Hire the Top 3% of Design Leads in 48 Hours

Hire design leads, on demand. Top companies and startups choose design leads from Toptal for strategic design direction, cross-functional team leadership, design system implementation, user experience optimization, and more.

Meet Design Leads in Our Exclusive Network

Featured Talent

Daniel T Wood, Top Design Leads Designer.

Daniel T Wood

Verified Expert in Design
16 Years of Experience

Design Lead

Daniel is a UX design and strategy expert with 25+ years of experience bringing products, apps, eCommerce, and websites to life. By molding ambiguity, asking hard questions, and championing data, he helps teams design more usable, accessible, and delightful products. Daniel has worked with many of the world's top brands (including Adidas, Walmart, Samsung, and Capital One), B2B SaaS (Salesforce, HP, Asana), and early-stage startups, helping them find better ways to meet and exceed expectations.

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Web Museum and Magazine Launch
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App Redesign for Tow Fleet Management
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eCommerce Redesign for Accountant Courseware Hub
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Gertruda Fon Narcco, Toptal Design Leads Designer.

Gertruda Fon Narcco

Verified Expert in Design
17 Years of Experience

Design Lead

Gertruda is a highly skilled principal product and UX designer with over 13 years of experience in UI/UX, including eight years in product design and art direction. She has a proven track record of creating successful product strategies, enhancing the user experience, and improving product communication to end audiences. Gertruda mentors early-stage startups and medium-sized businesses to guide them through product development and ensure a highly functional and winning product.

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Block Born Web3 Gaming Platform
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Come Together — Blockchain Mobile App
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Unique Together — NFT Marketplace Mobile App
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Antonija Skugor, Senior Design Leads Designer.

Antonija Skugor

Verified Expert in Design
18 Years of Experience

Design Lead

Antonija is a product designer with 15+ years of experience taking products from positioning and research to shipped interfaces. She leads with strategy and pairs product UX with brand identity and art direction, a mix most product designers don't bring. Her work spans enterprise SaaS, AI-native interfaces, data-dense dashboards, and consumer apps, with clean design systems for dev handoff. Antonija uses AI to prototype and validate fast, treating it as sharper judgment, not a shortcut.

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Mixer App - AI-powered Music Streaming Platform
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Class Locator Identity | A Digital Marketplace for Education Offerings
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Simulated Unique Ecosystem of Live NFTs and DeFi Games
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Adrien Castelain, Top Design Leads Designer.

Adrien Castelain

Verified Expert in Design
18 Years of Experience

Design Lead

Adrien is an award-winning product designer and digital art director with 17 years of experience crafting beautiful, meaningful digital experiences. He specialises in UX/UI design, design systems, and prototyping—turning complex workflows into interfaces that solve real problems and feel delightful to use. His clients hire him for his ability to go deep on the problem, deliver polished, dev-ready output, and stay embedded with teams through to implementation.

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High-end Audio Experience for Music Lovers
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Growtoday
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Sav | Domain Name Manager
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Hannu Salonen, Senior Design Leads Designer.

Hannu Salonen

Verified Expert in Design
15 Years of Experience

Design Lead

Hannu is a designer with 15+ years of experience ranging from UI and UX design to design leadership. His strong side is B2B and data-heavy, business-critical web apps. Hannu loves learning new domains, dissolving complex problems, and creating enjoyable experiences for serious use. In addition to his primary design skills, Hannu has a software development background with Adobe Creative Suite studies at the university level. He has pushed web projects into Java, PHP, and even Perl.

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UX/UI Designer for a Travel Agency Reservation Web App
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UX/UI Designs for a Workforce Management Web App
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UX/UI Designs for an Agricultural Yield Forecast Web Application
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Levi Csanyi, Expert Design Leads Designer for Hire.

Levi Csanyi

Verified Expert in Design
26 Years of Experience

Design Lead

Levi has over 27 years of experience in user-centered design, from high-level processes to design delivery. He has a proven track record of driving highly complex projects across many business units and disciplines and solid expertise in implementing cutting-edge technology in fast-moving and highly innovative Agile or Lean environments. Levi's strong leadership and organizational skills span coaching and mentoring designer teams in UX and UI design with excellent business partnering skills.

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PhenoCODE | Phenotype Explorer for Population Geneticists
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Oracle Big Data Discovery
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BIMx | An Award Winning Mobile Application
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Carrie Webster, Freelance Design Leads Designer.

Carrie Webster

Verified Expert in Design
19 Years of Experience

Design Lead

UX design leader with 20+ years of experience across UX, UI, and product design, and a Master of Information Architecture. Skilled in delivering end-to-end design for startups, enterprise, and consulting environments. Hands-on with research, prototyping, and design, while mentoring teams and collaborating with cross-functional stakeholders. Industry experience spans fintech, fraud prevention, education, real estate, and telecoms, with roles at Deloitte Digital, NBN, GBG, Equifax, and Optus.

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Property Inspection App
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Student Management Console Redesign
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Corporate Search Tool – SNAPsearch
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Warren Lebovics, Design Leads Design Freelancer.

Warren Lebovics

Verified Expert in Design
14 Years of Experience

Design Lead

Warren is a product designer with a decade of design leadership and consulting experience. Warren has led design in-person and remote teams and projects at companies large and small, including LinkedIn, Sony, Blackberry, Jumpstart, and more. Warren also has experience co-founding companies and taking companies through funding and acquisitions. He communicates extremely well and can lead and execute with teams of all sizes.

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AI Workout App
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LinkedIn Daily News
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Jumpstart | University Recruiting Platform
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Christopher Barklem, Senior Design Leads Designer.

