Director, Design Operations
On-site · San Francisco, California, United States
Job Summary
Director, Design Operations leading the end-to-end UX operating model at Gap Inc. This leadership role defines and runs intake, prioritization, estimation, stage-gate delivery (G0–G4), design review cadences, and delivery workflows, ensuring integration of the design function into the product operating model. Owns UX capacity planning across Gap FTE and MSP resources, maintains visibility into who is working on what, surfaces prioritization tradeoffs, and manages the MSP partnership (onboarding, knowledge transfer, quality standards, performance tracking). Oversees UX tooling (Figma, Jira, Confluence, Zeroheight, Storybook, dscout) and AI tooling to drive efficiency, builds dashboards and reporting for real-time visibility, and tracks contractual UX SLAs. Partners with UX Research leadership to scale research operations and enable AI-augmented research pipelines. Requires onsite presence in San Francisco (2 Folsom Street) four or more days per week and a strong, visible voice for the design function across Product Management, Engineering, and Brand partners.
Required Qualifications
- 8+ years of experience in design operations, UX operations, or product operations in a product-led organization
- experience defining and implementing UX processes within a product operating model
- experience managing capacity, intake, and resource allocation for design teams of 30+ people
- experience managing or operationally governing MSP or vendor design teams
- deep proficiency with UX tools ecosystem (Figma, Jira, Confluence, design system tooling) and ability to configure tools to support workflows
- hands-on experience with AI tools for operational efficiency
- experience building and facilitating cross-functional workshops, design sprints, and design thinking sessions with senior stakeholders
- experience standing up or scaling research operations (recruitment, panels, repository systems, insights distribution)
- ability to translate design capacity and process into business language for multiple audiences
- strong communication and relationship-building skills
- willingness to be onsite at Gap Inc. headquarters four or more days per week
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