Microsoft

Senior Design Program Manager

Microsoft$119K — $234K *
Enterprise Technology
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Master's Degree in a relevant design field with 4+ years in product/service design or equivalent experience.
  • Bachelor's Degree in a relevant design field with 5+ years in product/service design or equivalent experience.
  • 4+ years leading internal design processes from concept to scaled operations.
  • 4+ years experience delivering products or services through end-to-end design processes.
  • Familiarity with project management tools and modern methodologies like Agile or Lean.
  • Experience with design and project management tools such as Figma, Sketch, Jira, or Azure DevOps.

Responsibilities

  • Partner closely with design leaders to align cross-functional activities through effective planning and communication.
  • Drive consistency in operating rhythms across design teams, ensuring clarity and structure in interactions.
  • Contribute to the improvement of Design Operations through initiatives aimed at enhancing collaborative practices.
  • Define and track key operational metrics to foster continuous improvements based on data-driven insights.
  • Align design-specific objectives and results with overarching business goals, enhancing transparency on progress.
  • Document and implement user-friendly processes that benefit the design teams and their workflows.
  • Cultivate team rituals to celebrate achievements and maintain focus on delivering high-quality work and recognition.

Benefits

  • Opportunity to work in a collaborative and innovative design culture.
  • Access to advanced AI tooling to enhance efficiency and creativity in design work.
  • Focus on continuous improvement and cross-product integration for strong customer experiences.
Full Job Description
Overview

We're looking for a Senior Design Program Manager who is passionate about empowering designers to achieve more through leading design operations, cross studio communications, AI enablement, and process development. Design PMs are the connective tissue of our Studio-building the systems, practices, and operational rigor that give teams clarity, alignment, and confidence as they deliver impactful design at speed and scale.

Design PMs at Microsoft work collaboratively with designers, researchers, content writers, product managers, and developers, leading projects throughout the planning, design, and development lifecycle to implement simple, scalable approaches that amplify our design studios efforts.

As a member of our Design Operations team, you will contribute to our charter of better cross-product integration, stronger customer experiences, improved efficiencies at scale, and ultimately a healthy and strong design culture of collaboration and continuous improvement.

Responsibilities

  • Partner closely with product design leaders to drive tight alignment of activities across their teams through cross-functional planning, strong communication, and rigorous program management.
  • Drive consistency and harmony in design team operating rhythm, including communication structures, project templates, and resource utilization.
  • Contribute to the Design Operations practice, including running horizontal initiatives that help improve the Design org's operations and cross-functional ways of working.
  • Define and track operational KPIs and metrics (cycle time, throughput, predictability, satisfaction/health signals) and drive continuous improvement based on evidence.
  • Deliver on design-specific OKRs and reporting that align operational work to business outcomes and create transparency on progress and tradeoffs.
  • Compose, implement, and document comprehensive and user-friendly processes.
  • Orchestrate and build team rituals that focus on tracking progress, execution, celebration, and communication across the program of work, and celebration of product milestones ensuring teams are on track, work is high quality, and designers feel recognized for their contributions.
  • Actively use AI tooling to enhance your own work and champion AI enablement across teams, including identifying opportunities where AI can reduce friction, improve quality, or unlock new ways of working.


Qualifications

Required Qualifications:
  • Master's Degree in Industrial Design, Product Design, Human Computer Interaction, User Experience, Interaction Design, or related field AND 4+ years experience working in product or service design.
    • OR Bachelor's Degree in Industrial Design, Product Design, Human Computer Interaction, User Experience, Interaction Design, or related field AND 5+ years experience working in product or service design.
    • OR equivalent experience (e.g., demonstrated experience working in product or service design or using design thinking to solve problems).


Preferred Qualifications:

  • Master's Degree in Industrial Design, Product Design, Human Computer Interaction, User Experience, Interaction Design, or related field AND 6+ years experience working in product or service design.
    • OR Bachelor's Degree in Industrial Design, Product Design, Human Computer Interaction, User Experience, Interaction Design, or related field AND 8+ years experience working in product or service design.
    • OR equivalent experience (e.g., demonstrated experience working in product or service design or using design thinking to solve problems).
  • 4+ years experience spearheading internal design processes from concept to scaled operations.
  • 4+ years experience shipping products, services, or games and/or delivering to customers as a result of an end-to-end design process.
  • Familiarity with project management best practices, tools, and methodologies AND Agile, Lean, and/or other modern product development methodologies.
  • Hands-on experience with design and project management tools such as Figma, Sketch, Jira, or Azure DevOps.


#CAPJobs

#ExperienceStudio

Product Design IC4 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $119,800.00 - $234,700.00 per year. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $160,200.00 - $261,000.00 per year.

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here:
https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay

Product Design IC4 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $119,800 - $234,700 per year. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $160,200 - $261,000 per year.

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here:
https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay

This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.

About Microsoft

Microsoft is an American multinational corporation that develops, manufactures, licenses, supports, and sells a range of software products and services. Microsoft’s devices and consumer (D&C) licensing segment licenses the Windows operating system and related software, Microsoft Office for consumers, and the Windows Phone operating system. The company’s computing and gaming hardware segment provides Xbox gaming and entertainment consoles and accessories, second-party and third-party video games, and Xbox Live subscriptions; surface devices and accessories; and Microsoft PC accessories. Its phone hardware segment offers Lumia smartphones and other non-Lumia phones. Its D&C segment provides Windows Store, Xbox Live transactions, and Windows phone store; search advertising; display advertising; Office 365 Home and Office 365 Personal; first-party video games; and other consumer products and services as well as operating retail stores. Microsoft’s commercial licensing segments license server products, including Windows Server, Microsoft SQL Server, Visual Studio, System Center, and related Client Access Licenses (CALs); Windows Embedded; Windows operating system; Microsoft Office for business, including Office, Exchange, SharePoint, Lync, and related CALs; Microsoft Dynamics business solutions; and Skype. Its commercial segment offers enterprise services, including premier support services and Microsoft consulting services; commercial cloud comprising Office 365 Commercial, other Microsoft Office online offerings, Dynamics CRM Online, and Microsoft Azure; and other commercial products and online services. The company markets and distributes its products through original equipment manufacturers, distributors, and resellers, as well as online.

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Learn more about Microsoft
Size
181,000 employees
Market Cap
$1,762.4 billion
Industry
Net Income
$51.3 billion
Founded
1975
5 Year Trend
+15.5%
Revenue
$153.2 billion
NASDAQ

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