Head of Design Operations

Superhuman Superhuman · Consumer · Hub - San Francisco · Engineering, Product, Design, and Marketing

This role is for a Head of Design Operations at Superhuman, an AI productivity platform. The role focuses on operationalizing design and research teams to ensure they can focus on craft and generate insights that shape product decisions. It involves strategic partnerships across departments, building scalable systems, and shaping team culture. The company mentions its AI products like Grammarly, Coda, Mail, and a proactive AI assistant.

What you'd actually do

  1. Serve as the connective tissue between Design, Research, Product, and Engineering, ensuring teams stay aligned, unblocked, and set up to deliver high-quality work.
  2. Partner with Design & Research leadership to define the vision for craft and research excellence, and build the systems, programs, and culture that elevate both — raising the bar on design quality while making insight-driven decision-making the default across the team.
  3. Act as a strategic liaison across departments, from Finance to Legal to Marketing, ensuring Design goals are understood, resourced, and prioritized.
  4. Connect strategy, business goals, execution, and customer needs into a coherent operational picture that keeps the design team focused and moving forward.
  5. Shape the team's culture and practices around how research informs design and product work, ensuring we have the right rituals, norms, and systems that allow insights to inform product decision-making.

Skills

Required

  • design operations
  • research operations
  • design program management
  • operational role within a design- and/or research-driven organization
  • embedding structure and process
  • building scalable systems
  • leading with data
  • stakeholder management

Nice to have

  • fast-moving product or tech environment

What the JD emphasized

  • 7+ years in design operations, research operations, design program management, or a related operational role within a design- and/or research-driven organization
  • Proven ability to embed structure and process within creative teams without stifling the work — you know how to make rigor feel enabling, not restrictive
  • A track record of building systems that scale. Frameworks, processes, and tools that teams actually adopt and that help organizations move faster without losing quality.
  • Experience running operations for a mid-to-large design and/or research team, ideally in a fast-moving product or tech environment
  • You lead with data and land change through relationships — bringing evidence to every conversation while tailoring your approach to what each stakeholder needs to move forward
  • You're energized by ambiguity and default to action — but you know when to slow down, build alignment, and make sure the team is moving in the right direction