Associate Director, Product Design

Who we are Join Embark on our mission to bring joy to dog lovers by offering the world’s best products and services to strengthen their bonds with the dogs in their lives.

Our canine DNA test — named the best by The New York Times — enables us to make scientific advances in personalized pet care.  Designed by world leaders in dog genetics (in partnership with Cornell University), the Embark Dog DNA Test provides information on genetic health risks and breed make-up, allowing dog owners, breeders, and veterinarians to drive personalized care plans based on a dog's unique genetic profile.  Join our pack!

At Embark, our People First culture is centered around building an amazing team and giving everyone an opportunity to have a voice and make an impact.  We are looking for highly motivated and mission-driven employees who will join us as Embark leads the cutting edge of creativity and innovation in the fast-growing consumer genetics space.

About the role We are looking for an Associate Director, Design to drive strategy, execution, and leadership as both a player and coach.

You’ll shape how design empowers pet parents to turn genetic insights into everyday actions, while fostering community and long-term engagement.

This role requires strong strategic thinking, creative facilitation, and the ability to synthesize complex research into clear product direction.

You’ll guide our design team, influence cross-company initiatives, and champion partnerships with brand, marketing, and e-commerce to oversee our design system and product ecosystem.

What you’ll do Strategic discovery, research & facilitation Define and champion Embark's design strategy for personalized pet care experiences by Leading strategic discovery and user research to understand pain points and validate opportunities.

Facilitating cross-functional workshops to align Product, Science, Marketing, and Engineering around user-centered solutions Synthesizing research findings, user feedback, and scientific insights into actionable product opportunities that drive behavioral change, engagement and community.

Systems Thinking & Design Governance Govern the design system across product, marketing, and brand touchpoints Ensure cohesive user experience, brand cohesion and design quality across our product portfolio, app and web surfaces Hands-On Design & Execution Act as a player-coach :

• contributing hands-on design work while mentoring and guiding your team.
• Design and prototype AI / LLM-powered experiences, crafting a variety of UIs and interaction patterns to deliver adaptive interfaces and journeys that encourage the behaviors and habits we aim to inspire.
• Work closely with Product Management and Engineering to translate designs into scalable, performant implementations and manage tradeoffs (latency, caching, data loading) Collaboration & Leadership Partner with Product and Engineering to track key outcomes (activation, engagement, retention) and iteratively refine solutions Connect insights to product roadmap decisions and business outcomes through ongoing leadership collaboration Mentor, coach, and grow design talent—setting a culture of curiosity, craft excellence, and collaboration.
• Build trusted partnerships with leaders across Product, Engineering, Marketing, and Science to ensure alignment of design with business and customer outcomes.

Experience we’re looking for Core Competencies Strong strategic thinking :

Design Craft :

Here are some of our benefits and perks :

Salary :