Senior Design Manager

Braze•Austin, TX

4h•Hybrid

About The Position

At Braze, we have found our people. We’re a genuinely approachable, exceptionally kind, and intensely passionate crew. We seek to ignite that passion by setting high standards, championing teamwork, and creating work-life harmony as we collectively navigate rapid growth on a global scale while striving for greater equity and opportunity – inside and outside our organization. To flourish here, you must be prepared to set a high bar for yourself and those around you. There is always a way to contribute: Acting with autonomy, having accountability and being open to new perspectives are essential to our continued success. Our deep curiosity to learn and our eagerness to share diverse passions with others gives us balance and injects a one-of-a-kind vibrancy into our culture. If you are driven to solve exhilarating challenges and have a bias toward action in the face of change, you will be empowered to make a real impact here, with a sharp and passionate team at your back. If Braze sounds like a place where you can thrive, we can’t wait to meet you. We’re seeking a Senior Design Manager to lead design across Braze’s in-product messaging experiences and our Beacon Design System. This role owns two deeply connected areas of the product. First, you will lead design for the core surfaces where customers create, manage, and deliver messages to their end users, including in-app messages, push notifications, landing experiences, and the tools used to configure and orchestrate them. These are high-impact, high-visibility experiences that directly influence customer activation, engagement, and revenue. Second, you will lead the evolution of Braze’s shared design foundations, the system of patterns, components, standards, and interaction principles that ensure the platform feels cohesive, scalable, and high quality across all product areas. This includes direct leadership of the team responsible for maintaining and evolving these shared UX foundations. You will define the long-term vision for both the customer-facing messaging experiences and the design system that supports them. Operating at the intersection of feature innovation and platform stewardship, you will ensure teams can move quickly without sacrificing consistency, usability, or long-term product health.

Requirements

5+ years of design management experience leading product design teams in complex B2B or enterprise SaaS environments
Experience leading teams that span both feature delivery and platform or design system initiatives
Proven experience leading or significantly evolving a design system, including driving adoption, standards, and cross-team alignment
Strong systems thinker who balances usability, flexibility, scalability, and technical constraints while maintaining a high bar for execution
Track record of delivering best-in-class experiences that measurably improve user outcomes and business impact
Skilled at coaching designers working on highly dynamic, configurable, or technically complex product areas
Experience establishing and upholding shared design standards across multiple teams
Strong partner to Product and Engineering leaders, with the ability to influence strategy and drive alignment beyond your immediate domain
Clear, compelling communicator who can align stakeholders across organizational boundaries
Experienced in performance management, conflict resolution, and building psychologically safe team environments
Committed to hiring and developing diverse, inclusive teams

Nice To Haves

Experience in marketing technology, customer engagement platforms, or messaging products
Experience scaling a design system team in a growing organization
Experience supporting AI-enabled workflows or highly configurable enterprise products
Portfolio demonstrating platform-level systems thinking and measurable business impact

Responsibilities

Shape the long-term design strategy for customer-facing messaging experiences and the shared foundations that support them
Lead and evolve our design system, ensuring consistency, scalability, and quality across the platform
Raise the bar for usability and craft across complex, configurable workflows and multi-surface experiences
Balance speed and innovation with long-term platform coherence and standards
Partner closely with Product and Engineering leaders to align on priorities, navigate tradeoffs, and deliver meaningful customer and business impact
Influence roadmap planning to ensure foundational investments are prioritized alongside feature development
Build, coach, and grow high-performing design teams across both product and design systems domains
Foster a culture of ownership, clarity, psychological safety, and continuous improvement
Contribute to UX leadership initiatives that elevate quality, collaboration, and operational excellence across the organization

Benefits

Competitive compensation that may include equity
Retirement and Employee Stock Purchase Plans
Flexible paid time off
Comprehensive benefit plans covering medical, dental, vision, life, and disability
Family services that include fertility benefits and equal paid parental leave
Professional development supported by formal career pathing, learning platforms, and a yearly learning stipend
A curated in-office employee experience, designed to foster community, team connections, and innovation
Opportunities to give back to your community, including an annual company-wide Volunteer Week and donation matching
Employee Resource Groups that provide supportive communities within Braze
Collaborative, transparent, and fun culture recognized as a Great Place to Work®