Director of Design Innovation (AI)

At
ClassLink
, we believe learning should be accessible, engaging, and empowering—for every student, every educator, everywhere. That’s why we build secure, intuitive tools that empower more than 26 million students and educators worldwide. From simplifying access with single sign-on, to advancing equity with usage analytics, to automating secure rostering, our platform helps schools focus on what matters most: teaching and learning.

We’re not just building tools—we’re building what’s next in education. By removing barriers and enabling data-driven decisions, our solutions help educators lead with confidence and students thrive in and out of the classroom every day.

Our team is driven by purpose and grounded in three core values:

• *Strive to Grow*
• always learning, improving, and innovating.
• *Deliver Worthwhile Experiences*
• for our users, our partners, and each other.
• *Contribute with Heart*
• putting people first in everything we do.

These values shape how we work, innovate, and support the communities we serve. If you’re ready to do work that makes a real difference—and grow alongside a team that values collaboration, support, and continuous improvement—ClassLink is the place for you.

ClassLink
is hiring a
Director of Design Innovation (AI)
who
will lead the vision, strategy, and execution of user experience design across ClassLink’s AI-powered products, ensuring AI capabilities such as copilots, intelligent automation, and agent-driven workflows are intuitive, accessible, and trustworthy for K–12 educators, administrators, IT teams, and students. This role defines how users interact with AI across the platform, combining strong design leadership with expertise in AI interaction patterns, conversational interfaces, and human-centered AI principles. The Director will lead and mentor the design team while partnering closely with product, engineering, and security teams to deliver innovative, transparent, and impactful AI experiences aligned with the needs of the education community.

Responsibilities:

- AI Design Vision & Strategy
Define and own the design vision for ClassLink's AI-powered products, establishing a coherent experience strategy across agentic workflows, AI copilots, intelligent automation, and data-driven features that serve the K–12 community.
- AI Interaction Design
Lead the design of novel AI interaction patterns including conversational interfaces, agent-initiated actions, multi-step workflow visualization, progressive disclosure of AI reasoning, confidence indicators, and human-in-the-loop decision points.
- Trust & Transparency Design
Develop design frameworks that build trust with school districts, educators, and administrators by making AI behavior explainable, predictable, and controllable. Design clear feedback mechanisms, override controls, and transparency indicators that communicate what AI agents are doing, why, and with what data.
- UI/UX Leadership
Provide strategic and hands-on UI/UX design leadership across ClassLink's product suite, ensuring consistency, accessibility, and quality across all touchpoints. Establish and evolve design systems, component libraries, and interaction patterns that scale across products.
- AI-Assisted Design & Prototyping
Leverage AI-powered design and coding tools (e.g., Figma AI, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, v0, Claude, or similar) to accelerate prototyping, generate UI concepts, explore design alternatives, and rapidly iterate on AI-driven product experiences. Champion the adoption of AI tools within the design workflow.
- User Research for AI Experiences
Lead research initiatives to understand how educators, IT administrators, district leaders, and students perceive, trust, and interact with AI features. Measure trust, comprehension, workflow success, and user reliance behaviors to ensure appropriate trust calibration. Translate research insights into design decisions that address the specific needs, concerns, and literacy levels of K–12 users.
- Design for Safety & Compliance
Collaborate with security, compliance, and AI engineering teams to ensure AI interfaces surface appropriate guardrails, privacy controls, data handling transparency, safe failure modes, and consent mechanisms that align with FERPA, COPPA, and district trust expectations. Participate in AI governance practices including human-in-the-loop review, auditability, and safety-by-design.
- Cross-Functional Partnership
Work closely with AI engineering, product management, security, compliance, and district-facing teams to align design with technical capabilities, business goals, regulatory requirements, and user needs. Serve as the voice of the user in AI product decisions.
- Team Leadership & Mentorship
Build, lead, and mentor a design team focused on AI product experiences. Foster a culture of design excellence, experimentation, and continuous learning. Recruit and develop designers who are fluent in both traditional UX and AI-native design patterns.
- Design Operations & Process
Establish design processes, review cadences, and quality standards for AI product design. Define processes for fast experimentation including prototype validation, A/B testing, and iterative improvement of AI experiences. Leverage AI tools to reduce cycle times without compromising design quality.
- Accessibility & Inclusive Design
Ensure all AI-powered experiences meet WCAG accessibility standards and are designed inclusively for the diverse range of users in K–12 environments, including users with varying levels of technical literacy and those with disabilities.
- Stakeholder Communication
Translate complex AI capabilities into clear, compelling narratives for district stakeholders, executive leadership, and customers. Create presentations, demos, and design artifacts that communicate the value and safety of ClassLink's AI features.
- Industry Awareness & Innovation
— Stay current with the rapidly evolving landscape of AI interaction design, generative UI, AI-native product patterns, and AI-assisted design tooling. Bring best practices and emerging approaches into ClassLink's design practice.

