Design ...
Not as in engineering, hard sums or programming.
But simply how stuff looks, mostly copied from Dieter Rams Braun Era.
So they'd be mad to actually give him a senior job. Common in companies last 100 years to invent a new title for someone long serving.
I wonder why Apple hired Jony Ives rather than Dieter Rams at the time. Maybe Jobs didn't know of him or he turned it down.