Manager - Design Operations - Studio Manager ( LY-OP01)

Lemon Yellow LLP; Thane; On-site; INR 1,500,000 - 2,300,000; Full time

Job summary

Lemon Yellow LLP is seeking a Design Operations Lead to own the people, processes, and rhythms of a 50+ member creative design team. You’ll manage allocations, on-boarding, reviews, and team health to prevent burnout and ensure growth. This role is not client-facing and sits inside the design team.

You will partner with the Director of UX and PMs to staff projects, maintain processes, and drive performance reviews with clear documentation and calibration.

Qualifications

• Strong organizational skills, follow-through, and ability to own recurring processes end-to-end.
• Excellent written and verbal communication; able to work with senior leadership, leads, and junior designers alike.
• Proficiency with productivity and resourcing tools (e.g., ClickUp, Sheets or similar resource planners, HRMS tools).

Responsibilities

• Maintain a live view of every designer's allocation, utilization, and availability across all active client projects.
• Staff projects with the right people at the right time, balancing skills, growth needs, and workload.
• Flag over-allocation, under-utilization, and burnout risks early; propose rebalancing.
• Plan capacity ahead of incoming work and support hiring forecasts with utilization data.
• Own the team's HR-admin rhythm: leaves, attendance, approvals, documentation.
• Run onboarding for new designers and structured offboarding with knowledge handover.
• Schedule and track one-on-ones between leads and team members.
• Drive end-to-end performance review cycle: timelines, templates, reminders, calibration logistics.
• Track goals, feedback, and development plans.
• Support leads with data for promotion cases and skill-gap mapping.
• Build and improve internal processes: allocation trackers, leave workflows, onboarding checklists.
• Organize team rituals and keep documentation current.

Skills

Organizational skills

Communication skills

Resource/bandwidth planning

Process ownership

Team coordination

Education

Design background or education

Tools

ClickUp

Sheets

HRMS tools

Job description

Role Overview

We're looking for someone who can own everything inside the Design team, the people, processes, and rhythms that keep a 50+ member creative team healthy, utilized, and continuously growing. This is the operational backbone of the team: someone who always knows who's working on what, who's overloaded, who's available, who's due for a review, and who's joining or leaving—and ensures nothing falls through the cracks. If you enjoy bringing structure to creative environments and enabling teams to do their best work, this role is for you.

Key Responsibilities

Bandwidth & Resource Allocation

• Maintain a live view of every designer's allocation, utilization, and availability across all active client projects.
• Work with the Director of UX and the Project Management team to staff projects with the right people at the right time, balancing skills, growth needs, and workload.
• Flag over-allocation, under-utilization, and burnout risks early; propose rebalancing before they become problems.
• Plan capacity ahead of incoming work and support hiring forecasts with utilization data.

People Operations & HR Coordination

• Own the team's HR-admin rhythm in coordination with central HR: leaves, attendance, approvals, and documentation for the design team.
• Run smooth onboarding for new designers (accounts, tools, buddy assignment, 30-60-90 day plans) and structured, respectful offboarding with knowledge handover.
• Schedule and track one-on-ones between leads and team members; make sure they actually happen and follow-ups are closed.

Performance & Growth

• Drive the performance review cycle end-to-end: timelines, templates, reminders, calibration logistics, and documentation.
• Track goals, feedback, and development plans so nothing waits for the next review cycle to be noticed.
• Support leads with data and structure for promotion cases, improvement plans, and skill-gap mapping.

Process, Tools & Team Health

• Build and continuously improve internal processes: allocation trackers, leave workflows, review templates, onboarding checklists.
• Manage design-team tooling and licenses (Figma seats, plugins, research tools) and coordinate procurement.
• Organize team rituals- reviews, retros, knowledge-sharing sessions, team events and keep internal documentation current.
• Be the first point of contact for designers' operational questions, handled with empathy and discretion.

Requirements

Must-have

• 2–4 years in design operations, studio/team operations, program coordination, people operations, or a similar role, ideally in an agency, studio, or services environment.
• Demonstrated experience with resource/bandwidth planning or team coordination at 20+ people scale.
• Strong organizational skills, follow-through, and comfort owning recurring processes end-to-end.
• Excellent written and verbal communication; able to work with senior leadership, leads, and junior designers alike.
• Proficiency with productivity and resourcing tools (e.g., ClickUp, Sheets or similar resource planners, HRMS tools).
• High empathy, discretion, and sound judgment, you'll handle sensitive people matters.

Strongly Preferred

• A formal education or working background in design (B.Des or hands-on design experience). We're looking for someone who understands the dynamics of creative teams. While a design background isn't mandatory, a strong appreciation of how designers work, what creative problem-solving demands, and why a designer's calendar shouldn't be managed like an accountant's is essential.
• Familiarity with design tools and workflows (Figma, design systems, research processes).
• Experience in a design agency or creative services firm.

What This Role Is Not

• Not a client-facing — client servicing and project coordination sit with our PM team.
• Not a hands-on design role — though design literacy is a real advantage.
• Not an HR — you'll work closely with the HR team, but your home is inside the design team.
• Not Project Management-. Our Project Management team owns client servicing, client communication, and project coordination.

Why This Role Matters

We're a 50+ member Design team that's growing fast, and we believe great operations are what transform a good design team into a great one. This role will shape the day-to-day experience of our designers by ensuring work is distributed fairly, growth remains visible, and administrative friction stays out of the way of great design.