Sr. Manager, Design Operations

As the Senior Manager of Design Operations at Yum Digital & Technology, you’ll be a key operational leader ensuring the Design, Research, and Strategy teams are empowered to operate with clarity, consistency, and focus. You’ll oversee the tools, systems, and practices that support scaled, high-performing collaboration across the Byte ecosystem—while also cultivating the rhythms and structures that keep the team connected, informed, and aligned.

This role is ideal for a systems thinker and strategic operator who can translate ambiguity into action, build trusted cross-functional relationships, and drive sustained operational maturity. You will manage complex tooling ecosystems, lead Figma consolidation across brands, standardize core processes, and bring cohesion to the day-to-day and strategic operating model of the design organization.

Key Responsibilities:

Team Enablement & Organizational Operations

• Establish and lead the team operating cadence, including regular ceremonies such as design reviews, critiques, all-hands, milestone showcases, and retrospectives.
• Partner with design leadership to manage team-wide communications, meeting structures, planning cadences, and operational documentation.
• Drive visibility and accountability across strategic initiatives, design goals, and cross-functional engagements by managing progress tracking and alignment checkpoints.
• Help foster a cohesive and inclusive team culture through operational rituals, team engagement strategies, and internal storytelling.

Tooling & Platform Governance

• Lead the consolidation and governance of Figma across the organization, including shared libraries, permission models, taxonomy, and maintenance practices.
• Own the strategy, configuration, and administration of core design and research tools (e.g., Figma, UserTesting, Miro, Dovetail, Jira, Confluence), ensuring reliability, scalability, and adoption.
• Define access protocols, system roles, and training resources for tool usage across multi-disciplinary teams.

Vendor Management, Procurement & Licensing

• Manage vendor relationships for design and research platforms, including contracting, license procurement, renewals, and cost forecasting.
• Partner with Legal, Finance, Procurement, and IT to ensure tool compliance, streamline onboarding/offboarding processes, and optimize spend.
• Audit existing tool usage to reduce redundancy, improve ROI, and guide long-term platform strategy.

Process Optimization & Operational Design

• Build and scale intake, prioritization, and workflow systems to support how design work is requested, resourced, tracked, and delivered across product spaces.
• Standardize project management practices across design pods and functions, tailoring them to meet the needs of discovery, delivery, and strategy teams.
• Maintain clear and current process documentation, change logs, and learning resources that support team onboarding and evolution.

Cross-Functional Alignment

• Serve as a key operational partner to leaders in Product, Engineering, Brand, Franchise Ops, and Research—connecting design workflows to broader planning cycles and delivery milestones.
• Anticipate and coordinate cross-functional dependencies and roadblocks to keep execution on track and aligned with business goals.
• Help shape how the design team interfaces with the broader organization through repeatable engagement models and shared accountability frameworks.

Required Qualifications:

• 10+ years of relevant experience in design operations, program management, product ops, or operational leadership within creative or digital organizations.
• Experience driving enterprise-wide tooling consolidation (especially Figma) and managing the administration and governance of creative and research tools.
• Demonstrated success managing vendor relationships, procurement workflows, contracts, and licensing budgets.
• Strong operational planning and facilitation skills—able to lead team cadences, coordinate across functions, and translate vision into action.