You have a product team.
Nobody's leading design.
I embed with your team and lead design. The same job a full-time design leader would do, without the full-time hire.
Companies I've worked with
A design leader who happens to be part-time
I work with Seed-stage through Series B companies: teams that are building fast but haven't put the design leadership layer in place yet.
I'll join your team directly — standups, leadership reviews, Slack, product discussions — and make decisions the same way a full-time design leader would.
The difference is the commitment structure, not the altitude. This is a leadership engagement, not a consulting one: I'm not here to deliver a deck and leave.
Design leadership in practice
First or founding designer at five startups. Led design at companies like King, Schneider Electric, and more.
First Designer
First designer at the company. Built design from scratch, owned every decision, and set the foundation the product carried through to acquisition.
Founding Designer
No design leader in place. Owned onboarding strategy end-to-end — set the process and standard before handing off to a full-time hire.
Founding Designer
No design foundation in place. Joined as founding designer, owned every decision, and led the translation from a consultancy model into a product.
Design Lead
Cross-functional team with no design decision-maker. Aligned stakeholders, set direction, and owned all design outcomes from strategy to delivery.
Design Lead
Legacy internal tool with significant UX debt and no AI readiness. Led its redesign used daily by titles like Candy Crush — including AI-powered features.
Design Lead
Buying experience fragmented across multiple disconnected apps. Led the redesign of the full journey, consolidating it into a single product.
Who it's for
This is for you if:
- You're Seed, Series A, or B. From a small founding team up to ~80 people
- You've been building with AI tools and you've reached the point where design is becoming the bottleneck — the product works, but it's showing
- You have 0–3 product designers and no design leadership layer
- Your lead designer is shipping work, not setting direction
- Design decisions are being made by PMs or engineers because no one else owns them
- You know design should have a seat at the leadership table, but it doesn't yet
This isn't for you if:
- You need someone to fill sprint capacity: UI output at volume, no strategy or standards involved
- You need a new logo, brand system, or visual identity
- You already have a design manager or a functioning design org
Why a fractional Head of Design
Fractional means part-time, on a contract or retainer — a Head of Design embedded in your team, without the full-time overhead.
Full-time design leadership makes sense when you have five or more designers, an established design org, and a budget for a senior executive hire. Most Seed and Series A teams are six to eighteen months away from that. Fractional gives you the design leadership now — while the team is still small enough for it to matter most.
The Head of Design job is not designing. It's setting direction, building the team, establishing process, and making sure design has influence in the decisions that shape the product. That work doesn't disappear because you can't afford a full-time executive. It just goes undone.
A growing number of teams get here without a designer at all — built entirely with AI tools, fast and functional. At some point, the product starts showing it: inconsistent patterns, unclear flows, decisions that made sense in the moment but don't add up. That's not a visual problem. It's a leadership problem. And it's exactly what this engagement is designed to fix.
The offer
I do the Head of Design job. Part-time, embedded, scoped to your team.
Design gets a seat at the product table — and the roadmap reflects it. I work alongside your CPO and PMs to make sure design is shaping priorities, not just responding to them. You stop hearing "we'll figure out design later."
You know who to hire next, what level, and what to look for. I'll tell you whether you need a generalist or a specialist, and how to interview for it. When you're ready to bring in a design manager, you'll know exactly what that role needs to be.
Your designers stop reinventing decisions between projects. I establish critique culture, documentation habits, and component decisions so your team has a foundation to build from. Engineers get faster answers. Designers ship with more confidence.
Design decisions stick because leadership is aligned behind them. I represent design in leadership and engineering conversations — so your designers aren't fighting for resources on their own, and decisions made in your product org don't get undone in an engineering meeting.
Engagements are scoped to your team, not a fixed package. Most teams start at 2–3 days per week on a 3-month minimum — enough time to make the changes stick. Some stay on a lighter monthly retainer once the foundation is in place. We figure out the right shape on the call.
A full-time CDO in San Francisco costs $280–350K a year before benefits. Fractional gives you the same design leadership judgment for the quarters when it matters most.
"Years after we worked together, I still go to Jorge for sparring — on work, on decisions, on things completely outside the original scope. That kind of ongoing trust doesn't happen by accident."Niels Prip, VP HR & Business Development, Actimo
What I don't do
This is not a rebrand.
I don't do logo design, wordmark work, or visual identity systems. If that's what you need, I can point you to the right people.
This is not a sprint resource.
I'll do design work — that's part of the job, especially early on when I'm setting the standard and showing what good looks like. What I'm not here to do is fill a capacity gap: heads-down UI output with no strategy or leadership component attached.
The first 4 weeks
I meet your team, your PMs, your engineering lead, and your founders. I'm mapping the landscape: where design is today, where decisions break down, what's actually missing.
You get a clear picture of the gaps — in process, team structure, stakeholder relationships — and the order in which to address them. No 40-page report. A direct conversation and a written summary.
One thing changes immediately. Usually it's how design decisions get made in your product reviews. Small, visible, fast.
You have a 90-day plan: what we're focusing on, what a stronger design team looks like at your next stage, and what the role continues to look like after the first sprint.
Sounds like a fit?
A 30-minute call is enough to know.
"His ability to distil complex product ideas into their essential components was invaluable. He helped us identify what truly mattered — and that kept us moving forward efficiently on the things that counted."Josiah Odosu, Co-founder (Product & Marketing), SecantX
Let's talk
Ready to give design a seat at the table?
A 30-minute call is enough to know if there's a fit. No long intake form, just a direct conversation about where your team is and what you actually need.
Book a 30-min callI work with 2–3 teams at a time. If the timing works, let's find out.