Instacart

Design Program Manager

Instacart

full-time

Posted on:

Origin:  • 🇺🇸 United States

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Salary

💰 $134,000 - $180,000 per year

Job Level

SeniorLead

About the role

  • Lead our design program management function driving operational excellence, building systems that scale craft, and supporting the health and impact of the design organization.
  • Grow and mentor a team of program managers, helping them deepen their partnerships, sharpen their practices, and develop their careers.
  • Define the vision and roadmap for how Design Program Management drives operational excellence, craft empowerment, and cross-functional collaboration, while representing the function in leadership forums and company-wide planning.
  • Scale systems, rituals, and playbooks to improve how design work is planned, staffed, executed, and delivered, while ensuring high-impact initiatives achieve customer and business outcomes.
  • Act as a strategic partner across teams—ensuring alignment, mitigating risks, and supporting design team health through capacity planning, roadmapping, tooling, and standardized documentation.
  • Track success metrics to drive continuous improvement in team performance, stakeholder satisfaction, and design impact, aligning closely with the Head of Design & Research and Design Leadership to support long-term organizational strategy.
  • The Instacart Design & Research org is a tight-knit collective of product designers, researchers, program managers, and content experts working to reimagine how people feed themselves and their families.
  • Our Design Program Management function is the glue that holds it all together, driving alignment, removing friction, and enabling the creative work that powers our products.
  • You’ll report into the Head of Design & Research and lead a hybrid team structure with embedded DPMs and standardized practices—enabling both consistency and domain depth.

Requirements

  • 8+ years of experience in program management, operations, or related fields, including 3+ years of managing and growing a team.
  • Experience leading design program management or a similar function within a design or creative organization.
  • Deep understanding of product development life cycles, agile methodologies, and design team workflows, with an ability to drive organizational change and influence cross-functional partners at all levels.
  • Proven ability to hire, coach, and develop high-performing teams while fostering trust, growth, and impact, and creating a culture of trust, learning, and impact.
  • Excellent communication, facilitation, and collaboration skills—you bring clarity to complexity and momentum to ambiguity.
  • Experience leading in a hybrid or embedded team model (e.g., hub-and-spoke) while balancing hands-on execution with strategic oversight in fast-paced environments.
  • Familiarity with design and research tooling ecosystems (e.g., Figma, Linear, Dovetail, Jira, Google Workspace, etc.).
  • Proven ability to design and implement team-wide systems, templates, and operating cadences.
  • Demonstrated success in influencing leadership decision-making through data, insights, and storytelling.
  • Skilled in translating leadership needs into actionable roadmaps and operating models for teams.