Design Operations Lead - Sponsored Products and Brands

Description

Sponsored Products & Brands (SPB) Product Design creates the shopper-facing ad experiences that customers see on Amazon every day: search, detail pages, the home page, Brand Stores, video, Alexa for Shopping. Sponsored Products is one of Amazon's highest-growth, most strategically important businesses.

We're looking for a Senior Design Operations leader to scale how SPB Product Design works, starting with one ambitious program: turning our AI design tools into a pipeline that takes design natively into code.

Today, several AI design tools, some built by our own product designers and some by partner teams, each solve part of the problem, from early concept generation to component-accurate code to rapid prototyping. You'll figure out how to bring them together, work with engineering and design system partners, and stand up a workable design-to-code program.

Long term, you'll own the operating model for a design org that works with AI: AI tool strategy and governance, team mechanisms, resourcing, and executive communication.

Key job responsibilities
Design to code (first program)
• Review the current AI product design tools in use across our team and partner teams: what each does well, where they overlap, and where they fall short. Recommend a target pipeline with clear build, adopt, or retire decisions.
• Write the business case, including whether existing internal platforms meet our needs. Determine a funding model and align on an engineering partnership.
• Run the program from concept to pilot to scale. Define success metrics such as design-to-code handoff time, share of output that's ready for production, and adoption.
• Drive decisions across tool owners, engineering leaders, design system teams, and partner organizations, without direct authority.

AI tool strategy and governance (ongoing)
• Define how SPB Product Design adopts and governs AI tools: guidelines, quality standards, and when to use AI versus human-led approaches.
• Evaluate new tools against clear criteria and make adoption decisions. Turn individual designers' tools into team capabilities.
• Build AI-enabled workflows that automate where it would be valuable

Design operations and mechanisms
• Own the team's operating rhythm: sprint planning and retros, intake and triage, and a monthly newsletter to the wider org.
• Partner with the Sr. Product Design Manager on capacity and resource planning, and sequencing work against organizational goals.
• Strengthen product design coordination with research operations
• Build onboarding and enablement programs that scale best practices across a distributed design team.



A day in the life
Your first priority is our design-to-code program. Most days, you'll sit with designers to see how they use our AI tools, work with engineers on how the pieces fit together, and turn what you learn into clear plans and decisions. In between, you'll keep a distributed design team running smoothly: leading critiques and team retrospectives, balancing workloads, and helping product managers, researchers and engineers get the design support they need. Your work serves shoppers and the brands advertising to them. Some weeks you'll go beyond the usual: testing new AI tools, coaching designers, or helping shape a leadership narrative.

About the team
We're a team of product designers spread across several cities. We work closely with product managers, engineers, scientists, and user researchers, and we partner with the teams that own the shopping experiences our work appears in, such as search, product pages, brand storefronts, and conversational shopping. In this role, you'll work with all of them. You'll be the person who helps a distributed team of designers do their best work together, and who connects design with our engineering and partner teams.

Basic Qualifications

- Experience understanding needs of business and end customers and translating them into right solutions
- 6+ years of design experience
- Experience building or putting AI-enabled workflows or tools into everyday use
- Experience with design systems and design-to-development handoff workflows

Preferred Qualifications

- Knowledge of project management tools and methodologies (agile to waterfall)
- Experience working and contributing to project playbooks, building schedules, managing issues/risks, establishing communication plans and stakeholder management
- Experience communicating effectively with senior leadership
- Experience leading design-to-code or design system platform programs
- Experience with AI coding and prototyping tools
- Experience driving org-wide change management

Amazon is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of protected veteran status, disability, or other legally protected status.

Our inclusive culture empowers Amazonians to deliver the best results for our customers. If you have a disability and need a workplace accommodation or adjustment during the application and hiring process, including support for the interview or onboarding process, please visit https://amazon.jobs/content/en/how-we-hire/accommodations for more information. If the country/region you’re applying in isn’t listed, please contact your Recruiting Partner.

The base salary range for this position is listed below. Your Amazon package will include sign-on payments and restricted stock units (RSUs). Final compensation will be determined based on factors including experience, qualifications, and location. Amazon also offers comprehensive benefits including health insurance (medical, dental, vision, prescription, Basic Life & AD&D insurance and option for Supplemental life plans, EAP, Mental Health Support, Medical Advice Line, Flexible Spending Accounts, Adoption and Surrogacy Reimbursement coverage), 401(k) matching, paid time off, and parental leave. Learn more about our benefits at https://amazon.jobs/en/benefits.