Director of Content Design

Company Description
Etsy is the global marketplace for unique and creative goods. We build, power, and evolve the tools and technologies that connect millions of entrepreneurs with millions of buyers around the world. As an Etsy Inc. employee, whether a team member of Etsy or Depop, you will tackle unique, meaningful, and large-scale problems alongside passionate coworkers, all the while making a rewarding impact and Keeping Commerce Human.

Salary Range:

What's the Role?

As Director of Content Design, you'll define and drive the content design strategy for Etsy's entire product ecosystem: setting the vision for content quality, leading high-impact and highly complex work across our buyer and seller experiences, and elevating the quality and maturity of content design as a practice at Etsy.

In this role, you will define the vision and build the practice that shapes how content functions across Etsy, including content standards and patterns, voice and tone guidelines, naming, and accessible, human-centered content. You will partner deeply with Brand, Legal, Product Design, and Design Systems to drive a cohesive content voice and style that is clear, consistent, and unmistakably Etsy. You will lead a team of content designers working directly with systems and product teams to embed content quality into the product experience at every level.

This is a full-time position reporting to the Director of Product Design, UX Foundations. In addition to salary, you will also be eligible for an equity package, an annual performance bonus, and our competitive benefits that support you and your family as part of your total rewards package at Etsy.
 

For this role, we are considering candidates based in the United States. Candidates living within commutable distance of Etsy's Brooklyn Office Hub may be the first to be considered. For candidates within commutable distance, Etsy requires in-office attendance once or twice per week depending on your proximity to the office. Etsy offers different work modes to meet the variety of needs and preferences of our team. Learn more details about our work modes and workplace safety policies.

What’s this team like at Etsy?

The Content Design team is part of UX Foundations and operates as a center of excellence for writing, strategically planning, and optimizing quality content across Etsy's products. Content designers are embedded directly on buyer and seller verticals, which means the team has close relationships with the product work, while maintaining a shared craft bar and centralized systems. 

The team operates across content strategy, UX writing, brand voice, and content structures, and works at every level of scope: contributing to product features, shaping design systems, and defining the standards that guide content decisions across the company. It's a team that thinks in systems and enjoys directly applying them to user problems.

What does the day-to-day look like?

• Content Design vision and standards: Define the bar for content quality across Etsy's buyer and seller surfaces. Own the content design system: voice, patterns, guidance, and the tooling that lets quality scale beyond your immediate team.
• Team leadership: Lead and develop a team of content designers embedded across product verticals. Build the conditions for strong independent work, shared craft standards, and a clear operating model for how work gets scoped, prioritized, and decided across teams.
• Systems and platform partnership: Drive the content strategy for Etsy's horizontal design systems, ensuring content patterns are first-class components in how we build at scale. Partner with UX Foundations leadership to shape how content design integrates into the design system and broader platform work.
• Product team collaboration: Show up as a senior design partner to the product verticals working on Etsy's most complex buyer and seller experiences. Know when to lead, when to coach a team member through it, and when to escalate a content risk.
• Cross-functional influence: Represent content design in product planning, surface quality issues early, and help partners understand what it takes to ship content that holds the bar. Apply clear judgment to make tradeoffs, unblock decisions, and empower ICs to move through ambiguity without escalating everything up.
• People and team building: Hire and develop exceptional talent. Coach designers across levels, identify growth opportunities, and build a culture where healthy feedback and craft are built into everyday practice.
• Of course, this is just a sample of the kinds of work this role will require. You should assume that your role will encompass other tasks, too, and that your job duties and responsibilities may change from time to time at Etsy's discretion, or otherwise applicable with local law.

Qualities that will help you thrive in this role are:

• 12+ years in content design, UX writing, or content strategy, with a significant tenure in a leadership role where you have successfully managed and mentored content designers and senior ICs.
• A track record of building and scaling content design practices: content systems, voice and tone frameworks, and guidelines that other teams actually adopt and use.
• Demonstrated experience as an embedded partner on product teams, shipping high-quality content in complex, high-traffic consumer products.
• Strong history of building cross-functional partnerships with Product, Engineering, Design, Brand, and Legal to make content a first-class part of how products are designed and shipped
• Experience on buyer/seller marketplaces or two-sided consumer platforms is a strong plus.
• A portfolio that shows range across systems-level thinking and specific product decisions, at different levels of scope and ambiguity.
• The ability to hire, develop, and retain strong content designers, and to make the case for the work to audiences who don't share your background.

Additional Information
 

What's Next
If you're interested in joining the team at Etsy, please share your resume with us and feel free to include a cover letter if you'd like. As we hope you've seen already, Etsy is a place that values individuality and variety. We don't want you to be like everyone else -- we want you to be like you! So tell us what you're all about.
 
Our Promise
At Etsy, we believe that a diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace furthers relevance, resilience, and longevity. We encourage people from all backgrounds, ages, abilities, and experiences to apply. Etsy is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. If, due to a disability, you need an accommodation during any part of the application or interview process, please let your recruiter know. While Etsy supports visa sponsorship, sponsorship opportunities may be limited to certain roles and skills.