Design Program Manager, Systems (Temporary)

Discord is a platform used by over 200 million people for gaming and social interaction. They are seeking a Design Program Manager to collaborate with their Systems teams, focusing on design and engineering processes to enhance product development and streamline operations.

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