Higher Education Community & Partnerships Manager

Figma•San Francisco, NY

3d•Remote

About The Position

Figma is growing its team of passionate creatives and builders on a mission to make design accessible to all. Figma’s platform helps teams bring ideas to life—whether you're brainstorming, creating a prototype, translating designs into code, or iterating with AI. From idea to product, Figma empowers teams to streamline workflows, move faster, and work together in real time from anywhere in the world. If you're excited to shape the future of design and collaboration, join us! As we continue to invest in education, we're looking for a Higher Education Community & Partnerships Manager to own our institutional growth strategy across universities and bootcamps in the US and beyond. Figma already has millions of students using the product every day, but we're just getting started on building the institutional layer to match. This is a new role with a real opportunity to build from the ground up—developing relationships with professors, instructors, technology centers, and program leadership at the world's top design schools, HCI programs, and bootcamps, and writing the playbook for how Figma shows up at the institutional level. This is a full time role that can be held from one of our US hubs or remotely in the United States.

Requirements

5+ years of experience in academic partnerships, faculty engagement, higher ed community programs, or institutional relationship management
Demonstrated success engaging and influencing university leadership — including deans, department chairs, and technology center directors — to drive institutional outcomes
Experience building programs or communities from scratch with limited resources and without a defined playbook
Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, with demonstrated ability to tailor messaging for academic and institutional audiences
A scrappy, entrepreneurial approach, comfortable operating in an ambiguous and resource-constrained environment

Nice To Haves

Experience as an educator or working directly within a university setting
Familiarity with design education, HCI programs, or creative disciplines
Experience working at a high-growth tech company or startup
Background in community building and education marketing
Familiarity with sales or business development in an institutional or academic context

Responsibilities

Build and grow an educator community: identify, engage, and cultivate a network of educators at top university and bootcamp programs who are bringing Figma into their classrooms and giving them the resources and recognition to go deeper
Drive curriculum integration: identify high-impact courses and partner with educators on teaching resources, assignments, and course packs that make Figma the easiest tool to teach with
Partner with university technology centers: work with campus tech centers to make sure every incoming student knows about Figma's free education program from day one
Cultivate institutional relationships: build close ties with program deans, department chairs, and leadership at the world's leading design schools programs
Lay the foundation for institutional growth: do early work that positions Figma to partner with universities at an institutional level and help define what that path looks like
Create compelling professor programming: design and launch events, resources, and community activations that give professors genuine reasons to champion Figma in their courses and recommend it to colleagues
Partner with the broader Figma EDU team: work closely across the team to make sure our institutional work and our student programs are pulling in the same direction
Measure success through data: track adoption, engagement, and relationship depth across institutional partnerships to understand what's working and iterate accordingly