Principal Design Manager

Linktree•Los Angeles, CA

7d•Hybrid

About The Position

We are looking for a Principal Design Manager to lead and grow a team of senior individual-contributor designers, shaping how creators discover, organize, and share content through Linktree. This is a player-coach role: you'll manage, coach, and develop a small team of senior designers while staying hands-on with design yourself, personally owning some of the hardest or most ambiguous problems. You'll set design vision and craft standards for your area, partner closely with Product, Engineering, and Marketing, and be accountable for both the quality of your team's work and your own. As the team scales, this role is on a path to grow into a broader leadership remit over time. As a member of the Design leadership team, you'll help define how Linktree scales design as the company grows. A consumer product at this scale is made or broken by design. The hard part isn't adding another pair of hands; it's the leadership to raise the whole team's ceiling — coaching senior designers, holding the craft bar, and turning scattered effort into shipped, coherent product. This role exists to be that multiplier: a player-coach close enough to the work to model the standard, and generous enough to grow the people who carry it.

Requirements

10+ years of design experience, including experience managing and growing individual contributors (managing managers is a plus, not a requirement).
A genuine player-coach — still hands-on and excellent at the craft, and energized by both doing the work and developing others.
Proven track record of shipping high-quality design within a consumer product or creator / marketplace platform.
Demonstrated ability to hire, coach, develop, and retain strong individual-contributor designers, especially at the senior level.
Strong craft judgment and the ability to give — and model — high-leverage feedback.
Experience partnering with Product, Engineering, and Marketing leaders.
Ability to translate ambiguous business problems into a clear design direction.
Comfort balancing personal craft work with team leadership, and good judgment on when to do versus delegate.
Excellent written and verbal communication.
A growth mindset toward AI-accelerated design tools and how they change workflows.

Responsibilities

Lead, coach, and develop a team of senior individual-contributor designers.
Stay hands-on as a player-coach — personally owning and shipping design work on the highest-leverage or most ambiguous problems.
Set design vision and craft direction for your area, ensuring quality and consistency across your team's work.
Partner with Product, Engineering, and Marketing leaders to align design with business priorities.
Own hiring and team composition for your area, adapting as the business and the team scale.
Establish and evolve craft standards, critique practices, and design operating rhythms for the team.
Represent design in cross-functional forums, translating design work into business impact.
Balance individual craft contribution with management, modelling the standard you expect of the team.

Benefits

Competitive compensation
Flexible work arrangements
Robust professional development opportunities
Cash
Equity
An annual wellbeing allowance to use on things like (but not limited to) fitness memberships, development courses, childcare, travel, charitable donations, pet insurance, home office set-up - the choice is yours!
100% coverage (and 80% for your dependents) of your monthly premiums for medical, dental, vision, disability and life insurance for US-based employees.
Employer contribution towards your retirement.
Generous time off for vacation, holidays, parental leave, volunteer time, and other categories.
Employee stock option program