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Design Operations Jobs in California (NOW HIRING)

Superhuman

Head of Design Operations

San Francisco, CA · On-site

$285K - $417K/yr

Design & Research Operations sets the operational foundation for how our design and research teams function - ensuring designers can focus on craft and researchers can generate insights that ...

iFlow Inc

Senior AV Design & Operations Engineer

Irvine, CA · On-site

$86K - $113K/yr

Senior AV Design & Operations Engineer Location: Irvine ,CA Duration: 8 Months Experience: 7-20 Years Description: This is what you'll do: Responsible for configuring, operating, and maintaining ...

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How much do design operations jobs pay per hour?

As of Jul 29, 2026, the average hourly pay for design operations in California is $19.56, according to ZipRecruiter salary data. Most workers in this role earn between $15.19 and $22.07 per hour, depending on experience, location, and employer.

What can I do with a design management degree?

A design management degree prepares individuals for roles that oversee design projects, coordinate teams, and align creative work with business goals. Graduates can pursue positions such as design manager, project lead, or operations coordinator, often utilizing skills in project management, communication, and design tools like Adobe Creative Suite. The degree provides a foundation for leadership in creative environments and may require experience with strategic planning and cross-functional collaboration.

What is the highest paying career in design?

Senior roles such as Creative Director, Design Director, or UX Director tend to be the highest paying careers in design, often earning six-figure salaries. These positions require extensive experience, leadership skills, and expertise in design tools and processes.

What is a Design Operations job?

A Design Operations (DesignOps) job focuses on optimizing design team workflows, improving collaboration, and ensuring efficient processes. It involves resource planning, tooling, and scaling design efforts to enhance productivity and impact. DesignOps professionals help bridge gaps between design, product, and engineering teams, enabling designers to focus on creativity while maintaining operational efficiency.

What do design operations do?

Design operations professionals manage and optimize the processes, tools, and workflows that support design teams. They coordinate resources, implement design systems, and improve efficiency to ensure smooth collaboration and high-quality output across projects.

What is a design ops specialist?

A design ops specialist is a professional who manages and optimizes the processes, tools, and workflows used by design teams to improve efficiency and collaboration. They often work with project management tools, establish best practices, and support designers in scaling their work within an organization.

What are the key skills and qualifications needed to thrive in the Design Operations position, and why are they important?

To thrive as a Design Operations professional, a strong understanding of design processes, project management, and cross-functional collaboration is essential, often supported by a background in design or related fields. Familiarity with tools such as Figma, Asana, Jira, and workflow management systems is commonly required. Exceptional communication, problem-solving abilities, and an aptitude for organization are valuable soft skills in this role. These skills ensure that design teams operate efficiently, deliver high-quality work, and maintain alignment with business goals.

What are some typical daily responsibilities for someone working in Design Operations?

In Design Operations, daily tasks often include coordinating project timelines, facilitating communication between designers and other departments, maintaining design systems, and streamlining workflows. You may also be responsible for organizing team meetings, setting process standards, and managing resource allocation. The role requires balancing strategic planning with hands-on support to ensure the design team functions smoothly and meets deadlines. By playing this integral role, Design Operations professionals help maximize the creative team's impact and efficiency.

What are the most commonly searched types of Design Operations jobs in California? The most popular types of Design Operations jobs in California are:
What are popular job titles related to Design Operations jobs in California? For Design Operations jobs in California, the most frequently searched job titles are:
What job categories do people searching Design Operations jobs in California look for? The top searched job categories for Design Operations jobs in California are:
What cities in California are hiring for Design Operations jobs? Cities in California with the most Design Operations job openings:
Design Operations jobs near you
Infographic showing various Design Operations job openings in California as of July 2026, with employment types broken down into 67% Full Time, and 33% Contract. Highlights an 67% In-person, and 33% Hybrid job distribution, with an average salary of $40,682 per year, or $19.6 per hour.

Director, Design Operations

Gap, Inc.

