Creative Director, Design

We are hiring a Creative Director, Design to lead visual storytelling for one of the most consequential brands in American life — the place millions turn when they're navigating the biggest financial and emotional decision they'll ever make.

The Brand Bureau, our in-house brand and creative organization, has been operating for years with a strong, proud culture built on deeply understanding our audiences and producing creative that moves the business. The VP, Brand and Creative leads the business; you'll lead the creative evolution alongside our Creative Director for Copy. The team you're inheriting is talented and ready. They need inspiration, coaching, and organization to make the leap from strong work to category-defining work. You're a working creative leader — still in the work, still in the craft, still the person in the room people look at when the idea needs to get sharper.

You'll set the creative vision for the brand's visual expression and the team's craft trajectory — the kind of vision the team can see, believe in, and build toward. You'll lead the design and art direction across 15+ integrated campaigns a year, spanning consumer (B2C) and client (B2B) audiences across paid, owned, and earned channels. You'll be a senior creative voice on our flagship celebrity platform with Reba McEntire; leading the visual craft across the surfaces our team owns and shaping its evolution as the platform matures. And you'll set the visual standard for the everyday work that compounds into a brand the category can't ignore.

Why Now

The brand has earned the right to swing big. Nearly Home with Reba McEntire became an Effie Finalist in its first year. Mission Zero gave the brand a purpose platform with real cultural weight. The work is landing. The category is paying attention. And the team is hungry to do more.

In the last twelve months we've expanded The Bureau's remit to own both consumer and client brand under one creative roof. We split our brand strategy function into dedicated Consumer and Client roles, brought in a Creative Director, Copy from YETI, and added a Senior Manager, Brand Operations with dedicated Program Managers to match the scale and complexity of the work. The Austin design and copy bench has grown alongside teammates who've shaped this brand for 10+ years — institutional knowledge meeting fresh perspective.

The strategy bench is built. The platforms are working. The operating system is evolving. We need a creative leader ready to take the visual craft of this brand somewhere it hasn't been yet.

What You'll Do:

For the Work: Lead design and art direction across 15+ integrated campaigns a year — consumer brand, client brand, product marketing, CRM, social, and corporate communication. Serve as a senior creative voice, leading the visual craft across the surfaces our team owns. Champion big idea platforms that earn cultural attention and move the business. Hold a high bar on briefs, production, and the visual language that carries the brand across every touchpoint.

For the Team: Lead a team that's talented and proud of its work — and ready for a leader who inspires, listens, and acts on what they hear. Give feedback that makes the work better and the maker stronger. Invest in structured development, not just mentorship in the margins. Cast people to briefs that match their strengths and stretch their range. Earn trust through consistency, candor, and follow-through. Build the kind of creative culture people fight to be part of — collaborative, generous, craft-obsessed, and unafraid of the swing.

For the Brand: Be the visual steward of a national brand in motion. Partner with internal and external collaborators — agencies, directors, production houses, influencers — as creative peers, not vendors. Hold consistency across consumer and client work without flattening creative ambition. Balance the breakthrough campaign moments with the daily craft that builds brand equity quarter after quarter.

For AI-Enabled Craft: Treat AI as a creative leadership responsibility, not an experiment. Set the vision for how tools like Gemini, Claude, and Figma MCP get woven into the team's daily practice to expand craft and unlock capacity so the team spends more of its day on concepting and creative strategy and less on work that machines can credibly carry, and the output gets better as a result. You'll partner with Neil and the Senior Manager, Brand Operations to identify where AI multiplies craft and where it doesn't belong while empowering your ACDs to push the practice forward.

For the Partnership: Operate as a peer to the Creative Director, Copy — co-leading the creative function and the creative transformation. Work shoulder-to-shoulder with our Consumer and Client Brand Strategists to translate insight into platforms. Partner with the Senior Manager, Brand Operations and the Consumer and Client Program Managers to make ambitious work deliverable. Collaborate with Marketing, Product, Customer, and Communications leaders across the company.

The Team You'll Lead:

You'll lead a design team of Art Directors, on-staff designers, a Principal Motion Designer, multiple contract designers and a video editor — supported by dedicated Program Managers and our Senior Manager, Brand Operations. The team handles the full spectrum of in-house production: social video, all display and digital takeovers, print, OOH, B2B campaigns, and CRM. There's room to bring in collaborators you've worked with and expand the ecosystem of partners the team works with.

How We Work:

We balance creativity and innovation on a foundation of in-person collaboration. For most roles, our employees work three or more days in our offices, where they have the opportunity to collaborate in-person, adding richness to our culture and knitting us closer together.

What You Bring:

• 10+ years of design and art direction experience across agency and in-house creative teams
• 5+ years leading and managing creative teams, including senior individual contributors and Associate Creative Directors
• A portfolio of big idea platforms that hold up across TV, digital, OOH, and social — with craft excellence and business impact
• A problem-solver's instinct — you make ambiguous briefs clearer, broken processes smoother, and hard creative calls easier for the team to land.
• Mastery of the fundamentals: art direction, typography, photography, visual identity, and layout
• Strong fluency in video and motion — confident shaping film concepts, directing on set, and partnering with editors and post production
• Proven ability to lead both consumer and B2B work without sacrificing creative ambition
• Experience inspiring and coaching established teams through creative evolution — bringing energy and structure without disrupting what's already working
• A point of view on AI in creative practice — what it's good for, what it isn't, and how to make a team better with it
• Clear creative taste, strong opinions held loosely, and a generous instinct for mentorship
• Experience working with external agency partners, directors, and production houses as creative peers

What Success Looks Like:

Nearly Home keeps evolving with visual craft that builds on the Effie Finalist foundation and extends across new channels and cultural moments. Consumer and client campaigns share a coherent visual language while flexing for very different audiences. Your Art Directors and designers are growing into the next generation of creative leadership at Realtor.com®. AI is woven into how the Bureau works, freeing the team to spend meaningfully more time on concepting and creative strategy, with output quality moving up alongside throughput. The team is producing work they're proud of — and the industry is noticing.

Why This Role Matters:

Realtor.com® helps people find their way home. That's not small. The brand has earned attention, the team has earned trust, and the work is starting to land in ways that matter. This role is about taking all of that — the platforms, the people, the proof points — and making the leap from "brand on the rise" to the brand the category measures itself against.

If that sounds like the swing you've been waiting to take, we should talk.

How We Reward You:

Realtor.com® is committed to investing in the health and wellbeing of our employees and their families. Our benefits programs include, but are not limited to:

• Inclusive and Competitive medical, Rx, dental, and vision coverage
• Family forming benefits
• 13 Paid Holidays
• Flexible Time Off
• 8 hours of paid Volunteer Time off
• Immediate eligibility into Company 401(k) plan with 3.5% company match
• Tuition Reimbursement program for degreed and non-degreed programs
• 1:1 personalized Financial Planning Sessions
• Student Debt Retirement Savings Match program
• Free snacks and refreshments in each office location