Design Leadership Jobs in Sydney, Australia
Find your next Design Leadership role at companies that value creative talent
Showing 14 jobs
Design Manager
🇦🇺 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Decode Group 🇦🇺 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Manage the end-to-end design process for Class 2 residential developments, coordinating multidisciplinary consultants and ensuring design deliverables meet programme, quality, commercial, and compliance requirements. Support project teams from planning through construction by managing design risks and changes, facilitating approvals, and resolving design issues.
Design Manager (NSW)
🇦🇺 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Hickory Group 🇦🇺 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
The Design Manager oversees the comprehensive design process from early contractor involvement through to project completion. They coordinate consultants and internal teams to ensure design solutions are efficient, compliant, and buildable.
Senior Designer Design Manager - Travel Lifestyle Merchandise
🇦🇺 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Hatch 🇦🇺 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Develop and oversee creative concepts and merchandise collections from ideation through commercialisation, leading designers and illustrators while managing project roadmaps, timelines, budgets, and quality reviews. Identify market opportunities, design in-store merchandising solutions, and collaborate with sourcing and operations to deliver commercially viable products on time and on brief.
Project Manager / Design Manager – Data Centres (Building Services)
🇦🇺 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Hdr 🇦🇺 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Lead the delivery of multidisciplinary building engineering services for data centre projects while acting as the primary interface between clients and internal/external teams. Manage project programmes, scope, fees, and contractual obligations to ensure high-quality, timely design delivery.
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Design Manager
🇦🇺 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Gough Recruitment 🇦🇺 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Manage the design lifecycle for residential and mixed-use developments, coordinating architects, engineers, specialist consultants, contractors, and internal teams from concept through construction and delivery. Review design documentation, manage risks and changes, and balance design quality with budgets, programmes, commercial viability, and buildability.
Design Manager | Data Centres
🇦🇺 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Mission Critical Recruitment 🇦🇺 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Lead multidisciplinary design for hyperscale data centre projects from concept through construction and commissioning, including appointing consultants and vendors and developing design briefs. Coordinate stakeholders, provide technical guidance, review and approve design documentation, and ensure designs meet project objectives, budgets, timelines, codes, standards, and sustainability requirements.
Design Manager
🇦🇺 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Mott Macdonald 🇦🇺 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Lead and coordinate digital designers to deliver water, wastewater, network, and treatment infrastructure designs in line with project budgets, schedules, client requirements, and engineering standards. Collaborate with delivery teams, clients, and partner organizations; mentor junior designers; contribute construction and commissioning expertise; and support bids and client relationships.
Design Manager
🇦🇺 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Mott Macdonald 🇦🇺 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Oversee and coordinate a team of digital designers to deliver water and wastewater infrastructure projects within budget and program constraints. Collaborate with internal and external stakeholders while providing technical support and mentoring junior staff.
Design Manager
🇦🇺 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Core Talent 🇦🇺 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Lead and coordinate design development for utility-scale Solar PV, BESS, and hybrid projects from concept through construction, including managing consultants and coordinating engineering disciplines and project interfaces. Optimise designs for site constraints, cost, reliability, and performance; review technical and contractor designs, manage network interfaces and risks, and develop standardised approaches to improve efficiency.
Design Manager
🇦🇺 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Cgc Recruitment 🇦🇺 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Lead design management across multiple projects, progressing designs from planning approval through detailed design and construction documentation while coordinating consultants and stakeholders. Ensure design quality, regulatory compliance, budget and programme alignment, and effective collaboration with project, commercial, and construction teams.
Technical Design Manager - Bridges, Structures + Ports
🇦🇺 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Aecom 🇦🇺 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Lead the design delivery of major infrastructure projects including bridges and marine structures while managing scope, program, and quality. Act as the primary interface between design, construction, and client teams to ensure integrated and constructible solutions.
Design Manager - Power
🇦🇺 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Beca 🇦🇺 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
The Design Manager will oversee the planning, coordination, and delivery of design phases across a portfolio of energy projects. They are responsible for leading multi-disciplinary teams, managing design programs and budgets, and ensuring technical robustness through design assurance activities.
Design Manager | Transport Infrastructure
🇦🇺 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Systra 🇦🇺 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
The Design Manager will deliver transport infrastructure design packages from concept to construction while managing scope, budget, and resources. They will coordinate multidisciplinary teams and collaborate with stakeholders to ensure high-quality, buildable outcomes.
Head Of Design
🇦🇺 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Meshki 🇦🇺 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
The Head of Design will define and protect the brand's product handwriting while leading the design team to create commercially successful and creatively distinctive collections. They will partner with cross-functional teams to ensure product consistency, fit, and alignment with overall brand vision and commercial objectives.
About Design Leadership careers
Design leaders in 2026 set the strategic vision for design organizations navigating an AI-saturated market. This role requires a balance of craft expertise and high-level business acumen to advocate for design's value at the executive level.
Effective leaders foster a culture of technical agency, establishing systems that allow human creativity and machine efficiency to coexist.
Companies like Stripe and Airbnb seek VPs and Directors of Design who can scale teams and align design strategy with long-term business objectives.
We feature senior leadership positions including Design Directors, Heads of Design, VP of Design, Chief Design Officers, and design team leads at companies like Meta, Google, Airbnb, Stripe, and fast-growing AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic. These roles span product design, brand, and cross-functional design organizations.
Many companies offer remote design leadership roles, including distributed-first companies like Notion, Linear, GitLab, and Vercel. AI companies like Midjourney and Anthropic also hire remote design leaders. Some companies prefer hybrid arrangements for VP+ positions.
Most positions require 8–15+ years of design experience with 3–5+ years managing teams. Strong candidates demonstrate strategic thinking, team building, stakeholder management, and a track record of shipping successful products at companies like Figma, Spotify, Netflix, or emerging AI startups. Browse leadership portfolios to see how experienced designers showcase their impact.
Design leadership salaries are highly competitive: Design Directors earn $160k–$240k, VPs of Design $220k–$350k+, and CDOs at major companies can exceed $400k with significant equity packages. AI companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Databricks often offer premium total compensation. Consult our salary guide for detailed breakdowns.