Product Design Manager

CircleCI•San Francisco, CA

6h•Remote

About The Position

We're looking for a Product Design Manager to lead our UX team at CircleCI. Our company is in the middle of a significant platform evolution - rethinking core workflows, investing in design and design systems, and figuring out what it means to build a high-performing design team in the age of AI. It's a genuinely interesting time to shape the practice here. If you're energized by the idea of shaping both the craft and the people behind a product used by over a million builds a day, while also staying close to the pixels yourself, this role will be a great fit. This is a 50/50 player/coach role - you'll manage and grow a talented team while also rolling up your sleeves to lead design work on a few of our most important product areas. You'll report into our head of design, and partner closely with Product, Engineering, Visual Design, and Research to define what the CircleCI experience looks and feels like next.

Requirements

Experience managing a team of product designers while remaining hands-on with design work yourself - you genuinely enjoy both sides of the player/coach role
Strong product design fundamentals with a portfolio that shows work on complex, technical, or developer-facing products; comfort designing for power users and nuanced workflows
Familiarity with the software development lifecycle and the ecosystem around it — CI/CD, version control, CLIs, APIs, and the workflows that connect them. You don't need to be an engineer, but you should be curious about how developers work and have designed for (or around) these kinds of tools before.
Active, thoughtful use of AI in your own design practice - you've already been experimenting with tools like AI-assisted prototyping and production-ready coding, and you have a point of view on where they help and where they don't. You're excited to bring the team along and set expectations that AI fluency is part of the job
Proven experience building or evolving design systems - not just maintaining a component library, but defining governance, contribution models, and the operational rhythms (rituals, rubrics, processes) that let a design team scale
Excellent collaboration and communication skills - you partner effectively with Product and Engineering leaders, give direct and kind feedback, and create space for a diverse team to do their best work

Responsibilities

Lead and grow the team - coach them in their craft, support their career growth, run thoughtful 1:1s and design crits, and build a design culture that's collaborative, inclusive, and high-performing
Lead design directly on strategically important product areas - shipping real work, not just reviewing it - and setting the bar for craft and quality across the team
Develop a point of view on AI-powered design tooling - evaluating what's emerging across designing in both pixels and code, rapid prototyping, and experimentation - so that the team can make smart bets on what to adopt
Bring the team along on AI fluency - setting clear expectations, building shared practices, and creating space for experimentation so the team is multiplying their impact with the best available tools
Establish and optimize design processes, partnering with visual and product designers across the org to make sure we're working efficiently and shipping consistent, high-quality experiences
Lead and evolve the design system - improving components and guidelines, defining a governance model that balances quality with speed, and establishing clear contribution and consumption patterns for both human designers and AI-assisted workflows

Benefits

We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation.

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