Instrument Creative

Executive Creative Director Portland, OR Design – Brand Studio / Full-time / Hybrid We believe it all starts with brand. The feeling. The tension. The story people carry long after the screen goes dark. We believe the brands that matter most in the next decade won’t simply market better. They’ll mean something deeper. They’ll create gravity. They’ll move culture. They’ll shape how people connect, work, feel, buy, believe, and belong. At Instrument, we believe that when you tether belief to purpose through design, strategy, storytelling, and technology, you create more than a system. You create momentum. A force that brings people and businesses together in ways that feel undeniable. That’s the work we want to make. And we’re looking for an Executive Creative Director ready to help define what comes next. This is not a role for someone interested in maintaining categories, protecting old agency models, or creating work that disappears into the noise. This is for a creative leader who wants to build defining brands and transformative experiences at the intersection of creativity, technology, culture, and business. As Executive Creative Director, you will lead the creative vision across some of our most ambitious client partnerships — shaping brands, products, campaigns, platforms, and experiences that influence industries and leave lasting impact. You will guide multidisciplinary teams across design, storytelling, strategy, motion, AI, digital product, and emerging technology, helping transform complex business challenges into emotionally resonant and commercially meaningful work. You will partner deeply with executive clients and internal leadership to shape not only the work, but the future of the agency itself. This role requires someone who can move fluidly between vision and execution: - Someone who can inspire a room and sharpen a narrative, - Who can push creative ambition while building trust, - Who understands that modern creativity is no longer confined to campaigns alone, - And who believes the future belongs to brands that operate as connected systems across brand, product, marketing, and technology. Location: Ideally Portland, OR — But must be located on the West Coast  What You'll Do - Set and elevate the creative standard across the agency. - Lead and mentor senior creative talent while fostering a culture of curiosity, experimentation, and excellence. - Shape transformative client relationships and influence executive stakeholders with conviction and clarity. - Drive multidisciplinary work across brand systems, digital products, campaigns, content, and emerging experiences. - Partner across strategy, technology, growth, and delivery to create integrated solutions that move businesses forward. - Help define how AI and new technologies reshape creativity, storytelling, and experience design. - Champion work that is emotionally resonant, culturally relevant, and commercially effective. - Contribute meaningfully to the evolution of Instrument’s creative identity, reputation, and future vision. What You Bring - Has a strong point of view and the ability to articulate it. - Leads with optimism, ambition, and creative conviction. - Understands both the emotional and operational realities of building world-class work. - Thrives in environments of change, experimentation, and reinvention. - Knows how to inspire teams while holding a high creative bar. - Sees creativity as a business driver, not just an output. - Believes collaboration across disciplines creates stronger ideas. - Wants to shape not only brands, but the future of the industry itself.   At Instrument, we are building the next era of creative partnership — where brand, product, marketing, technology, and AI are no longer separate conversations. If that excites you, we should talk. Pay Range - The expected pay range for this position is $200,000-$225,000. We have three regional pay ranges that are adjusted for cost of living (US1 +15%, US2 +7.5%, US3 Base), *learn more about our pay philosophy and cost of living adjustments. Benefits - Medical, dental, and vision coverage - 401k with employer matching - Unlimited PTO + company wide closures - Work From Home and Wellbeing monthly stipend - HSA Employer Contribution - Professional Development Stipend - Paid Parental Leave We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.

• Designing digital product experiences and marketing websites • Creating visual systems and brand expressions across digital touchpoints • Developing concepts, storyboards, and visual narratives • Partnering with Creative Directors, Design Directors, and cross-functional teams to bring ideas to life • Collaborating with motion designers, strategists, writers, and technologists • Building prototypes, motion studies, and presentation-ready design work • Extending and documenting design systems and component libraries

• Lead complex, multidisciplinary initiatives from kickoff through delivery across brand, digital, and campaign work • Serve as the day-to-day senior client partner, navigating tough conversations with confidence, tact, and emotional intelligence • Own project intake, staffing coordination, timelines, scopes, budgets, and overall delivery health • Partner closely with Creative, Strategy, Writing, and Technology leads to align teams and drive work forward • Balance strategic thinking with practical execution, ensuring teams stay focused, collaborative, and solutions-oriented • Proactively identify risks, dependencies, and operational gaps while creating clear paths forward • Lead internal and external status conversations, project planning, forecasting, and prioritization efforts • Roll up your sleeves as an individual contributor while the work and team continue to scale • Help shape production approaches and operational processes that support long-term client growth and delivery excellence

