Design Director Product Design Prototyping
Tata Consultancy Services· Oct 11, 2026 · 17d ago
New York, NY
Hybrid
Full-time
Director
$175K–$220K
Competition signal
- Found on LinkedIn · 50 applicants clicked apply
- Not found on Indeed
Job description
Job Description :
Design Director, Product Design and Prototyping
The job in one line
You lead the design of products. You define what they should be, you build working prototypes of them yourself, and you shape how they go to market.
Why this role exists
Most agencies answer a product question with a deck. We want to answer it with something running on a phone.
We are a creative team inside a company that builds and runs technology for some of the largest companies in the world. That is an unusual place to sit. It means the products we imagine are products we are actually positioned to build. What we have been missing is the person in the middle: someone who can hold the product idea, the interface, and the market story at the same time, and who can make a real version of it in days instead of quarters.
That person did not exist five years ago at a price anyone could afford. Building a convincing prototype used to require an engineer. It does not anymore. AI tools have moved the hard part from writing the code to knowing what to build and having the taste to judge it when it appears. That is a creative job, and it sits on our team.
What you will do
Define the product. Decide what the thing is. Which features, in what order, for which customer, solving which problem. You will write the kind of clear product definition a client can act on and an engineering team can build from — user stories, feature prioritization and acceptance criteria for the MVP, a roadmap past it, the go-to-market plan, and the foundation for how success gets measured once it is live. You will do this on client work, on pitches, and on products we invent ourselves.
Prototype it. Not slides of a product. The product. You will build interactive, clickable, working prototypes using AI tools such as Claude Code, Claude Design, Cursor, v0, Figma Make, and whatever replaces them next year. Fast and rough on Monday, convincing enough to put in front of a client CEO by Friday. Your prototypes are how the rest of us find out whether the idea is any good.
Land it. Design the go-to-market alongside the product itself. How it launches, who it is for, what it promises, how it gets adopted, how it earns its second version. On this team, the product and the story it tells are the same piece of work.
Lead the work through. You will direct the designers on the products you define — setting the bar, running the critique, making the calls when the work needs to get better. The prototype is yours alone. Everything after it is a team, and you lead it.
What this looks like in practice
A retail client asks us to reimagine their app. In week one you and a strategist map where the current app fails its customer. By week two you have written a feature definition and built three working prototypes of the ideas that matter most, so the pitch team is arguing about a real interaction instead of a wireframe. By week three you have the launch narrative. When we win, you stay on it and lead the design of the thing you defined. Then you do it again for a transportation client's AI travel companion, again for a product we are building for the C-suite, and again for the next one.
How we will know it is working
The prototypes are the visible part. The measurable part is what they do to everything downstream. Engineering teams ramp onto new client work faster, because the product is defined and demonstrable before they arrive. Analytics, QA and user testing set up faster, for the same reason. New business gets a working prototype in front of a client sooner and more often. Proactive ideation goes up in volume, because ideas can be shown instead of described. And we lean less on off-the-shelf capability, because building the right thing stops being expensive.
Who this is for
We are looking for one person who can hold three things at once. People arrive at that from different directions, and we are open about which.
You may come from product.
You have been a product manager or product leader who was never satisfied handing off a requirements document. You have shipped real products people use. You have opinions about interfaces. Somewhere in the last two years you started building your own prototypes with AI tools instead of waiting for a sprint, and you have not stopped.
You may come from creative technology or design engineering.
You have been the person in the agency who makes the thing that wins the pitch. You can code, or you can direct AI tools to code, well enough that your prototypes feel real. What you want next is ownership of the product itself, not just the demo of it. You are applying to be the person who decides what gets made and makes the first version of it.
What we will ask you to show us
We do not need an advertising reel. Bring us products you defined and shipped, and be ready to explain what you decided and why, including the decisions you got wrong. Bring us prototypes you built with your own hands, and walk us through the tools and the process. If you have a launch you shaped, bring the thinking behind it: who it was for, what it promised, how it landed. Three or four things, told well, beats a portfolio site.
What you will need
Ten or more years of work, with real seniority in product, product design, or creative technology. Demonstrated ownership of products that shipped, not just features that were specified. Fluency with AI-assisted building. This is not a bonus line at the bottom of the posting. It is most of the job. You should already be using these tools daily and have views about which ones are worth anything.
Enough technical understanding to talk credibly with engineers, scope what is feasible, and know when a prototype is lying about how hard something will be. Design judgment. You do not have to be the person who makes it beautiful, and you will work alongside people who are. But you have to know beautiful from ordinary and be able to say why. The ability to stand in front of a client's leadership and hold the room.
What this role is not
It is not a software engineering role. You will not own production code, you will not be on call, and you do not report into engineering. It is not a visual design role. There is design craft in this job, but it is in service of the product, and you will have designers around you. It is not a support function for other people's ideas. This is a seat where the ideas start. On the panel: yes, and for a different question than the last three. The other postings had one audience. This one has two — the candidate, and whoever approves the title and band. The document is written entirely for the first. Nothing in it is phrased in the vocabulary a job-architecture reviewer uses to size a role, which is the thing you actually need it to survive. So I'd seat it for that: a compensation or job-architecture analyst on whether this reads as a Design Director-band role, an executive recruiter who places hybrid product-creative people on whether the market recognizes what you're describing, and someone who's held this shape of job on whether the description matches the reality. Plus the random seat. That panel answers a question worth answering. A panel on tone would mostly tell you the writing is fine.
TCS Employee Benefits Summary:
Discretionary Annual Incentive.
Comprehensive Medical Coverage: Medical & Health, Dental & Vision, Disability Planning & Insurance, Pet Insurance Plans.
Family Support: Maternal & Parental Leaves.
Insurance Options: Auto & Home Insurance, Identity Theft Protection.
Convenience & Professional Growth: Commuter Benefits & Certification & Training Reimbursement.
Time Off: Vacation, Time Off, Sick Leave & Holidays.
Legal & Financial Assistance: Legal Assistance, 401K Plan, Performance Bonus, College Fund, Student Loan Refinancing.
Salary Range $175,000-$220,000 a year
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Benefits
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Dental
Vision
401k
Parental Leave