Chief of Staff, Access, PSET

Autodesk, Inc; Denver (CO); Remote; USD 124,000 - 223,000; Full time

Job summary

Autodesk is seeking a Chief of Staff to the VP of Access, a trusted strategic advisor and organizational effectiveness leader within PSET. The role connects strategy, execution, and health to help Access operate as a high-performing organization.

It emphasizes leadership, governance, and cross-functional collaboration, with travel as needed and remote work across the U.S. The position requires 8+ years in strategic or cross-functional leadership, with exceptional communication and stakeholder

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in strategic operations, business operations, product or engineering leadership, senior technical program leadership, consulting, or an equivalent cross-functional role
• Ability to advise senior executives, synthesize ambiguity, prioritize competing issues, and turn strategic intent into coordinated organizational action
• Prior experience and strong understanding of complex technology organizations and of platform, product, engineering, and cross-functional planning, dependencies, and decision-making
• Prior work experience in a global tech company
• Excellent executive writing, storytelling, facilitation, analysis, stakeholder management, and influencing skills; ability to challenge constructively and handle confidential matters
• Track record improving operating models, leading organizational change, and delivering measurable cross-team outcomes without formal control over all contributors

Responsibilities

• Serve as a candid thought partner on priorities, investments, organizational design, leadership dynamics, and cross-functional tradeoffs; anticipate risks and opportunities before they require escalation
• Focus the VP on high-leverage decisions and relationships; prepare executive recommendations and narratives, clarify delegated authority, and ensure effective leadership handovers during absences or transitions
• Partner with Staff, Finance, TPMs, and product/engineering leads to connect Strategic Realization (SR), annual and quarterly planning, OKRs, and capacity decisions to a coherent set of priorities
• Make outcomes, owners, dependencies, tradeoffs, and risks visible; convene decisions when priorities conflict and strengthen executive reporting with evidence of business and customer impact
• Own and evolve the Access Staff and Extended Leadership Team (XLT) operating rhythm: tactical and strategic forums, business reviews, offsites, and effective asynchronous collaboration
• Facilitate productive debate and decisions; maintain clear decision owners, rationale, tradeoffs, action owners, and follow-through. Build a cohesive leadership team through retrospectives and working norms
• Develop trusted relationships with PSET Chiefs of Staff and partners across COO, Trust, Developer Enablement, Analytics & Data, and product/industry organizations
• Orchestrate executive interlocks that surface shared priorities and dependencies, resolve conflict, assign cross-org commitments, and represent Access accurately in broader planning and leadership forums
• Lead or sponsor a small portfolio of high-impact, cross-domain initiatives with explicit charters, outcome metrics, owners, experiments, and decisions to scale, revise, or stop.
• Drive durable improvements in AI-native innovation, operational effectiveness, governance, and collaboration
• Partner with HR and Access leadership to convert employee insights into actions; strengthen organizational identity, belonging, recognition, leadership development, and cross-domain engagement
• Facilitate Staff/XLT offsites and organizational retrospectives; coordinate organizational change and talent-planning processes while respecting HR and executive decision ownership
• Shape consistent, audience-specific stories for executive reviews, PSET leadership forums, interlocks, All Hands, AMAs, and organizational updates
• Translate complex platform and engineering work into customer and business outcomes; communicate the why, key decisions, implications, and required actions so leadership messages match operating reality
• Partner with Finance and operational leaders on business reviews, capacity, resource tradeoffs, and a reliable integrated view of commitments, dependencies, risks, and initiatives
• Maintain lightweight decision and knowledge systems in Confluence, SharePoint, and relevant tools; streamline duplicative processes, strengthen delegation and handovers, and automate low-value work
• Directly owns: leadership cadence and operating mechanisms; Staff decision/action governance; interlock orchestration; selected strategic transformations; executive and organizational communication coordination
• Partners on: strategy and SR planning; investments, budget and capacity; org design and talent processes; risk management; executive reporting - with accountable functional leaders
• Influences: senior decisions, shared priorities, leadership behaviors, cross-org commitments, and operating model evolution
• Does not automatically own: product/engineering roadmaps, architectural authority, TPM delivery plans, budget approval, personnel decisions, or the VP's decision rights unless delegated

Job description

Job Requisition ID #

26WD101678

Position Overview

The Chief of Staff is a trusted strategic advisor and organizational effectiveness leader to the VP of Access, in our PSET (Platform Services and Emerging Technologies) org. The role connects strategy, leadership, execution, and organizational health to help Access operate as one high-performing organization. It improves decision quality and speed, strengthens collaboration across Autodesk, and turns priorities into measurable outcomes.

This is a high-trust leadership role requiring sound judgment, executive communication, operational rigor, and influence without direct authority. It is not primarily an executive assistant, meeting coordinator, or technical program manager; its primary accountability is improving how the organization leads, aligns, decides, and delivers.

This position will report to our VP, Access and is 100% remote based in the U.S., preferably in the western region. Candidates need to be able to travel 6-7 times per year, globally.

The Access team makes better decisions, acts faster, works more effectively as one leadership team, builds stronger partnerships, and delivers greater strategic impact because this role exists.

