Senior Product Design Manager

Fivetran • Oakland, CA

1d • Hybrid

About The Position

Fivetran + dbt Labs is hiring a Senior Manager to lead the Product Design team responsible for dbt Labs. This role reports to the Director of Product Design. This is an exciting time to join! As Fivetran and dbt Labs come together, you will help shape a coherent product experience, guide the design team through change, and influence the future of AI-powered data products. You will join a strong and talented design organization whose members care deeply about their craft, the practitioners they serve, and one another. This is a people management and product leadership role for a design leader who wants to shape technical data products at scale. You will manage and develop a team of product designers, shape the UX strategy for dbt products, and partner with Product and Engineering leaders to define how data teams build, transform, govern, and trust their data. You will lead through strategy, coaching, direction, and cross-functional partnership.

Requirements

• 8+ years of product design experience
• At least 5 years managing product designers
• Strong people management skills, including coaching, performance development, direct feedback, and team culture building
• Strong cross-functional leadership with Product, Engineering, Research, Data, Marketing, and executive stakeholders
• Deep care for craft, with a leadership style focused on direction, critique, strategy, and coaching rather than acting as the primary IC designer
• Designing for, or leading teams that design for, technically complex products such as ELT, data infrastructure, analytics engineering, developer tools, cloud platforms, data governance, observability, or adjacent enterprise infrastructure products
• Designing AI-powered or agentic product experiences
• Experience operationalizing AI workflows for product design teams that goes way beyond AI prototyping
• Owning UX strategy for a meaningful product area
• Strong technical fluency
• Experience designing for expert technical users such as data engineers, analytics engineers, software engineers, platform teams, or security teams

Nice To Haves

• You understand the difference between a lightweight AI feature, a copilot, and an agentic workflow.
• You can show how your design strategy influenced product direction, not just how your team delivered screens.
• You can reason about complex systems, understand engineering constraints, and discuss tradeoffs with Product and Engineering partners.

Responsibilities

• Lead the dbt product design team: Manage and coach a team of product designers who work across dbt platform and CLI-based products. Designers own the full design process from problem definition and research to UX/UI and partnering with eng/PM through delivery. Build a culture where designers feel supported, challenged, and empowered to do thoughtful, high-quality work for deeply technical users. Set clear expectations, give actionable feedback, support career growth, and create the conditions for strong design craft.
• Own UX strategy for dbt: Define and drive UX strategy across dbt’s product experience. Identify the highest-impact experience opportunities, connect design priorities to product outcomes, and partner with Product and Engineering leadership as a strategic peer in roadmap and product direction conversations.
• Provide design direction for technical data products: Set direction for design work across complex workflows used by technical practitioners. Understand the domain, evaluate tradeoffs, and partner credibly with engineering leaders. Be comfortable discussing data workflows, ELT, analytics engineering, developer tools, and infrastructure-oriented product experiences.
• Shape AI and agentic product experiences: Lead design strategy for AI-powered and agentic experiences within dbt. Design systems that make AI assistance understandable, useful, and safe for high-stakes technical work. Think about how product surfaces need to work for both human and AI agent personas.
• Help integrate Fivetran and dbt Labs design: Play an important role in co-creating a unified product experience and design culture. Partner with the Director of Product Design to merge systems, processes, and culture. Help designers navigate a new organizational context, build strong cross-functional relationships, and create clarity during a period of product and company evolution.
• Build an AI-native design operating model: Operationalize AI across the design lifecycle (from research synthesis and ideation to prototyping, documentation, and design QA). Establish shared workflows, quality standards, and review practices. Define cross-functional standards for when AI-generated work requires design review, ensuring clear expectations for human oversight, quality, and continuous improvement.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed