New

Director of Design Technology

The Trade Desk
$243,800-$304,700 USD
life insurance, parental leave, paid holidays, sick time, tuition reimbursement, 401(k), retirement plan

May 26, 2026
The Trade Desk is a global technology company and the world's leading independent platform for digital advertising, with nearly 4,000 employees across more than 30 offices. Our technology helps advertisers reach the right audiences across the open internet - from streaming TV and podcasts to mobile apps, news, and more. Advertising powers the content people love. By making it more transparent, effective, and responsible, we help support trusted journalism, quality entertainment, and creators worldwide. The world's brands and agencies rely on us to reach their customers and grow their businesses responsibly. The scale of our platform brings unique technical challenges - from processing massive datasets in real time to building systems that operate reliably on a global scale. When you work here, your impact is worldwide. We welcome diverse perspectives, encourage curiosity, and build teams that learn from one another. If you're driven to solve meaningful challenges, we'd love to meet you. Who We Are Looking For The Trade Desk is seeking an innovative Director of Design Technology to lead thetechnical design practice within our global UX Design organization. This is a seniorleadership role responsible for shaping the tools, systems, AI capabilities, andengineering workflows that power how our design team creates and scales world-classproduct experiences. The Trade Desk is transforming the way advertising is bought, sold, and consumed as aglobal leader in the programmatic industry. As this industry continues to evolve, you andyour team will play a critical role in bridging the worlds of design and engineering -ensuring our platform remains not only powerful, but intuitive, elegant, and highlyeffective for advertisers and agency partners. Our industry is complicated, but we don'tbelieve our platform should be. As Director of Design Technology, you will play a critical role in shaping our designsystem - contributing deep technical expertise to its evolution while partnering closelywith the team that owns it. You will also lead our prototyping infrastructure and AItooling strategy, enabling our designers to move faster and ship with greater confidence.You will bring a rare combination of design sensibility, engineering rigor, and a genuinepassion for emerging AI technologies - from generative UI and LLM-assisted workflowsto intelligent automation across the design lifecycle.You will serve as a strategic partner to Product, Engineering, and UX Leadership - not only advocating for design craft but building the technical foundation that makesexcellence possible at scale. This role reports directly to the Vice President of UX Designand is a key member of the UX leadership team at The Trade Desk. What You Will Be Doing As Director of Design Technology at The Trade Desk, you will: Shape & Advance the Design System Play a critical role in shaping the evolution of The Trade Desk's UX design system,bringing deep technical expertise and a strong point of view on scalability,consistency, and adoption * Collaborate closely with the design system's owners to influence tokenarchitecture, component governance, and versioning strategy * Champion design-to-code pipelines that reduce friction between design and front-end development teams * Contribute to and help maintain the shared component library, ensuring itreflects the highest standard of craft across all product surfacesLead AI Capabilities, Innovation & Tooling * Serve as the UX Design team's primary strategist and practitioner for AI-assisteddesign workflows, setting direction across tooling, automation, and generativecapabilities * Evaluate, pilot, and implement AI tools across the design lifecycle - from ideationand wireframing to UI generation, copy assistance, and automated design QA * Build and maintain an AI tooling roadmap that keeps the design team ahead ofthe curve on LLM-powered prototyping, layout generation, and intelligent designsystems * Partner with engineering and data science teams to explore how AI capabilitieswithin The Trade Desk platform can be surfaced through smarter, more intuitiveUX patterns * Develop internal frameworks and playbooks for responsible, effective AI use indesign - balancing innovation with quality, consistency, and accessibility * Identify opportunities to automate repetitive design and documentation tasks,freeing the team to focus on high-value creative and strategic work * Stay current with the rapidly evolving AI tooling landscape - including Figma AI,Cursor, v0, and generative image and video tools - and make timely, evidence-based recommendations to leadershipDrive Cross-Functional Influence * Act as the primary liaison between Design, Engineering, and Product to ensuretechnical feasibility and design integrity across all initiatives * Lead and mentor a team of design technologists, prototypers, and front-end-fluentdesigners * Partner with engineering leadership to align on shared APIs, componentstandards, and documentation practices * Evaluate the broader design tool ecosystem and make strategic recommendationson tooling investment and migration * Build deep trust with senior leaders and serve as a thought partner on designtechnology strategyEnsure Design Excellence at Scale * Set and uphold the technical quality bar for design deliverables, prototypes, andproduction hand-offs * Develop best practices for high-fidelity and functional prototyping, including data-connected and AI-powered prototype experiences * Drive workflow improvements that measurably increase design team velocity andoutput quality * Champion accessibility, responsive design, and multi-platform implementationstandards across all design work * Conduct design technology reviews and provide high-level strategic guidance onimplementation approachOperational Leadership * Establish and optimize design technology processes that scale across teams andgeographies * Lead through rapid growth, evolving product demands, and cross-teamdependencies * Measure and communicate the impact of design tooling and AI adoption throughmeaningful productivity and quality metrics * Represent the UX Design team's technology perspective in planning cycles androadmap discussionsIndustry Presence & Thought Leadership * Represent The Trade Desk at industry events and design technology conferences * Position TTD as a company at the forefront of AI-enabled design practice * Contribute to broader UX and design technology community conversations, open-source tooling, and innovation What You Bring to the Table You are an experienced design technology leader with a proven track record of buildingthe systems, tools, and AI-powered workflows that enable great design teams to do theirbest work. You possess a strong technical foundation, a genuine design sensibility, andthe strategic thinking to connect tooling investment to real business and user outcomes. You are driven by craft, energized by emerging technology, and skilled at leadingthrough influence in complex, cross-functional organizations. * Bachelor's degree in Design, Computer Science, Interaction Design, or a relatedfield (Master's preferred) * 10+ years of experience in design technology, design engineering, or a closelyrelated discipline * 5+ years in a leadership or management role overseeing design technology ordesign systems teams * Deep expertise in Figma - including variables, advanced components, Dev Mode,and Figma AI features * Strong proficiency in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript - able to read, write, andcritique front-end code with confidence * Proven track record building and scaling design systems across large, complexenterprise or platform-based products * Demonstrated hands-on experience with AI tools in a design context - includinggenerative UI, LLM-assisted workflows, and AI-powered prototyping * Strong executive presence with experience presenting to VP-level and seniorleadership * Exceptional communication and storytelling skills with the ability to translatetechnical concepts for design audiences and design thinking for engineeringteams * Experience leading multi-disciplinary teams across design technology,prototyping, and front-end design * Deep understanding of systems thinking and scalable design infrastructure * Ability to navigate ambiguity and drive clarity in complex, fast-movingenvironments * Working knowledge of machine learning concepts as they apply to UX -including intelligent defaults, predictive UI, and model-assisted design decisions(preferred) * Experience in adtech, martech, or enterprise SaaS with complex data-denseinterfaces (preferred) * Contributions to open-source design tooling or published design systemdocumentation (preferred) * Portfolio demonstrating design system leadership, AI tooling strategy, andmeasurable impact on team productivity and product quality Why This Role Matters At The Trade Desk, each opportunity to engage a consumer is unique. Our platformprovides advertisers and agencies with extraordinary power to describe and reach theirtarget audiences. As that power grows, so does the responsibility to make it usable,intuitive, and elegant. Design technology is not just infrastructure - it is the foundation on which great designis built, scaled, and delivered. And AI is rapidly changing what that foundation can do. As Director of Design Technology, you will shape the future of how our UX team works,influence the direction of our platform, and build a design technology practice that setsthe standard for the industry. If you are energized by the intersection of design craft,engineering excellence, and the transformative potential of AI - this is your role. The Trade Desk does not accept unsolicited resumes from search firm recruiters. Fees will not be paid in the event a candidate submitted by a recruiter without an agreement in place is hired; such resumes will be deemed the sole property of The Trade Desk. The Trade Desk is an equal opportunity employer. All aspects of employment will be based on merit, competence, performance, and business needs. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, marital status, age, national origin, ancestry, physical or mental disability, medical condition, pregnancy, genetic information, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran status, or any other status protected under federal, state, or local law. [LA JOBS ONLY] The Trade Desk will consider qualified applicants with criminal histories for employment in a manner consistent with the requirements of the Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring, Ordinance No. 184652. [SF JOBS ONLY] Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records. In accordance with various US state laws, the range provided is the Trade Desk's reasonable estimate of the base compensation for this role. The actual amount may differ based on non-discriminatory factors such as experience, knowledge, skills, and location.All employees may be eligible to become The Trade Desk shareholders through eligibility for stock-based compensation grants, which are awarded to employees based on company and individual performance. The Trade Desk also offers other compensation depending on the role such as variable compensation-based incentives and commissions. Plus, expected benefits for this role include comprehensive healthcare (medical, dental, and vision) with premiums paid in full for employees and dependents, retirement benefits such as a 401k plan and company match, short and long-term disability coverage, basic life insurance, well-being benefits, reimbursement for certain tuition expenses, parental leave, sick time of 1 hour per 30 hours worked, vacation time for full-time employees up to 120 hours thru the first year and 160 hours thereafter, and around 13 paid holidays per year. Employees can also purchase The Trade Desk stock at a discount through The Trade Desk's Employee Stock Purchase Plan. The Trade Desk also offers a competitive benefits package. Click here to learn more. Note: Interns are not eligible for variable incentive awards such as stock-based compensation, retirement plan, vacation, tuition reimbursement or parental leave At the Trade Desk, Base Salary is one part of our competitive total compensation and benefits package and is determined using a salary range. The base salary range for this role is $243,800 — $304,700 USD As an Equal Opportunity Employer, The Trade Desk is committed to creating an inclusive hiring experience where everyone has the opportunity to thrive. Please reach out to us ataccommodations@thetradedesk.comto request an accommodation or discuss any accessibility needs you may require to access our Company Website or navigate any part of the hiring process. When you contact us, please include your preferred contact details and specify the nature of your accommodation request or questions. Any information you share will be handled confidentially and will not impact our hiring decisions.