Sr Brand Design Manager

Food has lost its soul to modern convenience. And with it, it has lost the power to nourish, inspire, and connect us. So in 2018, CookUnity was founded as the first-of-its-kind platform that connects the world with the source of truly great food: chefs. Today, CookUnity delivers 50 million meals a year from the industry’s best chefs to homes all over the country. Fresh. Ready-to-eat. And crafted with the passion that nourishes body and soul.

Unwilling to stop there, CookUnity is expanding beyond delivery to become an ever-innovating marketplace focused on our singular mission: empower Chefs to nourish the world.

If that mission has you hungry in more ways than one, you’ve found the right job posting.

At CookUnity, the Brand Marketing team is responsible for developing and executing world-class marketing activations and experiences that drive brand awareness and earn loyalty beyond reason. This team sets the vision and strategy for the brand and brings it to life with strategic rigor, creative excellence, and cultural relevance. Through insight-inspired, data-informed brand storytelling and experiences, CookUnity’s Brand Marketing team will build a category-defining brand loved by an entire generation of foodies.

CookUnity is seeking a seasoned brand design manager to take our creative function to the next level — elevating design craft, modernizing design operations, and boldly differentiating the CookUnity brand. In this role you will oversee the development and expression of the brand visual identity across all consumer touch points, both online and offline, while managing and actively leveling up a team of talented, ambitious designers.

Through your leadership and vision, you will build and scale a world-class brand design function with customer obsession and creative excellence at its core. The ideal candidate brings not only a mastery of design craft honed at best-in-class consumer brands, but also the operational rigor to implement new standards of design process and team performance — and the forward-thinking mindset to leverage AI tools as a high-impact lever for quality and efficiency.

This is a role for a leader who sets the bar high, builds the systems to meet it, and brings a team along for the journey. Reporting to the VP of Brand Marketing, this role is uniquely positioned to create an impact that helps CookUnity resonate emotionally and grow commercially in unprecedented ways.

• Develop and evangelize an inspiring creative vision for the future of CookUnity and help the organization make progress towards achieving its full potential
• Lead the Brand Design team to bring the essence of CookUnity to life through a differentiated design system and visual storytelling across website, app, social media, advertising, CRM, and a growing ecosystem of packaging
• Own, refine, and continue to build on the CookUnity brand identity and visual system as a living resource that evolves with new learnings and insights to better support the needs of the customer and company
• Bring the standards and instincts of best-in-class consumer brands to CookUnity — championing unwavering expectations for design craft, quality, and executional consistency

• Design and manage an ambitious, end-to-end creative process — including intake, internal creative reviews, stakeholder feedback cycles, and approval workflows — that ensures consistently on-time delivery of high-quality assets
• Lead regular creative reviews of all ongoing design work to provide timely feedback and coaching, and ensure pixel-perfect execution across all design deliverables
• Lead the routing, feedback, and approval process for brand design deliverables to executive staff and Founder as needed for high-visibility, high-impact initiatives

• Champion the integration of AI-based tools into the team's design workflows, identifying high-impact opportunities to automate repeatable tasks, accelerate production, and free the team to focus on higher-order creative work
• Stay ahead of the rapidly evolving AI tooling landscape and serve as an internal resource for best practices, responsible use, and practical application within a brand design context
• Foster a team culture that embraces experimentation with emerging tools while maintaining the quality standards and creative integrity the brand demands

• Mentor and motivate a small but mighty team of talented designers, actively leveling up individual skills through structured feedback, coaching, and growth-oriented development conversations
• Build a culture of trust, openness, accountability, and a relentless pursuit of design excellence — where high standards are a shared value, not just a directive
• Lead by doing: maintain mastery of the tools the team uses daily (Adobe Creative Suite, Figma, Claude Design, and relevant AI design tools) and be willing to roll up your sleeves alongside the team when needed

• Partner with teammates, peers, and key stakeholders to proactively identify opportunities or challenges, and take a leadership role in bringing tangible design solutions forward
• Partner directly with brand copy team to define visual storytelling approach, ensuring consistency and deep integration between these teams to maximize efficiency and effectiveness of all creative output
• Assume a strong company presence as an internal standard-bearer of category-defining creativity, building trust, alignment, and influence across the organization
• Bring principles of design thinking, a solution-oriented mindset, and an entrepreneurial spirit to achieving impactful results without depending on significant resources

• 8+ years experience in brand design; experience in top consumer brands and/or agencies is a plus
• 4+ years managing other designers
• A respected brand design leader with a track record of shipping excellent work and a portfolio demonstrating a mastery of design craft across multiple disciplines of design
• Proficiency in video and how to leverage design in this format is a plus
• Passion for insights and performance data in shaping creative work and a commitment to building a culture that embraces these essential inputs
• Experience operating in a fast-paced growth environment, including dealing with ambiguity, shifting priorities & rapid iteration
• Very detail oriented, well organized, and a proven ability to effectively manage multiple projects, work streams, or initiatives simultaneously
• Highly collaborative in nature with ability to partner across various functions throughout a company and demonstrate flexible decision-making based on new insight or feedback
• A genuine passion for design and a love of the creative process
• Proficiency in English at an advanced level
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent in Graphic Design, Visual Communications, or a related field is a plus