Hire Fractional Design Talent
From senior design leaders to the specialists who execute. Pre-screened operators matched to your stage in as little as 3 days, with no recruiter fees and no full-time overhead.
Every design role, one network
From leadership to hands-on operators. Pick the exact role to see vetted candidates, rates, and engagement options, or let us match you.
Design Leadership
Own design vision and the team.5 rolesProduct & UX Design
Flows, interactions, and interfaces.6 rolesBrand & Visual
Identity, graphics, and illustration.4 rolesWeb, Interactive & Platforms
Websites, games, and platform builds.5 rolesThe signals that mean it's time
Fractional design is the right move when your roadmap is outpacing your leadership capacity. These are the signals companies recognize before they reach out.
Work ships without standards and no one owns strategy. You need senior leadership to set the bar without waiting on a full-time search.
A critical design leader resigned and your roadmap cannot wait three months. An interim operator keeps momentum while you run a proper search.
You are hiring multiple people at once and need someone to onboard them, define standards, and turn priorities into executable plans.
Your founder or exec team is focused on vision and investors. Someone needs to sit in the work, unblock the team, and own day-to-day delivery.
A launch, transition, or initiative is behind schedule. You need experienced hands-on leadership to triage, reprioritize, and drive it across the line.
Get senior design leadership exactly when you need it, without the cost or commitment of a full-time hire.
Access experienced design talent at a fraction of a full-time salary, equity package, and benefits. Right-size the engagement to your stage and budget.
Pre-screened operators are ready to match in as little as 3 days. Skip months of recruiting and get leadership in place before your next sprint.
Every operator is vetted by veteran executive recruiters on track record, references, and hands-on leadership. You meet only people who have solved your problem before.
Three ways to engage, one retainer model
Every engagement is a scoped, monthly retainer with no hourly billing, no long-term lock-in, and a clean path to full-time if it's working.
Best for: Ongoing part-time design leadership for teams that need hands-on guidance without a full-time hire.
Best for: Full-time coverage during a hiring gap, product sprint, or critical delivery window.
Best for: Trial an operator in your environment before converting them to a permanent full-time role.
Fractional vs full-time vs agency
Three ways to get design leadership, and where each one wins.
| Factor | Fractional Design | Full-Time Hire | Agency / Freelance Platform |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time to Start | ~3 days | 2 to 4 months | 1 to 3 weeks |
| Engagement | Monthly retainer, scoped SOW | Salary, equity, benefits | Project markup, hourly billing |
| Cost Profile | Pay for leadership hours only | Full compensation package | High blended rates with overhead |
| Best For | Flexible design leadership | Long-term org growth | Pure execution without leadership layer |
| Integration | Embedded in your team | Fully embedded, long ramp | Arm's length, limited context |
| Accountability | Named operator, skin in the game | Full employment obligations | Account-manager layer |
What design talent costs
Starting hourly rates from live market benchmarks. Real engagements run on monthly retainers with custom SOWs. No deposit to start sourcing, and benchmarks update weekly.
Head of Design
- Senior leadership on a part-time schedule
- Monthly retainer, no recruiter fees
- Scale hours up or down as needs change
Popular design rates
Live hourly benchmarks by role, updated weekly.
Operators who moved the needle, fast
“Having someone senior from day one as a founder means you're actually hiring yourself out of a job, not transferring that amount of work to essentially management of someone junior, which can only be as often just as much work or only slightly less work.”
“It was literally three days after he started with us fractionally, Ryan was calling me and asking if we could get a full-time offer out.”
From brief to first introductions
Of first-year salary to convert to full-time
Deposit to start sourcing
From brief to first introductions
Share your stack, stage, and the outcome you need. No deposit, no recruiter fees to start sourcing.
AI plus veteran recruiters match you with pre-screened operators who have solved your problem before.
Kick off a scoped monthly engagement, scale up or down, and convert to full-time if it is working.
Questions, answered
Hiring at the role level? Each role page carries its own pricing and FAQs.
Design leadership in days, not months
Tell us what you need and we will match you with pre-vetted operators in ~3 days. Looking for fractional work instead? There is a path for you too.