Updated: Mar 10, 2025 - The Design Program Manager continually works to optimize process and workflow for a high-functioning design organization. Builds and owns processes to identify and remove blockers to enable great design, managing resource allocation effectively based on content slates and upcoming work. Sets expectations with design and business partner teams, maintains roadmaps, and manages communication channels to ensure alignment and clear reporting to executive stakeholders and product teams.


Tips for Design Program Manager Skills and Responsibilities on a Resume
1. FC Design Program Manager, Vista Systems, Orlando, FL
Job Summary:
- Design, build, improve, and innovate order fulfillment infrastructure throughout the supply chain network.
- Manage, design, and implement integrated automation projects with system elements such as high speed sortation, multiple conveyors, package lines and/or robotic work cells.
- Analyze business & operations requirements to generate supply chain automation concepts, develop and present multiple solution options.
- Lead system commissioning and predefined testing activities, including administering the plan, interpreting statuses, and reporting results.
- Identify the materials to be handled and determine the throughput and storage requirements.
- Model flow of materials to be handled and determine throughput and storage requirements.
- Specify storage solutions based on cubic space need, product velocity, and cycle time goals.
- Evaluate issues and propose actionable resolutions to design and process problems.
- Identify and communicate needs for design and process improvements.
Skills on Resume:
- Infrastructure Design (Hard Skills)
- Automation Project Management (Hard Skills)
- Requirement Analysis (Hard Skills)
- System Testing and Commissioning (Hard Skills)
- Material Flow Modeling (Hard Skills)
- Storage Solution Specification (Hard Skills)
- Problem Resolution (Soft Skills)
- Process Improvement Identification (Soft Skills)
2. FC Design Program Manager, Apex Creations, Austin, TX
Job Summary:
- Identify & evaluate supply chain automation & robotics technologies and solution providers.
- Create process requirement and efficient material flows for the supply chain facility layout.
- Prepare RFPs (Request for Proposal), respond to questions, lead reviews, and compare/ tabulate bids and make vendor recommendations based on technical qualifications.
- Collaborate effectively across all internal and external stakeholders including vendors, internal engineering team, operations and facility teams.
- Lead and coordinate design and execution efforts between internal teams and outside vendors including equipment specifications, material flow, process design, and site layout.
- Coordinate with local site management to ensure proper operator training, procedural compliance, maintenance and safety practices are followed for new and existing equipment.
- Thoroughly document/investigate change requests and provide recommendations.
- Develop cross-functional knowledge of Start-Up team systems, processes, procedures, and tools.
Skills on Resume:
- Technology Evaluation (Hard Skills)
- Process Design (Hard Skills)
- Vendor Management (Soft Skills)
- Cross-functional Collaboration (Soft Skills)
- Project Coordination (Hard Skills)
- Safety and Compliance Management (Hard Skills)
- Change Request Analysis (Hard Skills)
- Cross-functional Knowledge Development (Soft Skills)
3. Design Program Manager, Streamline Solutions, Raleigh, NC
Job Summary:
- Facilitate discussions and decisions needed to intake, prioritize, and sequence work for the agile design teams
- Be a voice & champion of the consumer by advocating for the growth of the digital platform's user experience in an orderly way.
- Partner with Product and Engineering to coordinate the design needs of the organization in partnership with the creative director and other design leadership.
- Collaborate with design leadership to proactively manage team assignments as well as overall operational structure as the design organization scales.
- Collaborate with design leads and managers as well as product management and engineering partners (PMs, product owners, scrum masters) to identify dependencies on design deliverables and expected timelines for design work within each quarter
- Publicize and communicate design delivery expectations and keep all parties informed of any changes.
- Partner with product and business teams to ensure the design team is engaged appropriately on new feature requests.
- Attend release train syncs to report progress towards team objectives and identify changes in priority and delivery dates.
- Help drive the design team to success by working across teams to coordinate & track design stories in an agile software development life cycle
- Ensure internal product stakeholders needs and expectations are met and promote transparency by working with SAFe/scrum practices.
- Facilitate continuous grooming activities to intake, map, and plan work for the design team, which is made up of several disciplines (UX, UI, content, research, accessibility).
