The design of control systems with multiple delays was seldom discussed in past years. In this paper, an optimizing design method based on a frequency‐domain criterion is presented for multi‐delayed control systems to achieve good step response performance. The frequency‐domain criterion partitions the space of the controller parameters into two sets — one is undesirable and will cause unsatisfactory response; the other is desirable because it guarantees robust stability and attains satisfactory response with little overshoot and little oscillation. Over the desirable set, the final design parameters are easy to obtain by searching the set of controller parameters that lead to the maximum open‐loop gain. Examples are given to show the usefulness of this approach.