A fractional design director for SaaS and AI teams
Director is a fractional design lead for funded SaaS and AI teams. You get a senior head of design several days a month, running several tracks at once, from product and brand strategy to UI, plus direction for the designers you already have. From US$18k/mo, month to month.
Who it’s for
- Funded teams with zero to three designers and no design lead.
- Founders who make every design call themselves and know it doesn’t scale.
- Teams about to hire their first or second designer and unsure what good looks like.
What a fractional design director does
Strategy
Product and brand direction tied to the roadmap.
Direction
Critique, standards and decisions for your designers, so the work stays consistent.
Hiring and team
Role definitions, hiring briefs, portfolio reviews and interviews.
Design ops
A design system, rituals and a clear path from design to engineering.
Hands-on work
Everything in Partner, run as several tracks in parallel.
Fractional or full-time head of design?
A full-time head of design makes sense when the team is big enough to need daily management. Before that, a fractional lead gives you senior judgment without a senior salary and without the hiring risk. Many teams use Director to set up the system and hire the first designer, then step down to Partner.
Price
From US$18k/mo, month to month, no long contract. It includes everything in Partner, with several tracks at once.
Compare it with Launch and Partner on engagements and pricing.
Further reading
- When should a startup hire its first product designer?When a startup should hire its first product designer, what to have in place before that hire, and how a design partner can bridge the gap until then.
- In-house, agency, or AI: who should design your productBuild, buy, or generate is not a budget question. It is a question about where judgment has to live.
- Making a B2B SaaS look enterprise-readyWhat enterprise buyers judge in your product, brand and website before they trust you, and whether you need a full redesign or a focused polish first.
FAQ
A senior design lead who works part-time across your product, brand and team, instead of a full-time hire.
Mostly the title. Both set direction, review the work and build the team.
Yes. Hiring briefs, portfolio reviews and interviews are part of Director.
Yes. Partner (from US$6k/mo) covers one focus at a time.
Tell us about your team and what’s stuck
A short note about the product, your stage and your timeline is enough. We reply within two working days.
Send your brief