Travel is not just about the destination; it's about every memory made along the way. We are dedicated to shaping the future of travel by partnering with 200+ airline, hospitality, cruise, passenger rail, and financial services companies to create new, meaningful revenue streams through incredible customer experiences. Rooted in our core values of being ambitious, innovative, and collaborative, we are driven to continuously raise the bar, exceed expectations, and bring out the best in everyone, fostering a culture where we believe we are better together, working towards an extraordinary future in travel. Come help us transform everyday travel into extraordinary experiences.
ABOUT THE ROLE:
We are seeking a Optimization Director to establish and lead a company-wide optimization discipline—driving revenue growth through human-led and AI-powered experimentation, UX/UI best practices, and cross-functional collaboration.
This leader will play a critical role in two core areas:
1) Optimizing existing digital experiences through continuous A/B testing, personalization, and data-driven enhancements.
2) Ensuring best-in-class UI/UX for new product builds, working closely with product and engineering teams to establish scalable, high-performing designs from the outset.
This role requires leadership by influence, as you will guide stakeholders across multiple teams without direct reports. Your expertise will shape both iterative improvements and foundational design decisions, creating a seamless, engaging, and high-converting user experience across all digital touchpoints.
WHAT YOU WILL BE DOING:
Optimization & Experimentation
- Lead the strategic vision for email, landing page, and user interface (UI) optimization, ensuring a seamless consumer journey.
- Develop and implement a hybrid experimentation model, combining:
1) Human-led methods: Behavioral analytics, heatmapping, user research, and qualitative testing.
2) AI-driven experimentation: Machine learning-powered A/B testing, automated personalization, predictive content recommendations, and real-time optimization.
- Partner with engineering and product teams to integrate AI and automation into the optimization workflow, ensuring scalable, real-time learning capabilities.
- Drive UX/UI enhancements, focusing on site speed, mobile optimization, checkout flows, content strategy, and AI-enhanced personalization.
- Work closely with marketing teams to optimize email content, subject lines, personalization, and send times for maximum engagement.
Best-in-Class UX/UI for New Product Builds
- Ensure that new product interfaces and feature builds meet the highest standards of usability, accessibility, and conversion-driven design.
- Work collaboratively with product and engineering teams during the product development lifecycle, providing expert UI/UX guidance from concept to launch.
- Define user experience best practices, wireframes, and design frameworks to create a consistent and scalable design system.
- Advocate for a consumer-first approach in product development, ensuring that every new experience is built with engagement, retention, and transaction rates in mind.
Collaboration & Leadership (Without Direct Reports)
- Influence and align stakeholders across marketing, product, engineering, and analytics—driving cross-functional buy-in on AI-enhanced optimization strategies.
- Lead the Optimization Center of Excellence (OCE), fostering a collaborative environment for knowledge-sharing, governance, and execution.
- Guide decentralized teams in executing optimization initiatives, ensuring best practices are applied across all business units.
- Organize and lead monthly OCE meetings, ensuring alignment on priorities, learnings, and ongoing initiatives.
Measurement & Performance Insights
- Collaborate with marketing analytics teams to define KPIs and ensure standardized measurement of human- and AI-driven optimization efforts.
- Provide insights on open rates (email subject lines), click rates (email content & personalization), and conversion rates (AI-driven UI optimizations & checkout flows).
- Partner with data engineering and analytics teams to ensure access to clean, centralized data for tracking performance.
YOU ARE SOMEONE WITH:
- 10+ years of experience in digital optimization, UX/UI strategy, and CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization), ideally within a B2C or DTC business.
- Expertise in UX/UI design principles, including usability best practices, accessibility, wireframing, site speed, mobile optimization, checkout flows, and component governance.
- Proven ability to lead through influence, aligning cross-functional teams without direct reports.
- Experience working closely with marketing, product, engineering, and analytics teams to drive cross-functional optimization efforts.
- Strong background in AI-driven optimization, including machine learning-based testing, AI-generated personalization, and predictive analytics.
- Proficiency in optimization, UX, and analytics tools (e.g., Figma, Sketch, Optimizely, Adobe Target, Google Optimize, Looker, Tableau).
- Strong communication skills, with the ability to present insights, influence stakeholders, and drive strategic decision-making.
- A passion for continuous learning and knowledge-sharing, fostering an experimentation-first mindset across the organization.
WHAT YOU’LL LOVE ABOUT US:
🏦 RRSP/401(k) Matching
🏥 Comprehensive Health Plans
📅 Flexible Paid Time Off
✈️ Travel Experience Credit
🧘 Annual Wellness Credit
🥗 Team Events and Monthly Lunches
💻 Home Office/Commuter Credit
🌅 Work From Anywhere Program
🍼 Parental Leave Top Up
🌍 Adventure Pass
OUR PROCESS:
Plusgrade is an equal-opportunity employer and is committed to providing an accessible recruitment process. We welcome applications from all qualified individuals and are committed to equal employment opportunities regardless of gender identity or expression, race, ethnic origin, creed, place of origin, age, sex, marital status, physical or mental disability, sexual orientation, and any other category protected by law. Upon request, we will provide accommodation for applicants with disabilities.
We believe in diversity and inclusivity and that is why our interview process is designed for a positive candidate experience and to ensure every candidate is evaluated equally. All applications will be reviewed by our Talent Team and the successful candidate(s) will go through the following recruitment process:
• Recruiter Phone Interview
• Hiring Manager Interview
• Team Interview
What We Do
Plusgrade powers the global travel industry with its portfolio of leading ancillary revenue solutions. Over 200 airline, hospitality, cruise, passenger rail, and financial services companies trust Plusgrade to create new, meaningful revenue streams through incredible customer experiences. As an ancillary revenue powerhouse, Plusgrade has generated billions of dollars in new revenue opportunities across its platform for its partners while creating enhanced travel experiences for millions of their passengers and guests. Plusgrade was founded in 2009 with headquarters in Montreal and has offices around the world.
