Senior Manager, Product Design - Design Platform

OhioX; Northern (KY); Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive compensation

401(k) with company match

Employee ESPP (US)

Comprehensive health coverage

Paid time off & parental leave

Job summary

Upstart is hiring a Senior Manager for the Design Platform team. You will lead two senior designers, blending hands-on design with people management, and set the direction for our design system across web and native platforms.

You’ll shape component architecture, token strategy, and visual language while enabling AI-enabled workflows that move products from idea to production. You will partner with engineering and design leaders to redefine how products are built, creating a foundation teams

Qualifications

• Requires 8+ years of product design experience with leadership responsibilities.
• Experience building or scaling design systems across multiple product teams.
• Experience defining design patterns or platform strategy for web and native mobile.
• Experience owning design systems work across components, tokens, docs, governance, and visual direction.
• Experience partnering with engineering on design system implementation, including APIs and token architecture.

Responsibilities

• Lead two senior designers with ~60% hands-on design and ~40% people management.
• Set direction for Upstart's design system, component architecture, token strategy, and visual language.
• Decide how products across web and native mobile come together and support AI-enabled workflows.
• Define metrics to measure impact and use data to guide prioritization.
• Establish operating model with clear ownership, governance, and contribution rules.
• Develop two senior designers as leaders and builders, providing context and feedback.
• Collaborate with engineering and product design leaders to make the Design Platform foundational for product teams.

Skills

Design leadership

Design systems

Platform strategy

Web + mobile

Engineering collaboration

Job description

About Upstart

At Upstart, we’re united by a mission that matters: to radically reduce the cost and complexity of borrowing for all Americans. Every day, we bring creativity, experimentation, and advanced AI to reshape access to credit, helping millions move forward financially with clarity and confidence.

As the leading AI lending marketplace, we partner with banks and credit unions to expand access to affordable credit through technology that’s both radically intelligent and deeply human. Our platform runs over one million predictions per borrower using more than 3,000 signals, powering smarter, fairer decisions for millions of customers. But the numbers only hint at the impact. Every idea, every voice, and every contribution moves us closer to a world where credit never stands between people and their financial progress.

We’re proudly digital-first, giving most Upstarters the flexibility to do their best work from wherever they thrive, alongside teammates across 80+ cities in the US and Canada. Digital-first doesn’t mean distant. We’re intentional about in-person connection through team onsites, planning sessions, and moments that spark creativity and trust. And whether you choose to work primarily from home or collaborate in-person from one of our offices in Columbus, Austin, the Bay Area, or New York City (opening Summer 2026), you’ll have the support to work in the way that works best for you.

If you’re energized by tackling meaningful problems, excited to innovate with purpose, and motivated by work that truly matters, we’d love to hear from you.

The Team

Upstart’s Design Platform team is building the AI-native foundation for how we design and build products across the company. We own the design system, the platform strategy across web and native mobile, and the AI-enabled tools and standards that connect design to code. Our goal is to help every designer and engineer ship high-quality work faster. We sit within Product Design and work closely with frontend platform engineering to turn these ideas into systems teams use in production every day.

As Senior Manager on the Design Platform team, you will lead two senior designers and spend most of your time building alongside them: roughly 60% hands-on design and 40% people management. This is a role for someone who wants to stay close to the craft rather than step away from it. You will set the direction for Upstart's design system, shaping its component architecture, token strategy, and visual language. From there, you will decide how our products come together across web and native mobile, and build the AI-enabled workflows that change how designers and engineers work day to day. The result is a foundation every team at Upstart builds on to move from idea to production in the AI era.

How you’ll make an impact

• Shape the next generation of Upstart’s design system, defining the component architecture, token strategy, and visual language that guide how products are built across the company.
• Define our platform strategy across web and mobile app, deciding what should be shared and where each experience should feel distinct.
• Explore what AI-enabled design systems can become, turning emerging capabilities into new workflows, machine-readable standards, and tools that change how teams build.
• Define how we measure impact, using data to guide priorities and build leadership support.
• Establish the operating model for the Design Platform, creating clear ownership, governance, and contribution models across platform and product teams.
• Develop two senior designers as leaders and builders, giving them the context, feedback, and space to take on ambitious platform work.
• Partner with engineering and product design leaders to rethink how products get built, making the Design Platform the foundation teams use to move from idea to production

Minimum Qualifications

• 8+ years of product design experience, including 2+ years of direct people management experience.
• Experience building or substantially scaling a design system adopted across multiple product teams.
• Experience defining design patterns or platform strategy across both web and native mobile experiences.
• Experience owning design systems work across components, tokens, documentation, governance, and visual design direction.
• Experience partnering directly with engineering on design system implementation, including component APIs and token architecture.

Preferred Qualifications

• Ability to prototype or contribute to component implementation.
• Experience with AI-assisted design, prototyping, build tooling, or design-to-code workflows.
• Knowledge of multi-platform theming and native mobile design systems across iOS and Android.
• Analytical skills to use data to measure impact, identify insights, and inform decisions.
• Business judgment to set priorities, make tradeoffs, and build leadership support.
• Experience developing senior individual contributors and facilitating design critique.

Position location

This role is available in the following locations: Remote

Travel requirements

As a digital first company, the majority of your work can be accomplished remotely. The majority of our employees can live and work anywhere in the U.S but are encouraged to to still spend high quality time in-person collaborating via regular onsites. The in-person sessions’ cadence varies depending on the team and role; most teams meet once or twice per quarter for 2-4 consecutive days at a time.

What you’ll love

At Upstart, our benefits are designed to support your health, financial well-being, family, and personal growth. Here’s what you can expect:

• Competitive compensation, including base pay, bonus opportunities, and annual equity grants that vest quarterly
• Retirement benefits to help you plan for the future, including a 401(k) or Group Retirement Savings Plan with a company match of $2 for every $1 contributed, up to $15,000 annually (USD in the US, CAD in Canada)
• Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP) with discounted stock purchase options for eligible employees (US only)
• Comprehensive health coverage designed to support you and your family, including medical, dental, vision, and wellness resources for US and supplemental health coverage for Canada.
• Health Savings Account contributions from Upstart for eligible plans (US only)
• Income protection benefits, including life insurance and disability coverage for added financial security
• Paid time off, sick leave, and company holidays, in line with local requirements
• Paid family and parental leave to support caregiving