Product Design Program Manager

About the team OpenAI’s mission is to ensure that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. The Product Design team works across research, engineering, and product to bring OpenAI’s technology to the world through intuitive, responsible, and accessible experiences. We serve a diverse and growing audience of users—from everyday consumers to developers to large enterprises—and we believe thoughtful design is essential to making powerful AI tools useful and understandable. We seek to learn from real-world deployment and distribute the benefits of AI, while ensuring that this transformative technology is used safely and ethically. Safety is more important to us than unfettered growth. Design plays a critical role here. To succeed in our mission, it’s essential that our design teams can focus on high-impact work, supported by clear systems, strong execution, and seamless cross-functional collaboration. We’re hiring a Product Design Program Manager to help build the infrastructure that enables design to thrive. As a foundational member of design program management, you’ll help shape how the team plans, collaborates, and delivers work across a fast-evolving product landscape. About the role We’re looking for an experienced Product Design Program Manager to help us scale, support, and streamline operations across our growing product design organization. This role is both strategic and hands-on—foundational in shaping how the team operates, and deeply involved in the day-to-day execution that enables great design work to happen. You’ll work closely with product design leadership, research, engineering, product management, and other partners to ensure the design team can deliver high-quality work at speed and scale. The ideal candidate brings a deep understanding of design operations in high-growth technology organizations, matched with adaptability, attention to detail, and a strong sense of ownership. This role is based in our San Francisco HQ. We offer relocation assistance to new employees. In this role, you will: - Partner with design leadership to identify and implement programs, processes, and tools that help the team operate more effectively across multiple product workstreams. - Lead operational planning and execution for key initiatives, including team-wide rituals, hiring coordination, onboarding, resource allocation, and internal communications. - Build and maintain scalable systems that support team growth, executional excellence, and strong collaboration with research, engineering, and product counterparts. - Oversee asset management practices across the design organization, ensuring shared libraries, templates, and systems are version-controlled, accessible, and consistently used. - Manage external vendors and contractors—handling onboarding, scoping, resourcing, contract workflows, and performance tracking to extend the team’s capacity with quality and accountability. - Partner closely with Product and Engineering Operations to align OKRs, roadmaps, and delivery milestones. - Help manage intake, prioritization, and resource planning for design work across a fast-moving and highly collaborative product environment. - Drive clarity around ownership, roles, and execution timelines—ensuring the right people are in the loop at the right time. - Facilitate retrospectives, team health check-ins, and continuous improvement efforts to help the team operate at its best. - Jump in where needed—whether that’s standing up a new system, running a sprint planning session, onboarding a vendor, or troubleshooting a tool. You might thrive in this role if you: - Have 8+ years of experience in design operations roles within high-growth tech environments. - Have built and scaled 0-1 operational systems across multidisciplinary teams—balancing long-term vision with hands-on execution. - Have a flexible orientation toward process–understanding when it's most effective, how and when to advocate for it, and what it can't