At Microsoft, we’re building a modern, AI-forward marketing organization that learns faster, activates smarter, and drives measurable impact. Our approach blends human creativity with AI-powered insights to fuel bold, culturally inspired creative strategies at scale. We prioritize outcomes over outputs, embrace rapid learning loops, and operate in agile flight formations that unite disciplines across Commercial Brand, Creative, and Customer Marketing.
The Commercial Brand, Creative, and Customer Marketing team is seeking an Art Director to help bring Microsoft’s commercial marketing to life through compelling visual storytelling, social-first ideas, and creator-led content. This role develops and executes audience-first creative across integrated campaigns, social platforms, creator partnerships, digital experiences, and emerging formats, translating strategy into distinctive visual work that drives engagement and business impact.
This creative brings strong visual craft, cultural awareness, and deep experience developing social-first and creator-led content. They understand how audiences engage across platforms and can translate brand, business, product, and technology stories into visually compelling work that feels native to social channels while maintaining creative excellence and brand consistency.
Blending conceptual thinking with hands-on execution, this role partners closely with writers, strategists, marketers, social and creator teams, producers, and agency partners to shape ideas from brief through launch. This individual is equally comfortable art directing others and creating content themselves, moving from concept through final execution for select social, creator, and rapid-response opportunities. They can art direct creators, shoots, and production partners; build visual systems that scale across formats; and use modern design and AI-enabled tools to create, prototype, iterate, and raise the quality of the work.
At Microsoft, our mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more guides how we partner with customers to deliver trusted, impactful solutions. With a growth-mindset culture, we innovate responsibly and measure success by shared progress across people, teams, and customers. Join us to do meaningful work that changes the world and helps shape what’s next for everyone.
Responsibilities
Job Responsibilities
Develop visual concepts and creative solutions for integrated marketing campaigns, with a particular focus on social-first, creator-led, and culturally relevant work.
Partner with writers, strategists, social and creator leads, and marketers to translate briefs into compelling ideas and platform-native executions.
Art direct creator partnerships, content captures, productions, photography, video, motion, and editorial shoots to ensure strategic alignment and a high level of craft.
Create visual languages, design systems, storyboards, layouts, and campaign assets that can scale across social, digital, video, experiential, and emerging formats.
Apply audience insights, platform behaviors, cultural trends, and brand standards to inform creative decisions and strengthen relevance.
Adapt integrated campaign ideas for channels including LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and emerging platforms without losing the core creative idea.
Present concepts and creative rationale clearly to partners and stakeholders, incorporating feedback while protecting the integrity of the work.
Collaborate with internal production teams, creators, and external agencies to deliver work with consistency, efficiency, and creative excellence.
Use AI-enabled creative tools and workflows across ideation, image and video generation, iteration, and production, and share repeatable learnings with the broader team.
Create and produce select content end-to-end, from concept through final execution, particularly for social, creator, executive, and rapid-response opportunities.
Develop storyboards, social assets, presentations, motion explorations, and lightweight creative directly using modern design and AI-powered tools.
Operate as both an art director and maker, moving fluidly between concepting, directing, prototyping, and hands-on content creation.
Contribute to a culture of craft, curiosity, experimentation, and constructive creative feedback.
Qualifications
Required Qualifications
Bachelor’s Degree or Certificate in Design, Fine Arts, Visual Communications, Human Computer Interaction, or a related art field AND 2+ years of experience in art, design, advertising, content creation, or a related creative field, OR equivalent experience.
Preferred Qualifications
5+ years of experience in art direction, visual design, advertising, social content, or related creative disciplines.
Portfolio demonstrating strong conceptual thinking, visual storytelling, and polished execution across social, creator, digital, and integrated campaign work.
Experience developing and art directing social-first and creator-led campaigns, including directing creators, photographers, videographers, and production partners.
Strong understanding of social platforms, creator ecosystems, audience behaviors, internet culture, and content formats.
Experience creating or directing work across video, motion, photography, illustration, typography, layout, and design systems.
Ability to translate complex products, services, and technologies into clear, relevant, and engaging visual stories.
Experience collaborating with writers, strategists, marketers, social teams, product teams, and production partners.
Ability to balance strategic thinking and conceptual development with hands-on creative execution.
Experience working in fast-paced, multidisciplinary environments and managing multiple workstreams and deadlines.
Experience leveraging AI-powered creative tools and modern design workflows.
Portfolio demonstrating both creative direction and hands-on content creation.
Experience independently creating content across design, social, presentation, motion, video, or AI-enabled formats.
Proven ability to move from idea to finished asset with limited oversight in fast-moving environments.
Strong communication, presentation, collaboration, and feedback skills.
Art IC4 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $102,100 - $202,200 per year. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $133,800 - $219,200 per year.
Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here:
https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay
This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.
Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, immigration status, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran or military status, race, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance with religious accommodations and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.
Skills Required
- Bachelor's degree or certificate in Design, Fine Arts, Visual Communications, Human Computer Interaction, or a related art field, or equivalent experience
- 2+ years of experience in art, design, advertising, content creation, or a related creative field
- 5+ years of experience in art direction, visual design, advertising, social content, or related creative disciplines
- Portfolio demonstrating conceptual thinking, visual storytelling, and polished execution across social, creator, digital, and integrated campaign work
- Experience developing and art directing social-first and creator-led campaigns
- Experience directing creators, photographers, videographers, and production partners
- Strong understanding of social platforms, creator ecosystems, audience behaviors, internet culture, and content formats
- Experience creating or directing video, motion, photography, illustration, typography, layout, and design systems
- Ability to translate complex products, services, and technologies into clear visual stories
- Experience collaborating with writers, strategists, marketers, social teams, product teams, and production partners
- Ability to balance strategic thinking and conceptual development with hands-on creative execution
- Experience working in fast-paced, multidisciplinary environments and managing multiple workstreams and deadlines
- Experience leveraging AI-powered creative tools and modern design workflows
- Portfolio demonstrating both creative direction and hands-on content creation
- Experience independently creating content across design, social, presentation, motion, video, or AI-enabled formats
- Ability to move from idea to finished asset with limited oversight in fast-moving environments
- Strong communication, presentation, collaboration, and feedback skills
Microsoft Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Microsoft and has not been reviewed or approved by Microsoft.
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Fair & Transparent Compensation — Pay is presented as broadly competitive overall, with clear role/level/location variation and an emphasis on using posted ranges and band information for apples-to-apples comparisons.
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Retirement Support — Retirement benefits are described as a standout, highlighted by a strong 401(k) match structure and immediate vesting, plus additional plan features for tax-advantaged saving.
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Parental & Family Support — Family-oriented benefits are portrayed as a meaningful strength, with substantial paid parental leave and added supports like back-up care and adoption/surrogacy assistance.
Microsoft Insights
What We Do
At Microsoft, our mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Our mission is grounded in both the world in which we live and the future we strive to create. Today, we live in a mobile-first, cloud-first world, and the transformation we are driving across our businesses is designed to enable Microsoft and our customers to thrive in this world.
