Design Team Lead - 12 Months Contract - On-Site - UAE - Octopus by RTG

Role purpose: Lead the enterprise Design Studio as a scalable design function, combining people leadership, DesignOps, Figma and DLS governance, production-grade AI design, and strong executive stakeholder influence. Key Responsibilities 1. Team Leadership

• Lead and develop a large multidisciplinary team across UX, UI, Product Design, Design Systems and DesignOps.
• Assess current team skills, seniority and capacity; maintain a skills matrix and close gaps through hiring and upskilling.
• Allocate designers by project need, complexity and capacity, and build the next layer of design leadership. 2. DesignOps & Scaled Design Process
• Define a scalable design lifecycle from intake to UX, UI, Design QA, developer handover and release.
• Set clear gates, Definition of Done and SLAs for projects, BAU requests, audits and change requests.
• Manage demand, capacity and priorities, and track KPIs such as turnaround, rework, DLS adoption and stakeholder satisfaction. 3. Figma Enterprise & DLS Governance
• Own the structure and governance of a complex Figma Enterprise environment: teams, projects, libraries, access and file lifecycle.
• Ensure approved designs are clearly separated from working, experimental and archived files.
• Own the Design Language System as a product: contribution, versioning, release and alignment with coded components. 4. AI-Enabled Design
• Move AI beyond POCs into governed, repeatable production workflows across research, UX, UI, DLS documentation, Design QA and design-to-code.
• Define approved tools, reusable workflows and human review points, compliant with enterprise security and the DLS.
• Measure AI impact on productivity, cycle time, quality and consistency. 5. Presentation, Storytelling & Stakeholder Management
• Act as the voice of the Design Studio with senior leadership, business, technology teams and vendors.
• Turn complex design and AI topics into clear business stories: problem, user need, rationale, impact and recommendation.
• Influence decisions, align competing priorities and challenge requirements constructively. 6. Cross-Team & External Design Governance
• Establish a federated model so internal, project and vendor design teams follow common standards.
• Run onboarding, design reviews and audits for work produced outside the Studio, and prevent parallel design systems.
• MUST: Proven corporate / large-enterprise experience, working within complex organizational structures, governance processes and senior stakeholder environments.
• 12+ years in UX/UI, Product or Experience Design, including 5+ years leading multidisciplinary design teams.
• Experience leading a large or distributed design organization and establishing a DesignOps operating model.
• Strong hands-on Figma Enterprise expertise (libraries, variables, permissions, Dev Mode, governance).
• Proven experience building or governing an enterprise-scale design system / DLS.
• Practical experience running AI-assisted design workflows in production, not only POCs.
• Strong design-to-development collaboration with engineering teams.
• Exceptional executive presentation, storytelling and stakeholder-management skills. Leadership Profile
• Design Leader: credible direction across UX, UI and product design.
• People Leader: builds and grows a large multidisciplinary team.
• DesignOps Leader: turns people, process, Figma and DLS into one operating model.
• AI Design Leader: makes AI part of daily delivery, with measurable value.
• Storyteller & Influencer: simplifies complex problems and wins senior alignment. What Success Looks Like
• Clear roles, processes and standards, with work allocated by capability and capacity.
• A structured, governed and scalable Figma environment and a widely adopted DLS.
• Internal and external design teams working to common standards.
• AI embedded in day-to-day design delivery with measurable results.
• The Design Studio recognized by senior stakeholders as a strategic capability.