Product Design Manager

Our mission is to democratize software creation. People from all walks of life and every corner of the globe use Airtable to get their work done—over 300,000 organizations run on Airtable, from massive Fortune 500 companies to small nonprofits. We’ve learned that every community, curator, and corgi parent has unique goals. And we know that the right tools make it easier to get there while unlocking new potential along the way.

Many people don’t have access to perfect software—off-the-shelf solutions aren’t customized to their workflows, and writing new software is expensive and time-consuming. Airtable is breaking down those barriers so that anyone can easily create, customize, and supercharge their own software. As a design team, we strive to craft intuitive product concepts and elegant interaction paradigms that allow people to build this software without code. Our challenge is to evolve and reinterpret decades-old concepts like database creation, control flow, and usability into an accessible platform that everyone feels empowered to use.

We’re looking for a product design manager to contribute to this challenge from start to finish. If these sound like puzzles you’re eager to help us solve and you’re excited about the chance to lead a crew of humble, talented, and deeply thoughtful designers, we can’t wait for you to apply.

What you'll do

Think deeply about the future of software creation

This is a complex problem space that needs to distill down into simple design solutions. You’ll immerse yourself in company strategy and support your team in the exchange of ideas with a passionate cross-functional group to understand our biggest growth opportunities. You’ll lead holistic thinking about the architecture and systems that make Airtable work.

Guide work through the full product lifecycle 

You’ll oversee the design of extremely high-quality features and workflows from problem-setting to polish (and every step in between) while fostering a sense of ownership from your team throughout the process. You’ll own regular crits and conversations at each stage and help represent a strong design point of view with cross-functional stakeholders. You’ll both model and guide your team through partnerships with engineering and understand the reality of technical constraints and how to make pragmatic tradeoffs on designs. 

Shape our strategy

Project ideas aren’t just handed off to designers in a fully defined state at Airtable. Designers partner with PMs to define roadmaps, goals, and success metrics focused on the most compelling and high-impact problems. Everyone on the team has a voice to give structure to a vision, even in the “what if” stage. We’re big believers in design-led exploration when we see an opportunity to unpack a tricky problem through user-focus.

Help your design team thrive 

You’ll provide thoughtful day-to-day leadership and mentorship for our reports, helping grow their skills and careers alongside ensuring a strong output. You’ll also contribute to the broader design team culture, joining a sharp design management crew that cares deeply about the balance of people, product and process. The design culture at Airtable is a shared effort. We’re constantly learning and evolving and we deliberately make space for a range of perspectives and experiences. We support each other through challenges big and small and work together to grow as both people managers and design leaders.

See Airtable through the eyes of our customers

We have a fascinatingly diverse customer base, which means a broad and nuanced set of customer needs. You and your team will partner with our researchers, data scientists, and customer specialists to understand the goals and behavior of customers in many industries, and conduct interviews and feedback sessions alongside our researchers.

Who you are

You’ve led a team before

...and have a track record of thoughtful, impactful work to show for it! You have experience managing a small team of designers working on projects where quality, scale, and execution are a priority. Bonus if the teams were in a subscription-based software space.

You make order from chaos.

There’s no shortage of tangly and impactful problems to solve at Airtable, and many of our teams are working on new areas we haven’t yet explored as a company. If you thrive on healthy doses of ambiguity and helping teams find their footing when overwhelmed by the possibilities, we think you’ll have a good time here.

You like to connect the dots

Most of our hardest problems require multiple teams to work together. Our design org is the glue that allows the pieces of Airtable to add up to more than the sum of their parts. Doing this well requires constant discussion, alignment, and coherence across teams, and we’re looking for people who thrive at this kind of work. 

You inspire your colleagues to be the best versions of themselves

We authentically admire and respect each other, and we think that motivates us to create great work. 

You’re a lifelong learner

Your work’s details and nuances are important to you, and you never feel “done” learning the craft. 

You like saying “we” more than “I” 

Your team and functional partners will be a collaborative bunch, and you’ll be working closely with other designer managers, engineers, PMs, data scientists, researchers, and more. We are greater than the sum of our parts.

You like to get your hands dirty 

We like to pair big, audacious ideas with rigorous, detailed execution. If you think there’s beauty to be found in the nuance of product and process, you’ll find plenty of work to light you up.

You’re not afraid to ask a “spicy” question 

Growing our product, team, and culture means reflecting and sometimes challenging our practice and approach. We value new and differing perspectives so that we can continue to thoughtfully evolve. 

The compensation awarded to successful candidates will vary based on their location, relevant skills and experience. For New York City based roles, the base salary range for this role is $226,000 - $294,000. The total compensation package also includes the opportunity to receive benefits, restricted stock units, and may include incentive compensation.