About the role

We are looking for a dynamic and strategic Product Design Lead to lead and manage our platform system teams while also driving cross-functional initiatives that establish best-in-class design and developer processes across the company.

This unique role combines the leadership of a systems-focused design manager driving strategic and executional excellence in our design system, accessibility practices, foundational developer APIs and SDK, and shared product experiences with the operational expertise of a DesignOps leader, crafting and optimizing systems that elevate the quality and efficiency of design and developer processes throughout the organization.

What you ll do

Design System Leadership

• Develop a vision for how design systems can accelerate innovation and improve our user experiences and collaboration with our product teams to make sure it s solving the right problems
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• Develop and execute a vision for how design systems can drive innovation and enhance user experiences,
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• Establish tight collaboration with product teams to make sure it s solving the right problems
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• Oversee the expansion and maintenance of a robust design system for the authoring experience, enabling consistency and efficiency across products.
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• Lead the development of a themable design system for end-user experiences that sets the benchmark for best-in-class UX for DAP.
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• Manage and mentor the Design System team and Accessibility practice, ensuring alignment with company goals and user needs.

Shared Platform Experiences Leadership

Strategically define and manage execution of scalable system designs for shared experiences across our products, including:

• Element Detection: Powering no-code experiences across all products.
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• Configurations, User Management, and Admin Systems: Ensuring seamless, scalable functionality across platforms.
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• Diagnostics: Streamlining a customer testing system across our products

Design and Developer Experience and Operations

• Drive adoption of design systems within product teams and ensure accessibility standards are seamlessly embedded into design and development workflows.
• Collaborate with design, product, and engineering stakeholders to define and implement scalable engineering and design workflows and best practices.
• Create and optimize tooling, communication frameworks, environments, sandboxes, and operational systems that improve design and developer experience and productivity.
• Establish scalable processes for distributed design and developer teams and cross-functional initiatives, ensuring alignment and efficiency across the organization.

What We re Looking For:

• 5 10 years of design experience, with a focus Design systems, UX, and Product design.
• 2+ years of leadership experience, managing design teams and/or operational functions.
• Demonstrated hands-on leadership, actively involved in daily design decisions this is not solely a people-management role.
• Deep expertise in design systems, accessibility standards (e.g., WCAG), information architecture, and scalable system design across products.
• Proven success in implementing design workflows, tools, and processes that improve team efficiency and quality.

Skills Attributes

• Strategic Vision: Ability to align design initiatives with broader business objectives.
• Exceptional Communication: Skilled in influencing and collaborating with stakeholders across disciplines and levels and effectively telling the story of design s success
• User Advocacy: Adept at driving product design and UX decisions that center on user needs.
• Influence and Buy-In: Proven ability to build trust with others to foster support for new processes and enhance existing workflows and understand team challenges and feedback
• Process-Oriented: Able to work with ProductOps within the organization on shared operational initiatives
• Data-driven: Able to identify key metrics, measure and provide evidence of Design and the Design Systems operational success

Why You ll Love This Role:

• A Systems-Minded Opportunity: Perfect for a leader passionate about improving design quality through scalable systems and processes.
• Dual Focus: A unique chance to work at the intersection of system-focused product design and operational excellence.
• Innovative Challenges: Be part of a team shaping the DAP category across multiple products, leading cutting-edge design projects.
• Empowering Teams: Coach and mentor your team to thrive in a fast-paced, high-growth environment while driving innovation through human-centered design.
• Impactful Work: Solve diverse, complex challenges that deliver real value to customers and drive business success.

#LI: #Onsite

#WorkType: #Onsite

Reporting Structure:

This role reports directly to the Head of Product Research and Design.

Note:

• At Whatfix, we thrive on the power of collaboration, innovation, and human connection. We strongly believe that working together in our office (five days a week) fosters open communication, builds a sense of community, fuels innovation, and enables us to achieve our collective goals effectively.

• We strive to live and breathe our Cultural Principles and encourage employees to demonstrate some of these core values - Customer First; Empathy; Transparency; Fail Fast and scale Fast; No Hierarchies for Communication; Deep Dive and innovate; Trust, Do it as you own it;

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diverse people because of and not in spite of the differences. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.

Role: User Research Manager

Industry Type: IT Services & Consulting

Department: UX, Design & Architecture

Employment Type: Full Time, Permanent

Role Category: UI / UX

Education

UG: Any Graduate

PG: Any Postgraduate