Staff Design Program Manager

Overview

Instacart is on a mission to make eating well effortless for everyone, and great design is a key ingredient. As a Design Program Manager on our Design Program Management team, you will drive operational excellence and programmatic execution across a Design organization serving 90+ cross-functional partners and multiple company priority areas.

This role sits at the intersection of design craft, technical operations, and strategic execution. You will build AI-enabled systems, scale critical processes, and manage the tools and vendor relationships that power our creative work—so our teams can deliver world-class experiences efficiently and predictably.

You will work closely with Product Designers, Product Managers, Engineering, Marketing, Legal, and Business Development, and partner deeply with the Instacart Design System (IDS) team. You will translate design strategy into executable programs, create visibility into outcomes, and enable cross-functional alignment at scale in a fast-paced, highly dynamic environment.

If you thrive at the intersection of systems thinking and creative craft, embrace change, and love empowering teams to do their best work, we’d love to hear from you.

About the Job

• Drive end-to-end program delivery for complex, multi-quarter design initiatives spanning Design, Product, Engineering, Marketing, Legal, and Business Development—ensuring clear goals, crisp execution, and predictable outcomes.
• Build and deploy AI-enabled workflows to automate status reporting, resource tracking, documentation synthesis, and stakeholder communications; champion AI fluency across the Design org to improve speed and quality.
• Own operations and vendor management for design tooling (e.g., Figma, prototyping, asset management, collaboration platforms): negotiate contracts, optimize licensing, ensure compliance, and manage contractor/agency engagements.
• Establish scalable systems for capacity planning, resource allocation, and roadmapping; implement metrics and integrations that create seamless workflows across tools and teams.
• Partner with the Instacart Design System (IDS) team to align programs with system evolution and component adoption; lead governance programs that scale IDS usage across product teams.
• Translate leadership vision into actionable operating models, run planning cycles and milestone reviews, and bring clarity to complexity in a high-change environment.

About You

Minimum Qualifications

• 12+ years of experience in program management or design operations within design and/or product organizations, delivering complex cross-functional initiatives end to end.
• Hands-on experience with design systems concepts (component libraries, tokens, documentation, cross-platform patterns) and modern product development lifecycles.
• Technical fluency collaborating with design systems and engineering teams, including familiarity with system architecture, component APIs, design-to-code workflows, and technical constraints.
• Proven track record building and scaling operational systems in fast-paced environments, including taking programs from 0→1 and maturing them for scale.
• Demonstrated AI fluency using LLMs and/or automation platforms to streamline workflows and improve program efficiency.
• Vendor and contract management experience: negotiating software contracts, optimizing licensing/spend, and ensuring compliance in partnership with Finance, Legal, and IT.
• Proficiency with design and program management tooling (e.g., Figma, Linear or Jira, asset management tools, research repositories, prototyping tools).
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills with experience presenting to and influencing executive leadership and cross-functional stakeholders.
• Bachelor’s degree in a related field (e.g., Design, HCI, Engineering, Business) or equivalent practical experience.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience building or scaling a design system and driving component adoption across multiple product teams.
• Experience implementing AI-powered workflows or integrations for creative operations or design tooling ecosystems.
• Success translating leadership vision into operating models, measurable roadmaps, and governance programs.
• Experience supporting organizations of 90+ cross-functional partners across Design and Engineering.
• Ability to balance strategic oversight with hands-on execution in dynamic, ambiguous environments.
• Strength using data and storytelling to influence decisions and secure investment in operational improvements.

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