities, responsibilities, knowledge and skills covered in the Technician and Engineering Associate descriptions
- Lead/supervise a team of technicians, engineers and/or scientists (design, fabrication, assembly, test, and/or installation)
- Set up or supervise an experiment in the lab, and analyze results with enough understanding of the results to make modifications or offer suggestions for additional analysis or testing
- Install diagnostics and complete the setup for testing
- Identify solutions to problems
- Prepare and submit for review task or project progress reports
- Obtain project deliverables, overseeing the necessary processes to ensure deliverables form, fit and function
- Take an approved concept and either create a drawing package and fabricate parts, or supervise the process
- Anticipate, plan, and manage manpower requirements
- Understand the company’s Quality Assurance Program and apply appropriate quality standards to a specific program
- Recognize potential business/work and communicate to the appropriate level
Skills on Resume:
- Team Supervision (Soft Skills)
- Experiment Setup (Hard Skills)
- Data Analysis (Hard Skills)
- Diagnostic Installation (Hard Skills)
- Problem Solving (Soft Skills)
- Progress Reporting (Soft Skills)
- Quality Compliance (Hard Skills)
- Resource Planning (Soft Skills)
8. Design Lead, Suncrest Digital Works, Phoenix, AZ
Job Summary:
- Collaborate with clients and internal teams to design the overall user experience for a wide variety of applications
- Addressing things like product, brand, marketing and content strategy
- Manage designers and build out opportunities for career growth and professional development
- Interact with key decision makers to deliver and drive projects (CIO, CTO, Directors, and business stakeholders)
- Plan, conduct, and lead client project meetings
- Deliver prototypes, from low to high fidelity, and visual design solutions based on client insights and feedback
- Create wireframes and user interaction documentation
- Assist clients in understanding their customers through research and usability evaluations
- Bring unique, creative, and modern solutions to solve complex client problems
Skills on Resume:
- User Experience (Hard Skills)
- Strategy Development (Hard Skills)
- Team Management (Soft Skills)
- Stakeholder Engagement (Soft Skills)
- Client Facilitation (Soft Skills)
- Prototype Design (Hard Skills)
- Wireframe Creation (Hard Skills)
- Usability Research (Hard Skills)
9. NOC Design Lead, Nightjar Design Co., Tulsa, OK
Job Summary:
- Acts as a technical lead for design teams
- Reviews and helps write proposals or roadmaps for complex products
- Consults with staff engineers to ensure they understand testing and/or design requirements for products
- Drives the development of and changes to design rules and processes for electronic hardware, equipment, and/or integrated circuitry
- Serves as a Subject Matter Expert (SME) to multiple teams in their department
- Suggests modifications to device specification sheets based on their expertise and anticipation of needs for hardware testing/design of future products
- Identifies ways to add value to existing products and testing procedures
- Advises teams on various operating conditions and configurations to help identify innovative and cost-efficient ways to optimize testing procedures and/or hardware designs
- Creates a culture that promotes and drives innovative solutions for process improvement
- Advises multiple teams of engineers on how to evaluate various design features for potential flaws (electrical, mechanical, hardware), compatibility issues, and/or compliance issues
- Leads teams of engineers within the department on ways to document various materials, components, chipsets, and how functions interact
Skills on Resume:
- Technical Leadership (Soft Skills)
- Proposal Development (Hard Skills)
- Design Consultation (Hard Skills)
- Process Optimization (Hard Skills)
- Subject Expertise (Hard Skills)
- Specification Review (Hard Skills)
- Innovation Culture (Soft Skills)
- Design Evaluation (Hard Skills)
10. NOC Design Lead, SilverHawk Branding, Boise, ID
Job Summary:
- Identifies potential compatibility, safety, or compliance issues
- Leads troubleshooting efforts and shares troubleshooting expertise with teams of engineers to help identify best practices and solutions to advanced issues identified in designs
- Serves as a technical expert for teams of engineers that work with internal customers to help address various questions related to materials, production, assembly, and/or testing of hardware
- Acts as a tech lead on major projects across multiple teams to ensure they are driven to completion
- Provides technical expertise and consultation to a variety of engineering project teams
- Manages and monitors the progress of multiple engineering project teams working on similar projects being completed across multiple geographic locations and time zones
- Leverages the network and collaborates with other departments to develop IPs
- Communicates effectively with the legal department regarding IP requirements
- Utilizes deep knowledge of the IP process to guide more junior engineers
- Acts as an expert resource to others on matters related to industry trends, competitor products, and advances in various engineering fields, from publicly available information
- Shares expertise within and/or across teams
Skills on Resume:
- Compatibility Assessment (Hard Skills)
- Advanced Troubleshooting (Hard Skills)
- Technical Consultation (Hard Skills)
- Project Leadership (Soft Skills)
- Progress Monitoring (Soft Skills)
- IP Development (Hard Skills)
- Legal Communication (Soft Skills)
- Industry Expertise (Hard Skills)
11. NOC Design Lead, Lakeshore Product Studio, Madison, WI
Job Summary:
- Advises multiple teams of engineers on best practices for conducting specialized analyses (e.g., feasibility studies, signal integrity, power integrity, teardown analyses)
- Develops design implementation, analysis, methodology, flows, and automation for the development and validation of System on Chip, electronic parts, components, integrated circuitry, and packaging
- Provides design solutions to evaluate, characterize and develop the design implementation solution for leading-edge products in the most advanced processes
- Interfaces with various cross-functional teams to drive and incorporate the latest design solutions in the production program to improve yield, productivity, and quality
- Working independently with no supervision
- Using verbal and written communication skills to convey complex and/or detailed information to multiple individuals/audiences with differing knowledge levels
- Completing tasks that require multiple steps that can be performed in various orders, tasks require simultaneously executing multiple cognitive abilities and maintaining information in short or long-term memory
- Regularly determines what needs to be done and is involved with sharing innovative solutions to achieve broad policies and objectives
- Participates in strategic planning within their own area, affecting immediate operations
Skills on Resume:
- Specialized Analysis (Hard Skills)
- Design Implementation (Hard Skills)
- Advanced Methodology (Hard Skills)
- Cross-Functional Integration (Soft Skills)
- Independent Execution (Soft Skills)
- Complex Communication (Soft Skills)
- Multitask Processing (Soft Skills)
- Strategic Planning (Soft Skills)