Product Design Manager, Vertical Experiences

BetterUp

Manage and mentor product designers at BetterUp, ensuring coherent design across coaching experiences. Leading a pod while maintaining craft standards and operational excellence within a hybrid work environment.

Posted 6/11/2026full-timeAustin • Texas • 🇺🇸 United StatesSeniorLead💰 $190,000 - $260,000 per yearWebsite

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Manage and develop four direct reports across multiple time zones, with consistent 1:1s, actionable feedback, and individualized growth support
Run design operations for your pod: review cadence, Figma hygiene, handoff standards, and sprint participation
Ensure design is in the room at kickoff—before the PRD is written, not after
Enforce sign-off gates before work moves to engineering, maintaining quality and consistency across your surfaces
Partner directly with VP Product counterparts for Partner, Coach, and Member pods to align on priorities and tradeoffs
Surface experience quality issues across your surfaces and bring them to weekly design review
Contribute to team-wide rituals: cross-pod critiques, design jams, and quarterly dogfooding
Maintain craft standards as a player-coach—you are still a designer, not just a manager; taste and collaboration with growth, core, AI, and design systems teams matter

Requirements

What you’ll need

7+ years of product design experience, including people management experience
Experience managing product designers across multiple product areas simultaneously
Strong systems thinking—the surfaces you own span B2B, B2C, and two-sided interactions
A track record of getting design upstream, not just executing on PM direction
Comfort operating without perfect information in a fast-moving environment
Player-coach mindset—craft and taste are as important as management skills
Proficiency with Figma and modern design tools; familiarity with prototyping and design systems workflows
Experience with AI-powered design tools and workflows (e.g., AI-assisted prototyping, generative design, AI-powered user research analysis)

Benefits

Comp & perks

Access to BetterUp coaching; one for you and one for a friend or family member
A competitive compensation plan with opportunity for advancement
Medical, dental, and vision insurance
Flexible paid time off
All federal/statutory holidays observed
4 BetterUp Inner Workdays (https://www.betterup.co/inner-work)
5 Volunteer Days to give back
Learning and Development stipend
Company wide Summer & Winter breaks
Year-round charitable contribution of your choice on behalf of BetterUp
401(k) self contribution

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills & Tools

product designpeople managementsystems thinkingdesign operationsprototypingdesign systems workflowsAI-assisted prototypinggenerative designAI-powered user research analysis

Soft Skills

leadershipcollaborationcommunicationfeedbackindividualized growth supportcomfort operating without perfect informationplayer-coach mindsettaste