VP of Design

About The Role:

Maven is building the leading platform in women's and family health. Design is central to how we earn member trust, differentiate in market, and deliver on our clinical mission at scale. We are looking for a VP of Design to lead product design, brand design, and user research — and to help position Maven as a design leader in healthcare.

This is an AI-native role. We expect the person in this seat to use AI to move faster, think bigger, and raise the bar on what a small, high-performing team can produce. That means modernizing how the design org works — from research to production to cross-functional collaboration — and helping the rest of the company understand what's possible when design operates at its best.

This role reports to the Chief Product Officer and sits at the intersection of business strategy, product craft, and brand. You'll lead a team of roughly 15 designers, translate company goals into design priorities, and bring a point of view that influences decisions at the executive level.

We're looking for a leader who is close to the work, relentless about quality, and genuinely energized by the challenge of moving fast without losing craft.

What You'll Do:

• Translate company goals into clear design priorities — and make sure the team is working on the things that move the needle
• Drive conversion, member engagement, and clinical outcomes through design, not just aesthetics
• Be a credible voice in executive forums: able to articulate why a design decision matters in terms of growth, retention, or clinical quality
• Navigate the complexity of serving two distinct audiences — members seeking care and employer/health plan clients configuring programs — without compromising either

Set the vision and position Maven as a design leader

• Define a cohesive design vision across consumer and enterprise products, brand, and research
• Build and champion a design system that creates consistency at speed
• Establish the standards and culture that make great work repeatable, not accidental
• Bring a genuine point of view on what world-class healthcare design looks like — and help Maven earn that reputation publicly

Lead product design across Maven's core programs

• Partner with product and engineering to deliver exceptional experiences across maternity, fertility & family building, parenting & pediatrics, and menopause
• Lead the design of AI-native product experiences — conversational interfaces, agent-driven workflows, adaptive onboarding — with clarity about what AI enables and where human judgment matters most

Own brand design end to end

• Lead Maven's visual identity and brand expression across enterprise marketing, consumer product, and clinical communications
• Partner with go-to-market, clinical, and executive teams to maintain a brand that is distinctive, trustworthy, and mission-aligned
• Oversee agency partnerships and brand production pipelines

Modernize how the team works

• Build an AI-native design practice: use AI tools to accelerate research synthesis, prototyping, production, and quality review — and establish workflows that become a model for the rest of the org
• Create the conditions to ship faster without sacrificing craft: clear prioritization, strong feedback loops, shared standards, and a culture that celebrates both speed and quality
• Embed user research as a core input to every decision, not a separate track that runs behind the work

Build and develop the team

• Lead, grow, and retain a team of product designers and brand designers
• Create real career paths and give designers the context they need to do their best work
• Champion accessibility and equity in design practice

What You'll Bring:

• 10+ years of design experience, including 4+ years leading multidisciplinary design teams in a product-led company
• A strong portfolio that demonstrates craft across both product design and brand — you have taste, and you can articulate why it matters
• Proven ability to connect design priorities to business goals — you think in outcomes, not outputs
• AI-native working style: you use AI tools daily, you've built workflows around them, and you have strong opinions about how they change what a design team can do
• Experience shipping AI-driven or conversational product experiences, or clear conviction about how to approach them
• Proven experience building and scaling design systems in complex product environments
• Experience running user research as a core function, not an afterthought
• A track record of partnering effectively with Product, Engineering, and Marketing at the executive level
• Strong communication and storytelling skills — you can present to a CEO and give a designer line-by-line feedback on the same day
• High standards and low ego: confident in your point of view, collaborative in how you get there
• Experience in healthcare, benefits, or complex B2B/B2C hybrid businesses is a strong plus
• Experience building brands in mission-driven or regulated industries is a plus

The base salary range for this role is $250,000 – $350,000 per year. You will also be entitled to receive equity and benefits. Individual pay decisions are based on a number of factors, including qualifications for the role, experience level, and skillset.

Maven embraces a flexible hybrid work model. Our teams primarily operate from the New York Metropolitan area, NY, and remotely via San Francisco/Bay Area, CA, Seattle, WA. For those in our New York City office, we encourage in-person collaboration by requiring team members to work onsite three days a week (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday). For those based in Boston, DC, Chicago, Seattle, and San Francisco, we encourage in-person collaboration by requiring team members to attend monthly Work Together Days within these cities. This policy aims to balance remote work flexibility with the benefits of face-to-face interaction.