Associate Director, Product Design - Go To Market Experiences

About Toast

Our focus is on building the restaurant platform that helps restaurants adapt, take control, and get back to what they do best: building the businesses they love. And because our technology is purpose-built for restaurants, by restaurant people, restaurants can trust that we’ll deliver on their needs for today while investing in experiences that will power their restaurant of the future. We build experiences that help make operating and growing a restaurant and delighting guests easier and scalable. It’s why tens of thousands of restaurant locations love Toast.

About The Roll*

We’re looking for an Associate Director of Product Design with a deep passion for crafting exceptional customer experiences and leading teams to shape the future of our Go To Market experiences at Toast.  

In this role, you’ll drive the design, strategy, and vision that help new customers  onboard to Toast, get support when they need it, and grow their businesses with us as they increase their adoption and usage of the Toast platform. You’ll also guide the evolution of AI-first experiences that simplify complex setup and workflows and empower operators to make better, faster decisions across the Toast platform.

The ideal candidate is a systems thinker who thrives on solving large-scale design challenges. Your portfolio demonstrates an ability to create intuitive, elegant solutions that balance customer goals with business outcomes. You’re a strong advocate for customer-centered design, comfortable working in ambiguity, and skilled at bringing clarity and alignment across teams. You’ll collaborate closely with product and engineering to define strategy, set a high bar for design craft, and inspire your team to push boundaries.

The right ingredients* (Requirements)

• 5+ years of design leadership experience
• 7+ years in a design role
• 1+ years management experience required
• Design end-to-end product experiences that solve complex problems across multiple surfaces and do right by the customer
• Mentor and inspire a high-performing design team, fostering a culture of creativity, design excellence, and impact
• Lead hiring and growth of the Go To Market design team
• Coach team members to continually improve their craft and deliver an exceptional experience
• Regularly conduct design reviews to obtain feedback, iterating on designs to improve results
• Collaborate cross-functionally with product and engineering to understand users, translating that understanding into strategy that drives customer and business outcomes
• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills with an ability to build relationships both within and outside of the product organization
• Lead qualitative and quantitative research to inform design decisions and continuously improve product experiences
• Enduring sense of curiosity with a desire to continuously learn and evolve
• Hands-on proficiency in Figma and other prototyping and design collaboration tools, including platforms like V0, magic patterns, Claude code etc.
• Ability to work core EST hours to collaborate with team members

Special Sauce* (Nonessential Skills/Nice to Haves)

• Restaurant Passion: First hand experience and enthusiasm for the restaurant industry and designing impactful solutions for its unique challenges is something we value highly
• Past Experiences: Experience and passion for designing for go to market motions, product led growth and customer support (chat bots, agent tooling, phone IVRs etc) is a plus. 
• AI-first: As a design team, we’re forward thinking. We bring an AI-first mentality as we design innovative experiences for our customers. Prior experience with this transformational technology is a huge plus. 

About You

You are a dynamic leader with proven impact in previous roles who is ready and willing to take on new challenges! You’re excited to join the remotely distributed group of product designers, user researchers, desi