Design Operations Lead

Salla; Saudi Arabia; On-site; SAR 150,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading digital commerce platform in Saudi Arabia is seeking a Design Operations Lead to enhance design processes and collaboration across squads. The ideal candidate has over 5 years of experience in DesignOps and is proficient in tools such as Figma and Jira. This role focuses on building scalable systems, improving design quality, and facilitating cross-functional teamwork. Fluency in Arabic and English is required, alongside excellent communication skills.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in DesignOps or similar roles.
• Hands-on experience with scalable design systems.
• Fluent in Arabic and English.

Responsibilities

• Lead audit of design workflows to identify gaps.
• Build a multi-quarter DesignOps roadmap.
• Partner with HR and Design Leadership for capacity planning.

Skills

DesignOps experience

Figma proficiency

Collaboration skills

Knowledge of Jira

Communication skills

Tools

Figma

Jira

Confluence

Notion

Job description

At Salla, we’re redefining digital commerce across the region. Our ecosystem unifies marketplaces, payments, shipping, and operations into one platform empowering merchants to grow and innovate effortlessly. We’re hiring a Design Operations Lead who will bring clarity, consistency, and collaboration to how design happens at Salla. You’ll work across squads to align processes, connect designers and UX writers, and ensure smooth handoffs with engineering enabling our design org to scale with excellence and impact.

Responsibilities

• Lead a full audit of current design workflows across squads to identify gaps, inefficiencies, and automation opportunities.
• Build and maintain a multi‑quarter DesignOps roadmap aligned with product and design OKRs to support scalable growth.
• Establish shared design process frameworks including reviews, documentation, collaboration standards, and rituals.
• Partner with HR and Design Leadership on capacity planning, onboarding, and team health programs.
• Integrate UX writers more deeply into the design lifecycle to ensure tone consistency and reduce rework.
• Collaborate with engineering to improve design‑to‑development handoff, QA processes, and delivery quality.
• Govern and operationalize the design system lifecycle—versioning, adoption tracking, and cross‑platform alignment.
• Standardize design tools and practices across teams (Figma branching, file structure, component governance, version control).
• Create dashboards and reporting to monitor design velocity, delivery health, process efficiency, and quality metrics.
• Define and track measurable design KPIs such as delivery velocity, rework rate, design quality, and team satisfaction.
• Promote strong design culture through rituals, knowledge sharing, internal documentation, and cross‑squad alignment.
• Serve as the connective layer between design, product, and engineering to enable clarity of communication, timelines, and expectations.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in DesignOps, Product Design, or similar operational design roles.
• Hands‑on experience building and maintaining scalable design systems and workflows.
• Strong proficiency with Figma, Jira, Confluence, Notion, or other collaboration and documentation platforms.
• Proven ability to partner with cross‑functional teams including design, engineering, product, and content.
• Excellent communication and facilitation skills able to drive clarity and consensus across teams.
• Ability to define and measure success metrics for design operations.
• A structured and empathetic approach to leadership balancing people, process, and outcomes.
• Fluent in Arabic and English.