We are looking for a customer focused Senior DesignOps Program Manager to help define and drive strategy for teams consisting of Interaction Design, User Research, and Content Design, and to collaborate across multiple organizations including Design, Product Management, Engineering, Marketing, and our Senior Leadership.  

The ideal candidate knows how to bring the best design strategy together across multiple teams and workstreams. You will own specific touchpoints and process flows, and help facilitate communication between Design team members, product leadership and stakeholders. You will drive product and studio-wide processes in often changing and ambiguous environments, and act as the glue that keeps our team running smoothly. Most importantly, you will continually advocate for our users and champion industry-leading, inclusive, user-centered design. And as a leader in Dynamics, you’ll keep a broad view of the portfolio to ensure we’re delivering world-class user experience across the product ecosystem. 

  

DesignOps manages key areas: 

  

Design Program Management— work closely with our Studio Manager and Interaction Design, User Research, and Content Design Leads to drive our operational strategy and raise the bar of our practice. This includes building and overseeing our UX roadmap, and supporting organizational development efforts such as hiring, onboarding, and career development. 

  

Design Operations—partner with leadership across the product studio, and work closely with program managers, engineers, designers, researchers, and content to develop systems for how we work. Explore better ways to prototype creative solutions, ensuring we are building the best solutions for the right problems at the right time for our customers.  

  

You will be responsible for creating efficiencies in our design process, the goal, to enable designers, researchers, and content designers to stay focused on delivering high quality work. This includes staff and resource planning, vendor management, and everything else that goes into delivering the work that our team does. 

Responsibilities

  

As a Senior DesignOps Program Manager, you will have the following responsibilities: 

• Drive team rhythm of business and operations and direct the day-to-day operations of the design team 
• Schedule and facilitate meetings and design reviews to maximize the team’s time and effectiveness 

• Build and refine multidisciplinary process for maximum efficiency and quality output 
• Forecast resourcing needs and lead conversations with leadership on resource asks 
• Identify capacity and forecast for design workloads 
• Manage team backlog including work items, scope, and requirements 
• Negotiate scope and priority with product leadership 

• Define the metrics used to measure success 
• Keep a pulse on team health and morale, and generate positive energy 
• Be an advocate for human-centered design and research 
• Scale the DesignOps expertise across geographies 

Qualifications

  

Required Qualifications: 

  

• 5-8 years of relevant experience – the successful candidate demonstrates impact in Design Operations, UX Program Management, cross functional leadership  

• Experience managing projects and coordinating the efforts of multiple teams across the business 
• Self-starter with demonstrable understanding of user experience and design 
• Understands how to utilize design specialties and how/when to integrate with partnering teams 
• Customer-centric mindset with a solid understating of the importance of qualitative and quantitative research 
• Familiarity and working knowledge of current design or management tools (Figma, Sketch, Invision, Adobe suite, Jira, Azure DevOps, and others) 

• Awareness of inclusive design and how it supports Microsoft's mission 
• Willingness to question established thinking in pursuit of better outcomes 
• Familiarity with Agile and Lean methodologies 

  

  

#DTStudios

#DTPJobs 

Ability to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements are required for this role. These requirements include but are not limited to the following specialized security screenings: Microsoft Cloud Background Check: This position will be required to pass the Microsoft Cloud background check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter. 

   

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances.