Managing Director

Designing Justice + Designing Spaces - Oakland; Oakland (CA); On-site; USD 200,000 - 225,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Employer-covered medical, dental, and vision insurance

Generous PTO and parental leave

Sabbatical eligibility after 7 years

Job summary

Designing Justice + Designing Spaces in Oakland is hiring a Managing Director to lead their architecture and real estate development efforts aimed at community engagement and support. This pivotal role requires extensive experience in both architecture and organizational leadership.

The ideal candidate will demonstrate a commitment to justice and community-driven projects, overseeing a diverse team while shaping long-term strategies. The organization values complexity and clarity, making this an impactful leadership position for a mission-driven professional.

Qualifications

• Experience leading multidisciplinary teams in architecture and community management.
• Strong understanding of nonprofit and fee-for-service models.
• Experience with community-serving real estate development (helpful but not required).

Responsibilities

• Lead internal operations, ensuring team coordination and support.
• Manage key leadership roles, setting goals and KPIs.
• Shape and execute long-term growth strategies with the Executive Director.

Skills

Leadership in architecture

Community engagement

Project management

Strategic planning

Education

15+ years in architecture/real estate development

MBA or equivalent graduate training (optional)

Job description

We are an architecture and real estate development social enterprise creating spaces that embody justice, healing, and self-determination. By designing with communities most impacted by incarceration and disinvestment, we build infrastructure that supports community ownership, redistributes power, and lays the foundation for a world rooted in care, not punishment.

To achieve this mission our team is composed of architects, designers, real estate developers and community members working together to create solutionary spaces and places that bring dignity, well-being and care to the communities we serve.

The Role

Managing Director · Oakland, CA · Hybrid: 3 days in office · $200,000 – $225,000 · Reports to Executive Director

The Managing Director is a pivotal executive leadership role at DJDS — a steady, strategic presence who holds the interior so the Executive Director can focus externally. This is a cross-sectional role for someone who can lead a multidisciplinary team with both rigor and heart, and who understands that building a sustainable, mission-driven organization is itself an act of transformation.

We’re looking for someone whose career began in architecture or real estate development and grew beyond it — into community development, into the relationship-rich, trust-dependent work of designing and building with communities, and into the adaptive, solutionary leadership it takes to guide a complex organization through a rapidly changing world. The path could have started anywhere on that spectrum — what matters is the curiosity and conviction that shaped the journey.

This is not a role for someone drawn to the traditional practice model. It's a role for someone whose technical foundation gave them a language for the built environment, and whose career since has been driven by a deeper question: what can that environment do for communities who have long been the architects of their own resilience — and deserve infrastructure that reflects it.

You will own the day-to-day leadership of our real estate and architecture verticals — work that is deeply intersecting with fundraising and day-to-day operations. You will be second to the Executive Director, partnering closely with her to steward strategy, culture, and growth.

What You'll Lead

Operations & Team Leadership

• Serve as the internal anchor for the organization's professional services work — keeping teams resourced, coordinated, and moving toward shared impact
• Directly manage the Studio Director, Director of Real Estate Development (West Coast and East Coast), and Director of Business Development— with the expectation that the team will grow.
• Set goals, work plans, and KPIs across verticals; hold high standards with care and consistency
• Build systems that support clarity, collaboration, and efficiency — without sacrificing the relational culture that makes this work possible
• Support the COO/CFO and Executive Director on organizational operations, financial sustainability, and strategic planning

Strategy & Project Decisions

• Lead the process of project selection based on strategic alignment, mission fit, capacity, and impact potential
• Shape and execute long-term growth strategy in partnership with the Executive Director and sector leaders
• Identify opportunities to improve processes, efficiencies, and earned income across architecture and development verticals

Business Development & External Relationships

• Partner with the Executive Director and Director of Business Development and Strategic Partnerships to support national business development — identifying mission-aligned opportunities, pitching, and securing new work
• Engage with external partners, funders, and community stakeholders to raise awareness of DJDS's mission and support fundraising
• Participate in community engagement and design processes with genuine curiosity and care for the communities we serve
• Lead at least one project in the portfolio at all times — this is a working leadership role with direct billability expectations, not a purely supervisory one
• Bring a practiced eye to project selection — helping evaluate which opportunities to pursue, which to decline, and why
• Support business development by contributing to proposals, pitches, and client relationships alongside the Executive Director and sector leaders
• Ensure that the way we work on projects reflects how we believe the world should work — with community, with care, and with rigor

Who You Are

Your career has taken you across disciplines and into leadership that most people can't easily categorize — and that's exactly the point. You've been front-facing on large, complex projects — whether as an owner's representative, a project manager on the architecture side, or in a community-facing leadership role where the stakes were high and the stakeholders were many. You understand how buildings get made and you're equally interested in what they mean to the people who use them. We know no single person will arrive with all of this — what matters most is the combination of experience, curiosity, and values you bring to the role.

• You have 15+ years of experience across architecture and real estate development, with significant time in community management or owner-side project leadership
• You have 10+ years in organizational leadership, with a track record of growing teams and managing across disciplines
• You bring expertise in at least one field and the curiosity to work fluidly across many others — connecting dots between disciplines, bringing unexpected perspectives to complex problems, and getting energized by collaboration across silos rather than within them
• You understand the hybrid nonprofit/fee-for-service model — how mission and earned income coexist — and you're energized by both sides of that equation
• You are a strong people manager — someone who builds trust, holds accountability with care, and actively, coaches, mentors, and develops the people around them
• You bring high curiosity and worldly exposure — you've worked with diverse communities and bring genuine humility and attentiveness to that work
• You're a strong personality who can challenge leadership and disagree constructively — we want a thought partner, not a yes-person
• You lead relationally — culture, trust, and care are not soft add-ons for you, they're how good work gets done
• You can hold complexity and create clarity for others — especially in ambiguous, resource-constrained environment
• You are based in the Bay Area, or willing to relocate here — with ongoing bicoastal work as a standing part of the role given our presence across coasts

Experience That's Helpful but Not Required

• Experience with affordable housing, supportive housing, or community-serving real estate development
• Nonprofit operations, fundraising, or evaluation experience
• Familiarity with abolitionist frameworks and community-engaged or trauma-informed design
• An MBA or equivalent graduate training
• Licensed architect
• Full-time, salaried, hybrid role — in-person collaboration is central to our culture, with real flexibility built in
• 100% employer-covered medical, dental, and vision for employees and their children under 26; optional coverage for domestic partners, long-term disability, and life insurance
• Generous PTO: tiered vacation by tenure, sick leave, bereavement, jury duty, and 16 total holidays (12 standard + 4 flexible personal days)
• Up to 12 weeks of fully paid parental leave, supported by California state benefits and DJDS supplemental pay
• Sabbatical eligibility after 7 years: 12 weeks paid leave plus a reduced-load continuation period

How to Apply

To apply, please submit a resume and a cover letter speaking to your experience, your vision for this role, and why DJDS's mission resonates with you.

Ready to Apply?

DJDS is an equal opportunity employer. As an organization committed to hearing diverse voices and perspectives, we consider the broadest and most diverse talent possible — with a deeply inclusive approach and lens. We strongly encourage applications from people with lived experience of the issues we work on.

If this role resonates with you, we encourage you to apply—even if your experience doesn’t match every requirement. We value curiosity, lived experience, and a deep commitment to community.

We’re building a team that reflects the diversity of the communities we serve, and we’re excited to learn more about what you bring to the work.