Job brief
We are looking for a highly organized Design Operations Manager to join our growing product design team and take ownership of our operational strategy. In this role, you will be the conductor of our creative process, managing the tools, systems, and resource planning that enable our designers to produce their best work. You will collaborate closely with engineering, product management, and brand leads to ensure our design ecosystem is scalable, efficient, and well-integrated. If you are passionate about design systems, workflow optimization, and building creative cultures, we would love to have you on our team.
Key highlights
- Manage and evolve our centralized design system in Figma to ensure design consistency across all product touchpoints and feature teams.
- Streamline project intake, prioritization, and resource allocation workflows to ensure timely delivery of design assets and product requirements.
- Facilitate and document design-led ceremonies including design sprints, retrospectives, and cross-departmental critique sessions to foster team transparency.
- Partner with engineering leads to define and refine hand-off processes, ensuring design intent is accurately reflected in final code implementations.
What is a Design Operations Manager?
A Design Operations Manager acts as the strategic backbone of creative teams, defining the processes and infrastructure necessary to deliver high-quality digital products at scale. By managing design systems, tooling stacks, and cross-functional workflows, the Design Operations Manager ensures that design teams remain efficient and aligned with broader business objectives. This role bridges the gap between creative execution and operational excellence, utilizing methodologies like Agile and Design Thinking to reduce project friction and accelerate time-to-market.
What does a Design Operations Manager do?
A Design Operations Manager oversees the operational health of the design organization by maintaining design systems in Figma and managing project intake processes in tools like Asana, Jira, or Monday.com. They facilitate rituals such as design critiques, sprint planning, and quarterly capacity planning, ensuring stakeholders are updated on project statuses and resourcing needs. By gathering data on team velocity and tool utilization, they constantly iterate on internal processes to remove bottlenecks and maintain a consistent, high-velocity design delivery lifecycle.
Key responsibilities
- Manage and evolve our centralized design system in Figma to ensure design consistency across all product touchpoints and feature teams.
- Streamline project intake, prioritization, and resource allocation workflows to ensure timely delivery of design assets and product requirements.
- Facilitate and document design-led ceremonies including design sprints, retrospectives, and cross-departmental critique sessions to foster team transparency.
- Implement and maintain standardized documentation, naming conventions, and file management protocols across all collaborative design environments.
- Partner with engineering leads to define and refine hand-off processes, ensuring design intent is accurately reflected in final code implementations.
- Analyze team performance and operational bottlenecks using data from project management tools to recommend process improvements and toolchain optimizations.
- Lead the onboarding and training of new designers on internal creative processes, tools, and brand governance standards to accelerate productivity.
- Manage vendor relationships and software licensing for design tools, maximizing the ROI of our creative technology stack.
Requirements and skills
- 5+ years of experience in Design Operations, Project Management, or as a senior designer with a strong focus on creative workflows.
- Deep expertise in Figma, including design system management, library administration, and variable/token configuration.
- Hands-on proficiency with project management platforms such as Jira, Asana, or Linear to track design progress and team capacity.
- Strong understanding of the end-to-end product development lifecycle, including integration points between design, engineering, and QA.
- Exceptional ability to synthesize technical architecture requirements into actionable design-friendly documentation and clear project roadmaps.
- Proven experience building and scaling design operations at a technology company, ideally within an Agile/Scrum framework.
- Bachelor’s degree in Design, Project Management, Business Administration, or a related field with a portfolio highlighting operational process improvements.
- Professional certification in PMP, Six Sigma, or similar process improvement methodologies is highly preferred for this role.
FAQs
What does a Design Operations Manager do?
A Design Operations Manager is responsible for the 'behind-the-scenes' work that enables designers to focus on creative execution. This includes managing design tools like Figma, optimizing project workflows in Jira, establishing design systems, and handling resource planning. They ensure that creative teams are efficient, organized, and perfectly aligned with product and engineering goals.
What skills are required for a Design Operations Manager?
Key skills include proficiency in design systems management, project management methodologies (Agile/Scrum), and advanced experience with collaboration tools like Figma and Asana. Additionally, this role requires strong cross-functional communication skills, analytical thinking for process improvement, and the ability to manage complex resource planning for design teams.
Who does a Design Operations Manager work with?
The Design Operations Manager works as a central connector within the organization. They collaborate most closely with Creative Directors and UX/UI Designers to support their workflow, Product Managers to align on roadmaps, and Engineering Managers to ensure smooth hand-off processes. They also engage with Finance and HR teams regarding tool budgeting and team hiring needs.
Why is a Design Operations Manager important to a design team?
As design teams grow, the complexity of managing assets, hand-offs, and communication increases exponentially. A Design Operations Manager provides the structure necessary to prevent burnout, eliminate duplicate work, and ensure that design outputs remain high-quality and consistent. Their work ultimately increases the speed and impact of the entire product design organization.