Responsibilities

• Serve as a candid thought partner on priorities, investments, organizational design, leadership dynamics, and cross-functional tradeoffs; anticipate risks and opportunities before they require escalation

• Focus the VP on high-leverage decisions and relationships; prepare executive recommendations and narratives, clarify delegated authority, and ensure effective leadership handovers during absences or transitions

• Partner with Staff, Finance, TPMs, and product/engineering leads to connect Strategic Realization (SR), annual and quarterly planning, OKRs, and capacity decisions to a coherent set of priorities

• Make outcomes, owners, dependencies, tradeoffs, and risks visible; convene decisions when priorities conflict and strengthen executive reporting with evidence of business and customer impact

• Own and evolve the Access Staff and Extended Leadership Team (XLT) operating rhythm: tactical and strategic forums, business reviews, offsites, and effective asynchronous collaboration

• Facilitate productive debate and decisions; maintain clear decision owners, rationale, tradeoffs, action owners, and follow-through. Build a cohesive leadership team through retrospectives and working norms

• Develop trusted relationships with PSET Chiefs of Staff and partners across COO, Trust, Developer Enablement, Analytics & Data, and product/industry organizations

• Orchestrate executive interlocks that surface shared priorities and dependencies, resolve conflict, assign cross-org commitments, and represent Access accurately in broader planning and leadership forums

• Lead or sponsor a small portfolio of high-impact, cross-domain initiatives with explicit charters, outcome metrics, owners, experiments, and decisions to scale, revise, or stop.

• Drive durable improvements in AI-native innovation, operational effectiveness, governance, and collaboration

• Partner with HR and Access leadership to convert employee insights into actions; strengthen organizational identity, belonging, recognition, leadership development, and cross-domain engagement

• Facilitate Staff/XLT offsites and organizational retrospectives; coordinate organizational change and talent-planning processes while respecting HR and executive decision ownership

• Shape consistent, audience-specific stories for executive reviews, PSET leadership forums, interlocks, All Hands, AMAs, and organizational updates

• Translate complex platform and engineering work into customer and business outcomes; communicate the why, key decisions, implications, and required actions so leadership messages match operating reality

• Partner with Finance and operational leaders on business reviews, capacity, resource tradeoffs, and a reliable integrated view of commitments, dependencies, risks, and initiatives

• Maintain lightweight decision and knowledge systems in Confluence, SharePoint, and relevant tools; streamline duplicative processes, strengthen delegation and handovers, and automate low-value work

• Directly owns: leadership cadence and operating mechanisms; Staff decision/action governance; interlock orchestration; selected strategic transformations; executive and organizational communication coordination

• Partners on: strategy and SR planning; investments, budget and capacity; org design and talent processes; risk management; executive reporting - with accountable functional leaders

• Influences: senior decisions, shared priorities, leadership behaviors, cross-org commitments, and operating model evolution

• Does not automatically own: product/engineering roadmaps, architectural authority, TPM delivery plans, budget approval, personnel decisions, or the VP's decision rights unless delegated

The Chief of Staff works through and strengthens Staff, TPM, HR, Finance, Communications, and executive support functions -

without duplicating their responsibilities.

Minimum Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in strategic operations, business operations, product or engineering leadership, senior technical program leadership, consulting, or an equivalent cross-functional role

• Ability to advise senior executives, synthesize ambiguity, prioritize competing issues, and turn strategic intent into coordinated organizational action

• Prior experience and strong understanding of complex technology organizations and of platform, product, engineering, and cross-functional planning, dependencies, and decision-making

• Prior work experience in a global tech company

• Excellent executive writing, storytelling, facilitation, analysis, stakeholder management, and influencing skills; ability to challenge constructively and handle confidential matters

• Track record improving operating models, leading organizational change, and delivering measurable cross-team outcomes without formal control over all contributors

Preferred Qualifications

• Previous Chief of Staff or comparable VP partnership experience; familiarity with PSET, SR (Strategic Realization) and OKRs; exposure to cloud platforms, identity/access, AI-native development, digital business models, or organizational development

• Strategic and proactive in anticipating issues; candid and trusted in counsel; outcome-oriented rather than process-driven; collaborative and influential across boundaries; structured yet adaptable in ambiguity; discreet and dependable with sensitive matters

About Autodesk

Welcome to Autodesk! Amazing things are created every day with our software – from the greenest buildings and cleanest cars to the smartest factories and biggest hit movies. We help innovators turn their ideas into reality, transforming not only how things are made, but what can be made.

We take great pride in our culture here at Autodesk – it’s at the core of everything we do. Our culture guides the way we work and treat each other, informs how we connect with customers and partners, and defines how we show up in the world.

When you’re an Autodesker, you can do meaningful work that helps build a better world designed and made for all. Ready to shape the world and your future? Join us!

Benefits

From health and financial benefits to time away and everyday wellness, we give Autodeskers the best, so they can do their best work. Learn more about our benefits in the U.S. by visiting https://benefits.autodesk.com/

Salary transparency

Salary is one part of Autodesk’s competitive compensation package. For U.S.-based roles, we expect a starting base salary between $124,000 and $222,640. Offers are based on the candidate’s experience and geographic location, and may exceed this range. In addition to base salaries, our compensation package may include annual cash bonuses, commissions for sales roles, stock grants, and a comprehensive benefits package.

Equal Employment Opportunity

At Autodesk, we're building a diverse workplace and an inclusive culture to give more people the chance to imagine, design, and make a better world. Autodesk is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and considers all qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status or any other legally protected characteristic. We also consider for employment all qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with applicable law.

Belonging

We take pride in cultivating a culture of belonging where everyone can thrive. Learn more here: https://www.autodesk.com/company/global-belonging

In-Person Onboarding and Identity Verification

This role may require in-person onboarding and/or in-person ID verification.