- Practice servant leadership, participating in inspect and adapt sessions, solving problems, removing blockers, and otherwise protecting the designers’ time and space to do work well while collaborating with product, engineering, architecture and other teams.
- Work with design leadership, operations, and team members to define and refine design and agile practices and processes, and coach teams on best practice in following the workflow and frameworks.
Skills on Resume:
- Work Prioritization (Hard Skills)
- User Advocacy (Soft Skills)
- Cross-functional Coordination (Soft Skills)
- Team Assignment Management (Hard Skills)
- Dependency Identification (Hard Skills)
- Expectation Management (Soft Skills)
- Agile Project Tracking (Hard Skills)
- Servant Leadership (Soft Skills)
4. Design Program Manager, Beacon Design Studio, Madison, WI
Job Summary:
- Understand partner area business strategies, goals, products, and roadmaps
- Facilitate new work requests with stakeholders, framing opportunities to effectively prioritize and clearly define the UX engagement
- Identify optimal staffing capacity, and operating models to facilitate healthy collaboration, quality design delivery and workflow efficiency.
- Establishing team rituals, setting meeting cadence, coordinating agendas and action items
- Manage relationships with internal business and technology partners
- Track and report on delivery performance and resource capacity
- Care for humans, improve hiring, onboarding, personal development, and recognition practices
- Educate to ensure a clear understanding of design activities and demonstrate UX value
- Standardize, measure, and optimize design processes and tools to drive design quality and efficiency
- Oversee budgets and assist with UX expense management and reporting
Skills on Resume:
- Business Strategy Alignment (Soft Skills)
- Stakeholder Engagement (Soft Skills)
- Resource Planning (Hard Skills)
- Team Coordination (Soft Skills)
- Relationship Management (Soft Skills)
- Performance Tracking (Hard Skills)
- Talent Development (Soft Skills)
- Process Optimization (Hard Skills)
5. Design Program Manager, Quantum Innovations, Albuquerque, NM
Job Summary:
- Structure a world class onboarding program that introduces new hires to role, as well as to the company, design organization, respective team, SAP Design culture, tools, systems and processes
- Put repeatable processes in place that coordinate work across multiple teams
- Continuously examine, optimize, and measure operational model and processes (e.g. automating tasks, improving workflows, developing repeatable methodologies)
- Arrange lunches, 1:1s, training sessions, shadow sessions and introductions
- Distribute equipment, tools, swag and welcome kits
- Prepare hiring managers and teams to welcome new hires
- Evolve the program to serve those onboarding to various lines of business
- Create, maintain and communicate program information to key stakeholders and senior leaders via roadshows, info sessions and async collaboration platforms
- Define and keep up-to-date documentation of how Design works and how to work with each of the Design disciplines that make up team
- Support Design, Engineering and PM partners to drive design deliverables for each product cycle
- Drive the design team's rhythm of business and operations
- Partner with design leads to identify capacity and help forecast for design workloads, allocate work to design contributors accordingly
- Manage design work items, scope and requirements, work-back calendar/schedules, and design deliverables
- Facilitate design reviews and ensure action items are captured and communicated
Skills on Resume:
- Onboarding Program Development (Hard Skills)
- Process Optimization (Hard Skills)
- Operational Model Improvement (Hard Skills)
- Event Coordination (Soft Skills)
- Stakeholder Communication (Soft Skills)
- Program Documentation (Hard Skills)
- Workload Forecasting (Hard Skills)
- Design Review Facilitation (Soft Skills)
6. Design Program Manager, Horizon Dynamics, Richmond, VA
Job Summary:
- Build culture, foster team development and growth
- Create the programs to develop, motivate and engage, attract, and retain people.
- Shape the career paths for the different roles in the team supported with the training programs and learning opportunities to achieve goals
- Foster a culture of design that spans across the organization where designers find allies and champions at different levels
- Regularly analyze and communicate the business impact of growth learning and development programs
- Persuade and influence partners in different areas of the organization
- Keep a pulse on team health and morale, generate positive energy
- Propose new tools and processes to optimize on cross team collaboration
- Define project scope, goals, dependencies and deliverables for key Creative projects managing any projects through entire lifecycle: Planning, creative production, delivery and post-project retrospectives
- Create project schedules based on work requirements and Marketing BOMs
- Manage review cycles, disseminate notes, coordinate feedback
- Work closely with Creative Directors to proactively clarify requirements and use cases, actively seeking clarification when there is ambiguity.
- Anticipate bottlenecks, provide escalation management, anticipate and make tradeoffs, and balance business needs versus technical constraints
- Work across teams to create strong relationships with stakeholders communicating project status regularly
- Put repeatable processes in place that help the team plan and manage multiple parallel projects
Skills on Resume:
- Team Development (Soft Skills)
- Talent Retention (Hard Skills)
- Career Path Design (Hard Skills)
- Cultural Advocacy (Soft Skills)
- Program Impact Analysis (Hard Skills)
- Persuasion and Influence (Soft Skills)
- Team Morale Monitoring (Soft Skills)
- Cross-team Collaboration Optimization (Hard Skills)
7. Design Program Manager, Catalyst Design Group, Boise, ID
Job Summary:
- Partner with the Design Director to understand and execute team initiatives
- Serve as the go-to point of contact for design projects, removing roadblocks and tracking dependencies
- Own process, planning, roadmapping and communications for Design Systems, evangelizing the team across the organization
- Drive Design Systems-led initiatives to incorporate across other teams’ roadmaps
- Create and implement processes that empower the team and streamline work
- Manage design Jira tickets to enable transparency and manage workloads
- Elevate the team’s presence within the organization
- Facilitate design studios, stakeholder meetings, and internal team meetings
- Help develop process improvements for Design Operations as a whole
- Build trust between design, product, and engineering teams
- Coach the design team to help them deliver, while enabling them to shine
Skills on Resume:
- Team Initiative Execution (Soft Skills)
- Project Management (Hard Skills)
- Process Ownership (Hard Skills)
- Design Systems Integration (Hard Skills)
- Workload Management (Hard Skills)
- Stakeholder Facilitation (Soft Skills)
- Cross-functional Collaboration (Soft Skills)
- Team Coaching (Soft Skills)
8. Design Program Manager, Elevate Design Services, Salt Lake City, UT
Job Summary:
- Identify and drive product initiatives forward that have multiple stakeholders and many moving parts
- Define and manage strategic initiatives that improve product team efficiency and impact
- Facilitate meetings to drive progress against goals and objectives, and establishing clear next steps and owners and resolving blocks that impede progress
- Proactively assess risk, raise flags, and resolve issues before become problems for the larger teams
- Measure impact of programs and initiatives both qualitatively and quantitatively
- Collaborate cross-functionally with product management, engineering, product design, user research and content strategy to ensure a smooth product development process
- Support the management team with effective team communication, proactive problem solving, information distribution
- Facilitate the product development process between various design, engineering, and marketing teams.
- Build and maintain complex schedules for design and content deliverables.
- Communicate and negotiate expectations, dates, and milestones with cross functional team members, including project management, engineering, quality assurance, and upper-level management.
- Manage day-to-day progress of tasks and deliverables
- Coordinate and drive cross-functional reviews, take detailed notes, and communicate results and next steps back to key stakeholders.
- Know at all times the health of projects, risks and implications to timelines.
- Improve processes and communications in an ever-changing, dynamic working environment.
