Senior Design Program Manager

JOB TITLE: Senior Design Program Manager
LOCATION: San Francisco, CA
PAY RANGE: $42 - $52/hr.
DURATION: 6 Months

TOP SKILLS:

• 5+ years of experience in design operations or program management within a design and technology environment.
• Proven ability to manage programs that span multiple teams, platforms, or systems with no single owner and competing priorities.
• Familiarity with AI tools and genuine curiosity about applying them to design or program management workflows; familiarity with 2D and 3D workspaces enough to navigate conversations, ask the right questions, and make the content legible to stakeholders.

Company:
Our client is a global leader in creative software, offering innovative tools for digital media creation, design, and marketing.

The Opportunity:
We are looking for a Senior Design Program Manager to join Design's Creative Pro Application space. You will be embedded across multiple new projects and supporting horizontal initiatives, working closely with the Design Director of 3D and Emerging Technologies, helping to organize processes into programs that can scale and bring key business impact.

Key Operations:

• Partner with Design Directors, principals and design leads to translate ambiguous early-stage strategic work into structured programs with clear owners, milestones, and success criteria.
• Manage programs spanning multiple product teams, tracking dependencies, surfacing blockers, and keeping work moving across organizational boundaries.
• Drive cross functional working models across multiple disciplines including design, product, engineering, and research and more to ensure the right people have the right information at the right time.
• Support rituals and reviews across a multi-team design organization, including scheduling, facilitation, documentation, and follow-through.
• Maintain systems for tracking and reporting on design work at the portfolio level, including project status, priorities, and key decisions.
• Manage, drive and communicate cross organization design decisions.
• Coordinate between design, product, engineering, and research to ensure the right people have the right information at the right time.
• Create visibility into the team's work for design, product, and engineering leadership, establishing reporting cadences and communication structures that may not yet exist.
• Collaborate with Program Managers and PMs to build and own the operational infrastructure for different teams, including rituals, documentation standards, intake processes, and cross-team coordination frameworks.
• Manage programs spanning multiple product teams, tracking dependencies, surfacing blockers, and keeping work moving across organizational boundaries.
• Apply AI tooling to program management workflows to improve how the team tracks, reports, and communicates its work.

Experience:

• 5+ years of experience in design operations or program management within a design and technology environment.
• Experience standing up operational processes in a team or org that had none, you are comfortable building programs before there is a clear path.
• Proven ability to manage programs that span multiple teams, platforms, or systems with no single owner and competing priorities.
• Strong instincts for creating just enough structure to move work forward without over-engineering or slowing teams down.
• Demonstrated ability to work horizontally across a large organization, earning trust and building alignment with teams that operate independently.
• Clear, concise written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to make complex multi-threaded work legible to senior leadership.
• Comfortable operating in environments where the product, the team, and the process are all evolving at the same time.
• Familiarity with AI tools and genuine curiosity about applying them to design or program management workflows.
• Familiarity with 2D and 3D workspaces enough to navigate conversations, ask the right questions, and make the content legible to stakeholders.

Education:

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience.

BENEFITS SUMMARY: Individual compensation is determined by skills, qualifications, experience, and location. Compensation details listed in this posting reflect the base hourly rate or annual salary only, unless otherwise stated. In addition to base compensation, full-time roles are eligible for Medical, Dental, Vision, Commuter and 401K benefits with company matching.

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