Senior Manager, Experience Design

ViziRecruiter,LLC.; Chicago (IL); Hybrid; USD 136,160 - 204,240; Full time

Job summary

A leading food retailer is seeking a Senior Manager of Experience Design in Chicago, IL. This role requires 8+ years in experience design, team leadership, and proficiency in design tools like Figma. The position offers a flexible/hybrid work schedule and emphasizes user-centered design to enhance product development. The salary range is $136,160 - $204,240.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in experience or product design with 3+ years leading teams.
• Proficiency in design tools and understanding of front-end technologies.
• Solid knowledge of user-centered design methods and principles.

Responsibilities

• Lead and inspire a team of experience designers.
• Set design vision and strategy aligning customer needs with business goals.
• Advocate for customer-centered design throughout the product lifecycle.

Skills

Experience design

Product design

User-centered design

Communication skills

Team leadership

Education

Bachelor's degree in design, HCI, or related field

Master's degree preferred

Tools

Figma

Job description

Overview

Ahold Delhaize USA, a division of global food retailer Ahold Delhaize, is part of the U.S. family of brands, which includes five leading omnichannel grocery brands – Food Lion, Giant Food, The GIANT Company, Hannaford and Stop & Shop. Our associates support the brands with a wide range of services, including Finance, Legal, Sustainability, Commercial, Digital and E-commerce, Technology and more.

Primary Purpose

We are seeking a thoughtful and hands-on Senior Manager of Experience Design to join the AD USA Experience Design leadership team within our (Browse & Search) Products domain. This is an opportunity to lead a fast-paced team, think holistically about digital product design and change the current grocery landscape.

The Experience Design team has an effective partnership with Product Management and Development teams. We collaborate with engineers, product owners, brand clients and executives throughout the product development lifecycle. This role combines leadership responsibilities with hands‑on design work, ensuring your product portfolio delivers on desired outcomes and at a high standard of quality.

As a design leader, you’re invested in your team and the work, and you take care to provide the context, space and optimal conditions for your team to succeed. You thrive in collaborative environments and relationship building with cross‑functional partners, while sharing accountability and outcomes. You have a high standard for design quality and your humility, transparency and backbone inspires your team to reach and elevate those standards.

Our flexible/hybrid work schedule includes 3 in‑person days at one of our core locations and 2 remote days. Our core office locations include Chicago, IL.

Applicants must be currently authorized to work in the United States on a full‑time basis.

Responsibilities

• Lead, coach, develop, and inspire a team of high performing experience designers
• Nurture and support team health, engagement, and career development
• Resource planning & allocation; take on design initiatives when appropriate
• Advocate for the customer and champion a user‑centered design approach throughout teams and the product development lifecycle
• Set a design vision and strategy for your area of focus that aligns customer needs with business goals and technical feasibility
• Set and uphold design quality standards across your team
• Actively participate in the design process from concept to execution to optimization, ensuring products are desirable and designs are intuitive, accessible, and meet ADUSA design team standards
• Take on design tasks and initiatives as needed by creating design artifacts including flows, prototypes, and high‑fidelity designs
• Facilitate design critiques in an effective and engaging manner with clear takeaways and next steps
• Systems thinker - ability to think across channels and touchpoints, and throughout the technical, backend and backstage interactions necessary to orchestrate an experience
• Steward a culture of data and research informed decision‑making
• Organize and facilitate workshops in an effective, engaging and collaborative manner
• Contribute to our product roadmap, OKR's, optimization plans, and identify opportunities to continuously improve the customer experience
• Solve complex problems - whether it stems from an initiative, process, technical, people or team challenge
• Partner with product and tech leads as well as design and research leadership peers
• Cultivate your internal network across the company including stakeholders from marketing, merchandising, retail media, and fulfillment
• Monitor industry trends, emerging technologies, and competitors to identify opportunities for value creation, innovation and differentiation

Requirements

• Proven experience (8+ years) in experience design, product design, or a related role with at least 3 years leading design teams
• Bachelor's degree in design, HCI, a related field, or professional experience in the field; Master's degree preferred.
• Proficiency in design tools such as Figma, etc., and understanding of front‑end development technologies.
• Solid understanding of advanced user centered design methods and principles, design best practices, and design research methodologies
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to articulate design concepts and rationale to stakeholders at all levels.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience leading teams and designing eCommerce experiences; ideally for multiple brands across native app and responsive digital experiences
• Experience working in the product operating model or agile environments
• Strong presentation and storytelling skills
• Strong stakeholder management skills
• Ability to resolve and diffuse conflicts
• Evangelize the design practice, amplify the value of design with stakeholders in your area of focus
• Establish and maintain essential elements of the design organization practice - including but not limited to design standards and principles, training & development, recruiting & onboarding

Actual compensation offered to a candidate may vary based on their unique qualifications and experience, internal equity, and market conditions. Final compensation decisions will be made in accordance with company policies and applicable law.

Salary Range: $136,160 - $204,240