This role is 100% remote eligible, with quarterly strategy meetings that are in-person.

NOTE
: This job description is not intended to be all-inclusive. Employees may be asked to perform other related duties as negotiated to meet the ongoing needs of the organization.

Requested Experience:

• 8+ years of UI/UX experience, including 3+ years leading design teams.
• 2+ years designing AI-powered product experiences (LLM-driven features, copilots, conversational or agent-based workflows).
• Strong portfolio across complex, multi-user SaaS platforms.
• Experience scaling design systems and shipping enterprise or regulated products.
• Experience scaling design systems and shipping enterprise or regulated products with AI-assisted design/coding tools and modern prototyping workflows.
• Deep understanding of AI interaction patterns, accessibility (WCAG), and data-informed design.
• Familiarity with front-end technologies and regulated environments (e.g., FERPA, COPPA). Strong cross-functional leadership, communication, and strategic product influence.

It would be great if you have or are pursuing the following:

• Experience designing AI-powered SaaS products for K–12, higher education, or public sector environments.
• Familiarity with identity and access management, rostering (OneRoster), integrations, and educational analytics.
• Proven ability to design AI copilots or agent-based experiences for administrators and educators, including complex workflows (provisioning, permissions, reporting, support tooling).
• Experience with generative UI, role-based multi-tenant systems, data visualization, and dashboards.
• Understanding of AI safety, bias, and fairness in user-facing design.
• Strong systems thinking, scalable UX pattern development, and collaboration with engineering teams in agile environments.

We prefer that you have experience with:

• Google Suite
• MS Office Suite
• SalesForce
• JIRA and Confluence
• AWS
• GIT

Requested Education:

• Bachelor's degree in Design, Human-Computer Interaction, UX Design, Interaction Design, Visual Design, Computer Science, or a related field (required). Equivalent practical experience will be considered.
• Master's degree in HCI, Design, or a related discipline (preferred).

This role is 100% remote eligible, with quarterly strategy meetings that are in-person.

Benefits:

- Generous Paid Time Off
: 4+ weeks of vacation and 13+ paid holidays
- Parental Leave
: 12 weeks fully paid for all parents
- Retirement
: 401(k) with 0.5:1 company match
- Comprehensive Health Coverage
: Medical, dental, and vision plans
- Insurance
: Company-paid life, short-term disability, and long-term disability, plus voluntary options including supplemental life, accident, and pet insurance

Perks:

- Volunteer Time Off:
Give back through
*ClassLink Cares*
paid volunteer days
- Lifelong Learning:
Tuition reimbursement for continued education
- Growth & Development:
Coaching and internal programs to support career and personal growth
- Supportive Culture:
A workplace that values curiosity, compassion, and continuous learning
- Connection & Community:
Annual company retreats and team events with bright, fun coworkers

*At ClassLink, we believe the best ideas come from bringing together diverse perspectives. We are committed to building a team that reflects the diversity of the communities we serve and fostering a workplace where every team member feels valued, respected, and empowered to grow.*

*ClassLink is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We welcome candidates of all identities, backgrounds, and experiences, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other legally protected characteristic.*

ClassLink is powered by passionate people dedicated to improving learning in classrooms everywhere. We do this by creating and delivering great products and having fun along the way. Learn more about us at
www.classlink.com
.