Design Operations Manager

About

We are seeking a Design Operations Manager to optimize, scale, and support the design function across our organization. This role focuses on process, systems, tools, and cross team collaboration, enabling designers to focus on delivering high quality creative and UX outcomes efficiently.

What sets this role apart: You'll be the engine that keeps design running smoothly, ensuring the team can focus on delivering high quality experiences while creating operational excellence across all design initiatives.

Key Responsibilities

• Own the day to day operational management of the design team, including resource planning, workflow optimization, and process improvement.
• Support adoption and operational integration of design systems, frameworks, and best practices to ensure consistency across products and platforms.
• Partner with product, engineering, and design leadership to align priorities, streamline processes, and remove bottlenecks.
• Manage tools, templates, and platforms used by the design team to maximize efficiency and collaboration.
• Establish metrics and KPIs to measure design effectiveness, efficiency, and impact.
• Support scaling design teams, onboarding new hires, and facilitating cross team knowledge sharing.
• Drive initiatives to improve design quality, consistency, and accessibility across all touchpoints.
• Advocate for designers by identifying operational challenges and implementing solutions.
• Define and manage design intake processes across teams
• Translate requests into actionable work (epics, stories, Jira tickets)
• Maintain visibility into design backlog and priorities
• Ensuring alignment between design and delivery teams
• Partner closely with Scrum Master to ensure design work is aligned with development timelines
• Support coordination of user testing and research initiatives tied to design work
• Integrate research, analytics, and benchmarking insights into scalable design planning and prioritization processes

Qualifications

• Proven experience in design operations, project management, or program management within a design organization.
• Strong understanding of design systems, UX workflows, and visual design principles.
• Experience managing tools and platforms such as Figma, Sketch, Miro, Jira, Confluence, or similar.
• Excellent communication, collaboration, and organizational skills.
• Ability to translate business objectives into design processes and operational strategies.
• Experience in cross functional team coordination and resource planning.
• Comfortable with metrics, reporting, and data driven decision making.
• Experience working with analytics tools (e.g., Adobe Analytics, Google Analytics)
• Experience supporting or coordinating user research and usability testing

Nice to Have

• Experience in scaling global or multi product design teams.
• Knowledge of agile methodologies and design sprints.
• Understanding of accessibility, inclusive design, and UX best practices