Senior Design Quality and Excellence Manager

Edward Jones; St. Louis (MO); On-site; USD 120,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical benefits

Dental benefits

401k retirement plan

Paid holidays

Job summary

Edward Jones seeks a Design Quality and Excellence Senior Manager to lead the operational backbone of Enterprise Design, governing design systems, tooling, and AI-driven workflows while directing a growing team of specialists and contractors.

The role partners with senior leaders to mature design practices, measure outcomes with dashboards, and drive a resilient talent pipeline across full-time, contract, and agency resources.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Design or related field; advanced degrees preferred.
• 5+ years in design/operations; 4+ years of leadership in design or operations.
• Experience leading large-scale design or operations programs across functions.
• Ability to influence senior stakeholders in matrixed organizations.
• Experience with AI-enabled design workflows and design tooling ecosystems.

Responsibilities

• Lead AI transformation of Enterprise Design and partner with senior leadership.
• Govern design systems, tooling, and quality standards across an AI-influenced PDLC.
• Advance design capability maturity with formal models and metrics.
• Oversee staffing, workforce planning, and vendor management.
• Govern digital accessibility standards and oversee accessibility specialists.

Skills

Design leadership

Operations strategy

AI tooling

Design systems

Stakeholder management

Data dashboards

Education

Bachelor's degree in Design or related field

Tools

Figma

Jira

Power BI

Tableau

Clarity

Job description

This job posting is anticipated to remain open for 30 days, from 25-Sep-2026. The posting may close early due to the volume of applicants.

Join a financial services firm where your contributions are valued. Edward Jones is a Fortune 500¹ company where people come first. With over 9 million clients and 20,000 financial advisors across the U.S. and Canada, we’re proud to be privately‑owned, placing the focus on our clients rather than shareholder returns.

Behind everything we do is our purpose: We partner for positive impact to improve the lives of our clients and colleagues, and together, better our communities and society. We are an innovative, flexible, and inclusive organization that attracts, develops, and inspires performance excellence and a sense of belonging.

People are at the center of our partnership. Edward Jones associates are seen, heard, respected, and supported. This is what we believe makes us the best place to start or build your career.

View our Purpose, Inclusion and Citizenship Report.

¹Fortune 500, published June 2024, data as of December 2023. Compensation provided for using, not obtaining, the rating.

Design Quality and Excellence Senior Manager

The Design Quality and Excellence Senior Manager is a matrixed leader responsible for the operational backbone of Enterprise Design. This role governs design systems and tools, operational processes and measurement, workforce strategy, culture, and digital accessibility, while orchestrating the AI transformation of the design function. As the most senior Design Operations leader and a strategic partner to the Sr. Director, Enterprise Design, this leader advances design as a firmwide capability and defines how human and agentic design work together. The leader directs a growing team of specialists and contractors, ensuring quality, consistency, and velocity across all design portfolios.

What You’ll Do:

• Orchestrate the AI transformation of Enterprise Design, facilitating senior leadership vision and strategy sessions to integrate AI tools, reimagine workflows for an agentic future, and define how human and agentic design collaborate across the function, while advancing prototyping and experimentation capabilities that accelerate concepts from idea to first interaction.
• Govern and advance the design system, tooling ecosystem, and Experience Design quality standards within an emerging AI product development lifecycle (PDLC), ensuring scalable human and AI‑assisted workflows and establishing Ready‑to‑Build and Ready‑to‑Launch standards and gates in partnership with Design, Business, and Product teams.
• Advance the firm's design capability maturity through a formal maturity model, evolving both human and agentic design practices and measuring progress against defined benchmarks.
• Lead staffing, workforce planning, and vendor contract management across full‑time, contract, and third‑party agency resources, optimizing the talent mix to deliver portfolio outcomes, control costs, and build a resilient talent pipeline.
• Centralize and govern digital accessibility, setting standards, governing compliance across digital experiences, and leading the transition and ongoing management of accessibility specialists within the function.
• Serve as the most senior Design Operations leader and strategic partner to the Sr. Director, Enterprise Design, driving operational planning, portfolio prioritization, resource allocation, and cross‑functional alignment across all design portfolios.
• Shape and grow the culture of design within and beyond Enterprise Design, fostering communities of practice, design excellence rituals, and knowledge sharing that elevate the discipline firmwide.
• Define and track operational metrics for the design function, including adoption rates, quality scores, speed‑to‑value, and maturity indices, using data to drive continuous improvement and investment decisions.

What You’ll Need:

• Bachelor's degree in Design, Science, Engineering, or a related discipline such as Human‑Computer Interaction, Human Factors, Instructional Design, Computer Science, Digital or Interactive Media, Communications, Behavioral Science, Psychology, or Anthropology. Advanced degrees or professional certifications in operations management, AI, or design leadership are preferred.
• 5+ years of relevant experience in design, design operations, or design thinking, including 4+ years of leadership experience directly managing designers or operations teams.
• Demonstrated ability to develop and lead enterprise‑scale design or operations programs from strategy through execution, coordinating across design disciplines and functions, driving cross‑functional initiatives, and producing executive‑ready updates.
• Demonstrated ability to lead and inspire multiple teams while developing team leaders and senior individual contributors.
• Experience in operations strategy, including business and process modeling, operations transformation, and resource planning within large organizations.
• Experience governing design systems and managing design tooling ecosystems at scale, including Figma, Jira, user research and testing platforms, quality measurement frameworks, and emerging AI design tools.
• Demonstrated experience leading digital accessibility programs, including setting and governing accessibility standards and managing accessibility specialists.
• Excellent executive‑level communication and collaboration skills, with a demonstrated ability to influence senior and executive stakeholders across functions without direct authority and drive outcomes within matrixed organizations.
• Demonstrated ability to define operational metrics, build dashboards, and use data to drive continuous improvement and investment decisions using tools such as Clarity, Jira, Power BI, and Tableau.
• Demonstrated experience with AI‑enabled design workflows, including AI‑assisted and agentic approaches to learning, prototyping, and design quality, as well as governing or advancing design systems within AI‑first or agentic design and PDLC environments.

Candidates that live within a commutable distance from our Tempe, AZ, St. Louis, MO home office locations, and/or that work within a Talent Capability and Generations Hub are expected to work in the office four days per week.

At Edward Jones, we are building a place where everyone feels like they belong. We're proud of our associates' contributions to the firm and the recognitions we have received.

Check out our U.S. awards and accolades: Insights & Information Blog Postings about Edward Jones

Check out our Canadian awards and accolades: Insights & Information Blog Postings about Edward Jones

Edward Jones does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, gender, religion, national origin, age, disability, sexual orientation, pregnancy, veteran status, genetic information or any other basis prohibited by applicable law.

Edward Jones' compensation and benefits package includes medical and prescription drug, dental, vision, voluntary benefits (such as accident, hospital indemnity, and critical illness), short‑and‑long‑term disability, basic life, and basic AD&D coverage. Short‑and‑long‑term disability, basic life, and basic AD&D coverage are provided at no cost to associates. Edward Jones offers a 401k retirement plan, and tax‑advantaged accounts: health savings account, and flexible spending account. Edward Jones observes ten paid holidays and provides 15 days of vacation for new associates beginning on January 1 of each year, as well as sick time, personal days, and a paid day for volunteerism. Associates may be eligible for bonuses and profit sharing. All associates are eligible for the firm's Employee Assistance Program. For more information on the Benefits available to Edward Jones associates, please visit our benefits page.