VP, Product Design

About Us
Powered by one of the largest global newsrooms in sports media, The Athletic brings sports fans the most comprehensive stories about the teams, sports and athletes they love. The Athletic ’s newsroom of 500+ full-time staff delivers in-depth coverage of hundreds of professional and college teams across more than 47 North American markets and all 20 football clubs in the English Premier League, as well as many Championship clubs.

About the Role

The Athletic is redefining what a sports app is. We need a design leader who is hands-on, opinionated, and genuinely obsessed with sports, with a clear vision for what the "essential sports app" becomes over the next several years.

This role is reporting into our Chief Product Officer.

This role is 100% remote for candidates based in the United States or Canada.

Responsibilities

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Product vision and prototyping the future. We want working prototypes and opinionated concepts that demonstrate what the next-generation sports app looks like, and where the biggest opportunity is for us to lead. You own the process and the design output behind ongoing strategic visioning with cross-functional leadership, driving toward decisions the exec team rallies behind.

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A strategic voice in product direction, with real weight in the business. You bring informed, data-backed points of view to planning, and help design shape where the product goes. You partner directly with the VP Eng, the VP Data, and the CPO on the business priorities and metrics that matter, and you make sure design has a seat at the table.

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Day-to-day craft leadership. You stay in the work: reviewing flows, jumping into Figma, and prototyping directly alongside your team.

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AI-native transformation of the design practice. You set the direction for how design works in an AI-native world, covering tools, workflows, and team structure, so that velocity and craft rise together.

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Org leadership and performance. You build, coach, and manage a design org (~10) that can operate at this level, with clear accountability for what each team and person delivers.

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Collaboration. You are part of the leadership team of The Athletic . As such, your role goes beyond “design” and you work hand in hand with the other leads (engineering, product, data, marketing, commercial etc.).

Requirements

- Someone who is a sports fan first, who uses the product, has opinions about it, and lets that passion show up in the work.

- A design leader with a track record of hands-on craft at senior levels. We want to see recent, personal work.

- Experience leading a design org through a step-change in how it works, ideally involving AI tooling and workflow, at a company shipping consumer product at scale.

- Strong, well-argued opinions about what makes a sports product, or a comparable habit-forming consumer product, great, along with the conviction to defend them in a room of product and engineering leaders.

- Comfort operating in ambiguity.

- Nice to have: experience starting or running your own company or side project.

- This is a remote-based role requiring some regular travel.

The annual base salary range for this role is $270,000.00 - $295,000.00 USD. The total compensation offered for this position may vary based on factors such as education, experience, skills, and location. It may also include non-cash rewards and benefits. The base salary range is subject to change and may be modified in the future.

For roles in the U.S., dependent on your role, you may be eligible for variable pay, such as an annual bonus and restricted stock. Benefits may include medical, dental and vision benefits, Flexible Spending Accounts (F.S.A.s), a company-matching 401(k) plan, paid vacation, paid sick days, paid parental leave, tuition reimbursement and professional development programs.
For roles outside of the U.S., information on benefits will be provided during the interview process.

We are excited to learn more about yo