Senior Staff Design Program Manger, Buyer Experience

Etsy•Brooklyn, NY

37d•Hybrid

About The Position

Etsy is seeking a Sr. Staff Design Program Manager to lead operations for Etsy’s Buyer Experience. This senior individual contributor role has an organization-wide scope, focusing on complex, high-stakes programs across the end-to-end buyer side of the marketplace. The role involves shaping team planning and operations, and acting as a strategic partner to Design leadership. The ideal candidate is highly independent, identifies operational leverage points, builds initiatives, and influences at the Director and VP levels. This position requires bringing clarity to complex problem spaces and helping the organization make strategic decisions. It is a full-time role reporting to the Director of Design Operations.

Requirements

10+ years in program management, design operations, or a related field, with a significant portion leading operations for a large design or product organization.
A track record of independently identifying and building new operational programs in environments where the problem space was genuinely novel.
Experience operating at a multi-team or org-wide scope, with demonstrated ability to influence VP and senior director-level stakeholders without formal authority.
Deep familiarity with consumer product development, ideally including experience with multi-platform experiences (web and native app) or two-sided marketplace products.
Strong command of how design teams plan and ship work, including how design intersects with product management, engineering, and research across the product development lifecycle.
Experience building and scaling operational systems (planning rhythms, intake and prioritization frameworks, capacity models) for large (20+ person) design organizations.
Exceptional communication and storytelling skills, including a history of translating operational strategy into language that resonates with both creative and business audiences.
Fluency with Figma, Jira, Notion, Claude, and Google Workspace.

Responsibilities

Own the highest-complexity programs: Lead long-term, cross-functional, and high-risk programs for the Buyer Experience design organization, including initiatives spanning multiple squads, planning rhythm resets, and cross-team alignment on shared buyer strategy.
Propose new ops-led initiatives: Identify gaps in organizational operations, build the case for addressing them, and own the solution end-to-end, even in novel problem spaces.
Shape the operational model: Partner with the Director of Design Operations and Buyer Experience design leadership to define how the group plans, prioritizes, and reviews work across platforms (desktop, mobile web, and native app).
Influence at the Director level: Bring data-informed strategy to Design directors and senior cross-functional leaders to drive organizational alignment and serve as a trusted voice in strategic trade-off discussions.
Unify across teams: Build connective tissue, including shared rituals, communication cadences, and planning frameworks, to help distinct Buyer Experience teams operate as a coherent group.
Make impact visible: Develop audience-appropriate reporting and communications (dashboards, leadership summaries, team newsletters) to make the Buyer Experience design org’s work and progress legible to partners and leadership.
Invent novel operational models: Design scalable frameworks to address the specific challenges of a multi-platform, multi-squad buyer experience organization.
Drive adoption: Lead the organization through significant process and strategy shifts with clear communication and empathy, ensuring actual team adoption of new ways of working.
Tool and vendor stewardship: Partner with the Director of Design Operations on the long-term tool stack strategy for the Buyer Experience org, including evaluating new tools and managing key vendor relationships.