• Lead strategic growth efforts across a portfolio of existing accounts with active, ongoing work and expansion opportunities • Develop and maintain quarterly account plans that identify objectives, whitespace opportunities, stakeholder strategies, risks, and growth actions • Partner with studio leadership to proactively identify new areas of opportunity across client organizations and business units • Support account retention, expansion, and long-term relationship health through strategic planning and executive engagement • Help manage inbound growth opportunities and assess prioritization, complexity, and strategic fit • Identify and shape opportunities before formal briefs exist • Lead intake conversations with prospective and existing clients, helping define business challenges and potential engagement approaches • Build and present “hello decks,” functional proposals, and strategic growth recommendations • Partner with cross-disciplinary teams to scope opportunities, shape engagement strategies, and develop compelling proposals • Support strategic target-account pursuits and contribute to broader business development initiatives within the studio • Build trusted relationships with senior client stakeholders across complex organizations • Navigate large, matrixed environments with multiple decision-makers and evolving priorities • Develop an understanding of client business needs, organizational dynamics, and market pressures to uncover growth opportunities • Partner with leadership to establish executive-level touchpoints and deepen strategic relationships • Contribute to strategic planning conversations, helping evolve client briefs and identify long-term growth opportunities • Partner closely with Delivery and Production teams to ensure successful transitions from opportunity shaping into execution • Maintain a strong understanding of trends across technology, AI, product innovation, marketing, and brand experience • Bring thoughtful perspectives on how emerging technologies and cultural shifts create new opportunities for clients • Contribute insights that help shape account strategy, offerings, and future client opportunities

• Own and evolve the technical vision, building on an existing GCP architecture (Cloud Run, Firestore, Cloud SQL) and guiding integration with a modern Angular-based SPA • Lead architectural decision-making across the stack, ensuring scalability, performance, and maintainability of a real-time, stateful system • Drive delivery health by evaluating feasibility, identifying risks early, and shaping scope to support sustainable execution • Mentor and unblock a senior, multi-disciplinary engineering team; actively participate in sprint planning, standups, retros, and architectural reviews • Uphold code quality across backend and frontend systems, including state management, rendering performance, and accessibility standards • Act as the technical bridge across Engineering, Design, Strategy, and Production—translating AI capabilities into actionable product and UX decisions • Partner with clients and external teams as a senior technical advisor, clearly communicating complex systems and influencing direction • Collaborate closely with the Executive Technical Director to ensure strong alignment across technical strategy and client partnership • Establish best practices for AI-augmented engineering, guiding the use of tools like Gemini, Cursor, or Claude Code to accelerate development responsibly • Apply deep expertise across Full-stack development, Systems Architecture, and GCP to scale a complex, distributed system

• You’ll shape strategic vision and direction across a portfolio of work—ensuring rigor, clarity, and coherence from early discovery through delivery. • You’ll lead strategy for a complex, high-impact client—holding the thread across multiple workstreams and helping teams navigate ambiguity with strong judgment and clear direction. • You’ll connect brand, product, marketing, and experience thinking—ensuring that strategy is not fragmented, but integrated and working toward a cohesive whole. • You’ll act as a senior client partner—building trusted relationships, guiding decisions, and helping shape long-term strategy and partnership direction. • You’ll identify opportunities for growth—contributing to new business efforts, shaping pitches, and expanding the scope and impact of the work. • You’ll lead and develop strategy teams—mentoring senior strategists, fostering a culture of excellence, and ensuring teams are supported, challenged, and doing their best work. • You’ll contribute to the evolution of the discipline—defining and scaling strategic frameworks, improving ways of working, and helping raise the bar for quality across the organization.

• Shape the strategic vision and craft across multiple client engagements and portfolios. • Serve as senior strategic lead on select complex or high-impact accounts. • Ensure strategic rigor, clarity, and coherence across projects, from discovery through delivery. • Guide teams in navigating ambiguity and complexity with sound judgment. • Define and evolve the standards for what strong strategy looks like, ensuring consistency and quality across teams and engagements. • Shape how strategy is practiced across teams by establishing frameworks, approaches, and ways of working that scale impact. • Build and maintain trusted relationships with senior and executive-level client stakeholders. • Partner with Client Executive Directors and account leadership to identify and grow new opportunities. • Present strategic direction and recommendations with confidence, credibility, and influence. • Balance client advocacy with business objectives and delivery realities. • Shape long-term client strategy and partnership direction, aligning strategic work to broader business goals and growth opportunities. • Hire, manage, and develop strategists across levels, building a strong and resilient team. • Set clear expectations for performance, growth, and accountability, and hold leaders accountable for outcomes. • Foster a culture of strategic excellence, collaboration, and inclusion. • Ensure team health, resourcing balance, and sustainable delivery. • Define, codify, and implement clear, repeatable strategic standards and frameworks that elevate quality, improve efficiency, and create consistency across engagements. • Develop and pilot new ways of working that strengthen collaboration, rigor, and strategic clarity across teams. • Contribute to internal learning, workshops, and knowledge sharing that scale best practices across the discipline. • Support new business efforts, pitches, and strategic framing. • Continuously evolve the discipline by identifying gaps, raising the bar for quality, and ensuring standards keep pace with the work and market within the assigned Studio. • Practices Creative Intelligence by staying curious about emerging tools and technologies and applying sound judgment about when and how they should inform the work. Continuously learns and experiments while keeping human needs, craft, and responsibility at the center. • Shapes how emerging technology is adopted across engagements, connecting innovation to client outcomes and sustainable delivery. • Advanced fluency in research, synthesis, facilitation, and executive storytelling tools. • Confident use of planning, resourcing, and collaboration systems to manage complex portfolios. • Leadership in adopting tools and methods that scale strategic excellence.

• Lead development of complex features and interfaces across projects. • Architect and implement scalable front-end solutions within broader systems. • Balance performance, accessibility, and maintainability in technical decisions. • Identify and address technical risks early in the process. • Partner closely with design, strategy, production, and back-end teams. • Communicate technical rationale and tradeoffs to varied audiences. • Support alignment between creative intent and technical execution. • Own the quality and integrity of development deliverables within workstreams. • Improve workflows, tooling, and documentation to support team efficiency. • Review code and provide constructive feedback to peers. • Support the growth of more junior developers through feedback and guidance. • Share knowledge, patterns, and best practices across teams. • Model strong collaboration, accountability, and craft excellence. • Practices Creative Intelligence by staying curious about emerging tools and technologies (including AI) and applying sound judgment about when and how they should inform the work. Continuously learns and experiments while keeping human needs, craft, and responsibility at the center. • This role may take on related responsibilities as needs evolve, aligned to the role’s level and core purpose.

• Confidently and autonomously lead the development portion of our most complex projects successfully, in partnership with technology and Client Services project leadership. • Lead and maintain key client relationships on a project basis, positioning Instrument as a strategic, technical, and innovation partner. • Champion the team’s vision in the work while advocating for client goals and user needs. • Assess if what we have created (in concept or execution) is the most effective and innovative solution. • Work with the team leads to properly unpack and plan the development process for awarded projects. • Monitor the health and happiness of development project teams, proactively flagging issues for optimal morale. • Mentor and lead producers through Instrument’s methodology and best practices. • Maintain development velocity throughout the project lifecycle. • Play an active role in managing team development resources. • Collaborate with Tech Leads to write, clarify, refine, assign, and estimate tickets. • Keep an open channel between the development team and the Client Services teams. • Lead "design breakdown" sessions with project developers. • Take charge of sprint planning and estimation meetings. • Facilitate recurrent development team sprint retrospectives that review outcomes and reduce barriers to success. • Critically assess strategy and design output to ensure alignment with project objectives.

• Partner with product, design, and engineering teams to evolve and scale a **multi-brand design system** • Define and drive **system-level thinking** across the product experience—balancing consistency with flexibility • Translate product and UX needs into **scalable, reusable components and patterns** • Lead design direction with a strong POV on **usability, interaction, and visual craft** • Collaborate in Figma using **advanced workflows (libraries, branching, versioning)** • Contribute to or generate **clear documentation**, potentially leveraging AI-assisted workflows (e.g., Figma MCP + coding assistants) • Ensure design outputs are **production-ready and aligned with system standards**