San Francisco, CA • On-site

Full-time

Re-posted 18 days ago

Gap rating

6.7

Company rating: 6.7 out of 10

Based on 276 frontline employees who took The Breakroom Quiz

30th of 104 rated fashion retailers

Job description

About the Role
The Director, Design Operations is the operational backbone of the Experience Design practice at Gap Inc. This role defines and runs the processes, tools, workflows, and capacity management systems that enable a high-performing UX team to deliver inside a product operating model. Reporting to the VP of Experience Design, you will be directly responsible for how work comes in, how it gets prioritized, how capacity is allocated across value streams, and how quality is tracked and improved.
Gap Inc.'s Experience Design team operates across four brands (Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic, Athleta), three journey tracks (Customer, Product, Enterprise), and a managed services partnership that includes 48 designers across onshore and offshore locations. The practice is transitioning from an ad-hoc, project-driven model to an integrated product operating model with clear value stream alignment, stage-gated delivery, and measurable outcomes. Design Operations is what makes this transition real.
In this role, you will own the full UX operating model: intake, prioritization, estimation, stage gates, capacity planning, tooling, reporting, and the operational governance of our managed services partnership. You will build and continuously improve the systems that make the design function visible, accountable, and effective at scale. You will also lead research operations, enabling the infrastructure that supports AI-augmented research pipelines and enterprise-wide insights distribution.
This is not an administrative role. It is a leadership position that requires someone who is passionate about operational excellence as a craft, someone who sees process design with the same rigor a UX designer brings to product design. You will be a strong voice and advocate for the design function across the organization while building the trusted relationships with Product Management, Engineering, and Brand partners that earn design a seat at every table.
This role is based in San Francisco (2 Folsom Street) and requires onsite presence four or more days per week. Physical proximity to the VP of Experience Design, GTS leadership, and managed service partners is essential to the day-to-day partnership and problem-solving this role demands.What You'll Do
  • Define, implement, and continuously improve the end-to-end UX operating model: intake, prioritization, estimation, stage gates (G0-G4), design review cadences, and delivery workflows. Ensure the design practice is fully integrated into the product operating model, not running as a parallel track.
  • Own UX capacity planning across Gap FTE and managed service provider resources. Maintain rolling visibility into who is working on what, where capacity exists, and where demand exceeds supply. When tradeoffs are needed, surface them clearly so prioritization decisions are conscious, not accidental.
  • Facilitate cross-domain resource allocation decisions by surfacing capacity data and conflicts to domain design leaders, who own assignment decisions within their scope. Serve as first-line arbitrator for cross-domain resource conflicts, escalating to the VP of Experience Design only when domain leaders cannot reach resolution.
  • Manage the operational relationship with the managed service provider: onboarding, knowledge transfer, quality standards, performance tracking, and continuous improvement. Define the boundary between Gap Design Ops (system, governance, strategy) and MSP Design Ops (execution coordination, sprint management, onshore-offshore handoffs). Ensure managed service provider resources are productive, accountable, and integrated into product teams.
  • Own the UX tooling ecosystem: Figma, Jira, Confluence, Zeroheight, Storybook, dscout, and emerging AI tools. Evaluate, adopt, configure, and drive adoption. Have strong opinions about how tools should serve workflow, not the other way around.
  • Leverage AI tooling across all aspects of Design Operations for efficiency: AI-assisted intake triage, automated capacity reporting, AI-powered QA checks, intelligent backlog prioritization, and streamlined reporting. Continuously identify new opportunities to use AI to improve how design teams work.
  • Build and maintain dashboards and reporting systems that give UX leadership, Product Management, and Engineering real-time visibility into design capacity, throughput, quality, and bottlenecks. Track and report on contractual UX SLAs, driving baselining, instrumentation, and measurable improvement.
  • Cultivate design system ambassadors across the organization. Identify representatives from each contributing team to act as liaisons with the central design system team, ensuring alignment, coordination, and consistent adoption across brands and value streams.
  • Partner with UX Research leadership to build and scale research operations: participant recruitment pipelines, panel management, study scheduling, repository management, and insights distribution. Enable the AI-augmented research pipeline vision by providing the operational infrastructure for compressed research cycles.
  • Design and facilitate cross-functional workshops, design sprints, design thinking sessions, and collaborative working sessions that bring UX, Product Management, Engineering, and Brand stakeholders together around shared problems. Build the facilitation infrastructure (templates, guides, follow-through mechanisms) that ensures workshop outputs translate to action.
  • Be a strong, visible voice and advocate for the design function across GTS. Represent the operational needs, capacity realities, and value of UX in forums where design is not typically at the table: TPM planning, engineering capacity reviews, quarterly planning, and budget discussions.
  • Build trusted relationships with Product Management, Engineering, TPM, and Brand Enablement counterparts. Earn a seat at the operational table through competence, reliability, and genuine partnership. Translate design capacity and constraints into language that cross-functional partners can act on.
  • Practice and champion a learning culture. Treat every process as a hypothesis to be tested, measured, and evolved. Run retrospectives not as ceremonies but as genuine improvement engines. Continuously raise the bar on how the design practice operates.
  • Manage both Gap Design Ops team members and managed service provider Design Ops resources. Inspire, develop, and hold people accountable. Create an environment where operational excellence is valued and where the team continuously improves how it supports the broader design organization.
Who You Are
  • You have 8+ years of experience in design operations, UX operations, or product operations in a product-led organization. You have defined and implemented UX processes within a product operating model, including stage-gated delivery, sprint integration, and quarterly planning.
  • You have managed capacity, intake, and resource allocation for design teams of 30 or more people, including distributed and offshore teams. You understand the operational complexity of scaling design across multiple brands, platforms, and geographies.
  • You have experience managing or operationally governing managed service provider (MSP) or vendor design teams. You understand the distinction between strategic oversight and tactical execution, and you know how to maintain quality and craft standards while scaling through external partners.
  • You are passionate about tools and workflow optimization. You have deep proficiency with the UX tools ecosystem (Figma, Jira, Confluence, design system tooling) and strong opinions about how tools should be configured to support the way designers actually work.
  • You have hands-on experience with AI tools for operational efficiency and a genuine enthusiasm for finding new ways to use AI to improve how design teams work. You see AI as a force multiplier for operations, not a buzzword.
  • You have experience building and facilitating cross-functional workshops, design sprints, and design thinking sessions with senior stakeholders. You can hold a room, drive to outcomes, and ensure follow-through.
  • You have experience standing up or scaling research operations: recruitment, panel management, repository systems, and insights distribution. You understand how operational infrastructure enables research velocity.
  • You are an excellent communicator who can translate design capacity and process into business language for Product, Engineering, Finance, and executive audiences. You make the invisible visible.
  • You are a relationship builder who earns trust through competence, transparency, and follow-through. You advocate fiercely for the design function while genuinely partnering with cross-functional teams.
  • You are willing to be onsite at Gap Inc. headquarters (2 Folsom Street, San Francisco) four or more days per week. You believe that physical presence alongside leadership, partners, and the teams you serve is how you do your best work.
  • You know what operational excellence looks like in a design organization, and you elevate the systems, culture, and capability of everyone around you to achieve it.

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