Program Director
SimCorp
Cloud
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.
