Design Program Manager, Brand Experience Design

Grammarly team members in this role must be based in the United States or Canada, and they must be able to collaborate in person 2 weeks per quarter, traveling if necessary to the hub(s) where the team is based.

The opportunity 

Grammarly is the world’s leading AI writing assistance company trusted by over 30 million people and 70,000 professional teams every day. From instantly creating a first draft to perfecting every message, Grammarly’s product offerings help people at 96% of the Fortune 500 get their point across—and get results. Grammarly has been profitable for over a decade because we’ve stayed true to our values and built an enterprise-grade product that’s secure, reliable, and helps people do their best work—without selling their data. We’re proud to be one of Inc.’s best workplaces, a Glassdoor Best Place to Work, one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential Companies, and one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies in AI.

To achieve our ambitious goals, we’re looking for a Design Program Manager to partner with our Visual and Design Systems team. This team at Grammarly is responsible for delivering and evolving design systems across our brand and product experience. The Design Program Manager will work with team members across the company, particularly with Product, Engineering, and Marketing leaders. This opportunity is for a design leader who can adapt to our current processes and creatively develop, recommend, and experiment with new ones. This leader will also introduce or reinforce practices that support a people-first culture. 

Grammarly’s Brand Experience Design team comprises Brand Experience Designers, Visual Designers, Web Designers, Motion Designers, Content Designers, Writers, and Design Operations. In the Product organization, the Design team (Brand Experience Design, Product Design, and Human Insights Research) has the unique opportunity to define how people interact with our product and how our brand comes to life in every interaction and iteration. We are passionate and nerdy about all things design—including systems, accessibility, typography, branding, color, and motion in every detail. 

Your impact

As a Design Program Manager, you will anticipate challenges and opportunities to mitigate risk—risk for project or initiative delivery, quality, and design burnout. You will apply your breadth of experience to systems, models, processes, and prototypes, as well as iterate on the ways our team works. You will focus on stewarding and evangelizing the visual and design systems we build and find ways to optimize how and when we use them. You will also align cross-functional partners and build trust across teams. You will work primarily with the Brand Experience Design team and collaborate with the Product Design and partner Engineering and Product teams within the Design organization. This role reports to the Senior Manager, Design Operations. 

In this high-impact role, you will:

• Partner with Design Leadership on the strategy, scoping, and execution of foundational visual and design systems, including roadmapping, end-to-end development process, and implementation across multiple product pillars of designers, engineers, product managers, and marketers. 
• Be responsible for developing and implementing the foundational documentation and process for the Brand Experience Design team by assessing current tools and gaps and quickly iterating on improvements toward a longer-term vision for more seamless workstreams. 
• Lead the strategy and work hands-on to experiment on what is possible to advance design system adoption and usage, improve design accessibility practices, and foster best-in-class visual guidelines and toolkits, from product experience to marketing campaigns.
• Support Design Operations on any initiative that affects all of Grammarly Design—including learning and development, resourcing strategies, tool education, brand and asset management, and process improvement that will help us scale and operate effectively.
• Develop project plans and timelines as the individual directly responsible for ensuring that everyone fully understands what they need to do to accomplish shared goals. This includes tracking progress and pulling in leadership when needed to guarantee efficiency. 
• Be responsible for internal administrative tasks, such as reminders for scrum and crits, milestone celebrations, and planning for team on-sites.

We’re looking for someone who

• Embodies our EAGER values—is ethical, adaptable, gritty, empathetic, and remarkable.
• Is inspired by our MOVE principles, which are the blueprint for how things get done at Grammarly: move fast and learn faster, obsess about creating customer value, value impact over activity, and embrace healthy disagreement rooted in trust.
• Is able to collaborate in person 2 weeks per quarter, traveling if necessary to the hub where the team is based.
• Has 7+ years of experience managing design operations at scale and—as a plus—experience working at a product company or design agency.
• Is exceptionally organized, cares about the details, and navigates ambiguity to bring clarity to multiple initiatives. 
• Has contributed to or led design operations to scale in-house design systems teams across multiple product areas. 
• Has strong system thinking and analytical skills to establish and configure design system programs, tools, and processes.
• Leads as an action-oriented problem solver who can multitask to support the team but knows when to step back.
• Harnesses excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Can present complex processes to stakeholders, roll them out to all of our cross-functional partners, and encourage alignment across functions and departments.
• Consistently focuses themselves and the team on the highest-impact activities to foster growth, collaboration, culture, and positive business outcomes.
• Can build an inclusive and diverse operations model for our Brand Experience Design team.

Support for you, professionally and personally

• Professional growth: We believe that autonomy and trust are key to empowering our team members to do their best, most innovative work in a way that aligns with their interests, talents, and well-being. We support professional development and advancement with training, coaching, and regular feedback.
• A connected team: Grammarly builds a product that helps people connect, and we apply this mindset to our own team. Our remote-first hybrid model enables a highly collaborative culture supported by our EAGER (ethical, adaptable, gritty, empathetic, and remarkable) values. We work to foster belonging among team members in a variety of ways. This includes our employee resource groups, Grammarly Circles, which promote connection among those with shared identities, such as BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ team members, women, and parents. We also celebrate our colleagues and accomplishments with global, local, and team-specific programs. 

Compensation and benefits

Grammarly offers all team members competitive pay along with a benefits package encompassing the following and more: 

• Excellent health care (including a wide range of medical, dental, vision, mental health, and fertility benefits)
• Disability and life insurance options
• 401(k) and RRSP matching 
• Paid parental leave
• Twenty days of paid time off per year, eleven days of paid holidays per year, and unlimited sick days 
• Home office stipends
• Caregiver and pet care stipends
• Wellness stipends
• Admission discounts
• Learning and development opportunities

Grammarly takes a market-based approach to compensation, which means base pay may vary depending on your location. Our US and Canada locations are categorized into compensation zones based on each geographic region’s cost of labor index. For more information about our compensation zones and locations where we currently support employment, please refer to this page. If a location of interest is not listed, please speak with a recruiter for additional information. 

Base pay may vary considerably depending on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. The expected salary ranges for this position are outlined below by compensation zone and may be modified in the future. 

We encourage you to apply

At Grammarly, we value our differences, and we encourage all—especially those whose identities are traditionally underrepresented in tech organizations—to apply. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, gender expression or identity, sexual orientation, ancestry, national origin, citizenship, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status, political belief, or any other characteristic protected by law. Grammarly is an equal opportunity employer and a participant in the US federal E-Verify program (US). We also abide by the Employment Equity Act (Canada).

Please note that EEOC is optional and specific to US-based candidates.

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