Skills on Resume:
- Stakeholder Management (Soft Skills)
- Strategic Initiative Management (Hard Skills)
- Meeting Facilitation (Soft Skills)
- Risk Assessment (Hard Skills)
- Program Impact Measurement (Hard Skills)
- Cross-functional Collaboration (Soft Skills)
- Team Communication (Soft Skills)
- Process Improvement (Hard Skills)
9. Design Program Manager, Fusion Designs, Charleston, SC
Job Summary:
- Set the foundation for brand and product design practice and work closely with research, product and tech leadership to shape products in cross-functional projects
- Establish clear processes, standards and tools that streamline and speed-up go-to-market and collaboration
- Track and move forward cross-functional initiatives that have multiple stakeholders and many moving parts, align between e2e interdependencies and feature intersections
- Manage overall project schedule, monitoring and reporting of significant milestones and risks that enable teams to successfully achieve major milestones and targeted Go-Live dates
- Support in design mission and vision setting and quarterly OKR development and ensure teams are meeting business outcomes
- Establish and facilitate communication structure across the design team and leadership round including best practices for workshops / meeting facilitation, rituals, design sprints and sharing updates, design showcasing and connecting the design community globally
- Keep a pulse on team morale, partner with the Design Managers and Leads, escalating risks to leadership round and identifying opportunities for improvement
- Support and execute special team activities that build culture and drive clarity of purpose including team offsites, training and team onsites
- Mentor researchers and designers, as well as product managers and engineers on the practice of agile project and program management
- Own and manage team documentation, design tools/subscriptions, and centralised resources
- Assist with new team member onboarding, freelancers, contracts
Skills on Resume:
- Brand and Product Design Foundation (Hard Skills)
- Process and Standards Development (Hard Skills)
- Cross-functional Initiative Management (Soft Skills)
- Project Schedule Management (Hard Skills)
- OKR Development (Hard Skills)
- Team Communication Facilitation (Soft Skills)
- Team Morale Monitoring (Soft Skills)
- Mentorship and Training (Soft Skills)
10. Design Program Manager, Insight Design Partners, Lincoln, NE
Job Summary:
- Work closely with remote design and cross-functional teams to drive the execution of UX, brand, and marketing design projects
- Collaborate with marketing, product, engineering and technical program management to improve cross-functional workflows with an eye towards earlier engagement with design, proactive planning and scalability
- Develop, document and educate teams on these new processes created in support of improved cross-org workflows and collaboration
- Report on the status and health of projects/teams with a keen understanding of priorities and risks
- Coordinate team scheduling and resource allocation, balancing workload and delivery quality with the competing priorities of numerous cross-functional teams
- Support in the development of design operations programs in areas such as organizational workflows, tooling, governance, onboarding, education, and team culture
- Collaborate with design leads, product management, engineering, and technical program management to establish and articulate standards for tools and processes
- Facilitate project prioritization, align schedules, and streamline communications in an agile environment
- Coordinate customer visits, customer interviews, usability studies and other research activities in partnership with researchers and designers
- Take care of communication, planning, briefing, and quality issues concerning design projects and activities
- Facilitate design reviews and demos for constructive feedback
- Handle the logistics of relationships with external parties including customers and vendors
- Manage risk and ensure the team has the people and resources
- Support hiring and onboarding of new design team members
Skills on Resume:
- Cross-functional Collaboration (Soft Skills)
- Workflow Improvement (Hard Skills)
- Process Documentation (Hard Skills)
- Project Reporting (Hard Skills)
- Resource Allocation (Hard Skills)
- Design Operations Management (Hard Skills)
- Standards Development (Hard Skills)
- Risk Management (Hard Skills)
11. Design Program Manager, Nexus Creative Labs, Hartford, CT
Job Summary:
- Continually work to optimize process and workflow for a high functioning design organization.
- Build and own processes to identify and remove blockers to enable great design.
- Resource management including resource allocation based on content slates and upcoming work.
- Set expectations with design and business partner teams and product development to handle prioritization for all work that come through.
- Deep dive into project requirements gaining understanding of needs for projects that may at times be ambiguous.
- Maintain roadmaps and clear reports that show projects and components per release and functional categories.
- Manage the backlog and plans according to the release schedule and align the team members towards clear milestones.
- Act as a Scrum master and use Agile planning techniques to drive key projects.
- Manage communication channels and provide consistent and predictable reports to executive stakeholders, product management, product pillar design teams, and product development.
Skills on Resume:
- Process Optimization (Hard Skills)
- Blocker Removal (Soft Skills)
- Resource Management (Hard Skills)
- Prioritization Management (Soft Skills)
- Requirements Analysis (Hard Skills)
- Roadmap Maintenance (Hard Skills)
- Agile Project Management (Hard Skills)
- Stakeholder Communication (Soft Skills)