Design Program Manager, Systems

Discord is a platform used by over 200 million people for gaming and social interaction. They are seeking a Design Program Manager to partner with their Systems teams, focusing on managing design systems and creative systems to enhance the user experience. The role involves overseeing program health, aligning design and engineering efforts, and driving system initiatives.

Responsibilities:

• Drive the Systems roadmaps and intake process, ensuring both Design and Engineering capacity stay aligned with incoming requests and partners have a clear path to request support
• Track program health proactively, surfacing blockers early, and keeping stakeholders informed at the right level of detail
• Serve as a connector between Systems and their partners, facilitating conversations that surface dependencies, align on priorities, and keep design and engineering timelines connected
• Support Systems leadership in shaping operating rhythms, including planning, resourcing, and capacity decisions
• Identify and implement improvements to how the team plans, shares knowledge, and operates, reducing friction and enabling better outcomes
• Drive large-scale system initiatives like migrations, visual refreshes, rollouts, and platform upgrades from planning through adoption
• Align Systems' efforts to broader organizational goals and contribute to longer-term planning cycles, including annual priorities and investment cases for system improvements

Requirements:

• 5+ years of experience in design program management, design operations, or a closely related role, with a track record of building and evolving programs
• A genuine understanding of how design systems work, including both the design craft and the technical dimensions of component libraries, tokens, and documentation
• Experience leading complex, cross-functional programs with multiple workstreams and stakeholders at various levels of an organization
• A builder's mentality: you create processes because you understand the people who will use them, not because process is the goal
• An instinct for collaboration over control: you influence through trust, and you know when to lead and when to listen
• The ability to thrive in ambiguity and bring structure to situations where none previously existed
• Experience managing vendor relationships or budgets
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including a talent for translating complex topics into clear updates for leadership and partners
• Experience at a consumer tech company with a Design Systems team
• Familiarity with illustration systems, motion, or other creative system primitives
• Hands-on experience experimenting with AI tools to solve real workflow problems, and a point of view on where they add genuine value versus noise
• Background working within or alongside a TPM organization