Christopher Barklem

Verified Expert in Design
15 Years of Experience

Design Lead

Christopher is one of the most experienced creative minds in the industry, with over two decades in product design. Over 25 million users utilize his interactions on a day-to-day basis. His award-winning work is integrated into over 700 banks worldwide (100 million users), in small to enterprise companies, as seen in SaaS, B2B, B2C, C2C, government, and education. Christopher is a creative leader with over a decade of experience building and managing creative teams.

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AI Chatbot
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BancSabadell | Onboarding
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MoneyStrands
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Sanyam Hazare, Design Leads Design Freelancer.

Sanyam Hazare

Verified Expert in Design
19 Years of Experience

Design Lead

Sanyam Hazare (San) is a senior brand strategist and product designer with 20+ years of experience designing digital products, websites, and brand identities for startups, scale-ups, and Fortune 500 companies. His work spans AI, SaaS, fintech, logistics, healthcare, and eCommerce, including projects for Snapchat, Prudential, ACS, and YC-backed startups. He turns complex ideas into intuitive products, scalable systems, and brands that build trust and drive growth.

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Snapchat's Fitanalytics
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AVA Protocol | Web App Redesign
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Website App Design | TwinLabs AI Ltd.
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Adam Rotmil, Design Leads Design Freelancer.

Adam Rotmil

Verified Expert in Design
30 Years of Experience

Design Lead

With over 15 years of experience, Adam brings a wealth of product design and strategy insights to any challenge. He loves to lead by example and has design expertise in finance, wealth and trading, digital transformation, process and culture change, and digital health. He has led design at biotech AstraZeneca and Fjord Accenture. Adam studied at SCAD, Art Institute Boston, Basel HGK Switzerland, and Harvard University and teaches product design at MICA.

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AI Chatbot for Transportation Industry
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Health App for a Pharma Company
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Internal Advisor Product for Major Financial Institution
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Discover More Design Leads in the Toptal Network
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Hiring Made Easy

1

Share Your Needs

Discuss your requirements and refine your scope in a call with a Toptal domain expert who specializes in your area of need.
2

Choose Your Talent

Get a shortlist of expertly matched design leads within 24 hours to review and interview.
3

Start Your Risk-free Talent Trial

Start working with your chosen design lead. You’ll have up to two weeks to assess the fit: Pay only if you’re satisfied.
Hire a Top Design Lead Now

Toptal Lets You Hire Fast,
With Unparalleled Success

Trusted Talent Only

Trusted Talent Only

Our talent network is composed of thoroughly vetted professionals who ramp up quickly, function as essential team members, and deliver results.

Precise Matching

Precise Matching

Our experienced talent matchers specialize in identifying talent that fits your needs. They work to understand your exact requirements and hand-select the best professionals for your project.

Seamless Hiring

Seamless Hiring

We handle all aspects of billing, payments, and NDAs, streamlining the hiring process so you can focus on innovation, not overhead.

No-risk Trial Period

No-risk Trial Period

We want to be sure your engagement is a total success, so we offer a no-risk trial period. Work with your new hire for up to two weeks and pay only if you’re satisfied.

Effortless Scaling

Effortless Scaling

We help you scale your team up or down as needed, with quick and efficient hiring in under 48 hours.

Flexible Engagements

Flexible Engagements

Our flexible engagement models allow you to choose the engagement type that suits your needs and adjust it anytime: hourly, part time, or full time.

Our Designer Screening Process

26.4%Applicants Pass

Language and Personality

Toptal designers possess excellent written and verbal communication skills. We test each candidate’s ability to convey complex design concepts clearly across multiple collaboration tools and communication mediums. We also assess personality traits, looking for candidates who are passionate and fully engaged in their work.

7.4%Applicants Pass

In-depth Skill Review

Designers are required to demonstrate their knowledge and problem-solving ability through various assessments. We evaluate candidates based on their specialized work experience and relevant design practices, such as UX design, UI design, product design, prototyping, design systems, and more. We also review the strength of their portfolio and their extensive history of completing successful projects with clients.

3.6%Applicants Pass

Live Screening

Toptal designers are skilled at tackling complex design challenges creatively and independently. Each candidate participates in a live screening with one expert designer, where they must demonstrate their ability to evaluate design problems, propose multiple solutions, and explain their decisions in real time.

3.2%Applicants Pass

Test Projects

Toptal designers are required to complete a test project that reflects real client work. During this step, candidates demonstrate their ability to ideate, scope, prototype, and solve design challenges in real-world scenarios.

3%Applicants Pass

Continued Excellence

Toptal designers are expected to maintain a strong track record while working with clients. We continuously evaluate our talent throughout engagements to ensure our high standards for excellence and performance are consistently met.

Try Talent Before You Hire

We have a 98% trial-to-hire success rate.

Up to two weeks to try talent and evaluate fit

No obligation to pay or hire at the end of the two weeks

Get an alternative candidate quickly if you’re not satisfied

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Our customers say Excellent4.8 out of 5 based on 2,373 reviewsTrustpilot logo

Showing our favorite reviews

Why Organizations Choose Toptal®

Toptal gave us access to the best designers out there, saving us a lot of time and allowing us to build the best possible product.

Thierry JakircevicGeneral Manager, Digital Solutions, Bridgestone

Toptal’s talent is really excellent. They are able to work through large business problems and code incredibly efficiently.

Emily LemonSenior Director, Cleveland Cavaliers

The kind of people we looked for were hard to find. Toptal helped us achieve our goals by bringing high quality resources to bear on very short notice.

Elmar PlatzerDigital Transformation Leader, CSR

If you’ve tried working with other vendors, Toptal is going to be a different type of company to work with; they’re going to meet you where your needs are.

Matthew SchumacherSenior Product Manager, Alpha - Precision Drilling

Top design leads are in high demand. Ready to get started?

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