About the Job:
The Design Operations Lead establishes and operates a scalable design capability for Technology Enablement. This role serves as the operational owner of the design capability, with accountability for design quality, tooling, workflows, standards, intake, resource planning, and delivery across reports, portals, and other digital experiences.
The Design Operations Lead owns the permanent design capability required to support and evolve FMI's products and experiences while enabling specialized design capacity to scale with initiative demand. The role directs and coordinates internal and external design resources to deliver the majority of design work, while providing targeted hands-on support for baseline design needs, maintaining critical design assets and standards, and determining when additional UX, UI, research, accessibility, service design, or other expertise is required.
A key responsibility is continually improving how design work gets done. The Lead owns the design toolchain and working environment, including Figma organization and governance, Adobe InDesign report-design and production workflows, reusable templates and libraries, project and asset organization, documentation, versioning, and design-to-development handoff practices. The Lead identifies gaps in existing tooling and processes and implements more effective approaches that improve design quality, efficiency, maintainability, and collaboration.
Key Responsibilities:
Lead the overall design operations capability, establishing the operating model, priorities, standards and governance for how design work is delivered
Provide oversight of the design portfolio, including intake, prioritization, resource allocation, quality and delivery across digital experiences
Lead and coordinate internal and external design resources, providing direction and ensuring consistent execution against established design standards
Serve as hands-on practitioner for Technology Enablement, directly executing baseline design and production work across FMI reports, portals, and related digital experiences while engaging specialized expertise when demand or complexity requires it
Own and continuously improve the design toolchain, standards, and working environment, including Figma governance, fit-for-purpose report and PDF design tooling, reusable components and templates, and clear project, file, asset, and documentation practices
Partner with Product Management and cross-functional stakeholders to translate product and business needs into effective design outcomes, define the appropriate design approach, and ensure work is aligned to product strategy, priorities, and delivery plans
Establish clear design-to-development handoff practices so work is organized, documented, technically actionable, and maintainable; partner with Engineering during implementation as needed and support design quality assurance of delivered experiences
Forecast design demand and capacity, identifying upcoming resource needs and when initiative-funded or specialized resources are required
Ensure work delivered by internal specialists, consultants, agencies and other partners transitions cleanly into ongoing stewardship, including reusable assets, documentation, and key design decisions
Facilitate design reviews and decision forums; uphold consistent, human-centered, accessible, and high-quality design practices across reports, portals, and other digital experiences
Define meaningful measures for the design capability and continuously improve its tools, workflows, quality, capacity, and delivery effectiveness
Other duties as assigned
Comply with FMI's attendance policies
Qualifications:
Basic Qualifications:
Bachelor's degree in design, human-computer interaction, human factors, information design, product design, graphic design, a related discipline, or equivalent relevant professional experience
8+ years of professional experience in product design, experience design, UI/UX design, design…