Associate Creative Director, Experience Design

Associate Creative Director, Experience Design

The Associate Creative Director (ACD) of Experience Design leads digital initiatives across Apple's ecosystem — from commerce to in-store experiences. This role drives vision and guides multidisciplinary teams to craft elegant, customer-first solutions that balance design excellence with technical and business realities. An expert on the customer, the ACD translates insights into focused experience strategies and design artifacts — from journey frameworks and opportunity maps to UX concepts and prototypes. They are the connective tissue that ensures the strategy and user intent is reflected in final deliverables. This role partners closely with Business, Product, Engineering, and Product Marketing teams to align vision, priorities, and measures of success.

Responsibilities

• Define clear problem statements and a strategic point of view across projects, rooted in customer insights, opportunity areas, and experience principles that guide meaningful, connected digital experiences across Apple's ecosystem.
• Contribute to planning and roadmap discussions to inform prioritization, resourcing, and sequencing.
• Provide thoughtful creative direction and feedback on deliverables such as user flows, system maps, wireframes, prototypes, and presentations to ensure design intent, scalability and clarity, while championing design excellence.
• Present creative work and insights with clarity and conviction, connecting design decisions to insights, principles, strategic objectives, design intent and system thinking.
• Recommend and support research methodologies, both qualitative and quantitative, to inform and validate experience direction. Helps own facilitating research, synthesis and final read-out.
• Mentors and directs junior team members to help them with their professional development and improve their work
• Actively participate in studio wide initiatives for culture, process and innovation.

Minimum Qualifications

• At least 10 of years of experience in digital product, service, experience design or a related discipline.
• A portfolio of thoughtful, high-impact work that demonstrates strength in both experience strategy and UX design execution.
• Ability to connect business goals, customer needs, and design principles into cohesive experience visions.
• Bachelor's degree.

Preferred Qualifications

• Expertise in creating and reviewing UX/Product Designs across all layers of the experience - from information architecture and navigation to accessibility, interaction patterns and art direction to ensure a scalable, cohesive, intuitive and inclusive user experience.
• Exceptional communication and storytelling skills, with the ability to articulate complex ideas clearly and persuasively.
• Deep understanding of design thinking and experience systems, and how to apply them within large-scale organizations.
• Expertise in planning and synthesizing user research to uncover insights and opportunities, and translating them into actionable frameworks and design direction.
• Experience planning and leading workshops to gain alignment, uncover insights, and drive clarity across creative and business teams.
• Skilled in developing end-to-end customer journeys and defining product or platform visions.
• Comfortable navigating ambiguity, creating clarity, and aligning diverse teams toward a shared goal.

Pay & Benefits

At Apple, base pay is one part of our total compensation package and is determined within a range. This provides the opportunity to progress as you grow and develop within a role. The base pay range for this role is between $182,600 and $274,500, and your base pay will depend on your skills, qualifications, experience, and location. Apple employees also have the opportunity to become an Apple shareholder through participation in Apple's discretionary employee stock programs. Apple employees are eligible for discretionary restricted stock unit awards, and can purchase Apple stock at a discount if voluntarily participating in Apple's Employee Stock Purchase Plan. You'll also receive benefits including: Comprehensive medical and dental coverage, retirement benefits, a range of discounted products and free services, and for formal education related to advancing your career at Apple, reimbursement for certain educational expenses — including tuition. Additionally, this role might be eligible for discretionary bonuses or commission payments as well as relocation.