Senior Product Design Manager

United States Digital Space LLC; Oakland (CA); On-site; USD 170,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

dbt Labs is hiring a Senior Manager to lead the Product Design team and shape the UX of dbt’s data products. You will drive design strategy across platform and CLI experiences, partnering with Product and Engineering to transform how data teams build, transform, govern, and trust their data.

You will guide a talented design organization through change, coaching designers, and aligning design with business goals while building for AI-enabled data workflows and developer tools.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in product design, with 5+ years managing designers.
• Strong coaching, feedback, and team-building skills.
• Proven ability to lead across Product, Engineering, Research, Data, Marketing, and exec levels.
• Leadership style focused on direction, critique, strategy, and coaching.
• Experience designing for technically complex products such as ELT, data infrastructure, analytics tooling, or enterprise infrastructure.

Responsibilities

• Lead the dbt product design team across platform and CLI products.
• Define and drive the UX strategy for dbt's product experiences.
• Provide design direction for complex data workflows and developer tools.
• Shape AI-powered and agentic product experiences with safe, understandable interfaces.
• Lead organizational integration of design systems and culture post-merger.
• Build an AI-native design operating model across the lifecycle from research to QA.

Skills

People management

Cross-functional leadership

Design leadership

Data infrastructure

ELT / analytics engineering

Job description

From the company’s founding until now, our mission has remained the same: to make access to data as simple and reliable as electricity. With the company, customer data arrives in their warehouses, canonical and ready to query, with no engineering or maintenance required. We’re proud that more organizations continue to leverage our technology every day to become truly data-driven.

About Us

the company and dbt Labs are bringing together two industry-leading companies with a shared mission: helping organizations unlock the full value of their data.Together, we’re delivering the data infrastructure layer that helps organizations move, transform, and trust their data — from the moment data moves, through every transformation, to the context teams and AI systems rely on.the company helps organizations automate data movement across the systems, clouds, engines, and tools they rely on. dbt Labs pioneered analytics engineering, helping teams transform data into reliable, governed insights. Together, we support thousands of organizations as they build a trusted foundation for analytics, AI, and better business decisions.As we bring our teams and technology together, we’re building on the strengths of both companies while continuing to deliver the products and experiences our customers know and trust. It’s an exciting time to join us: we’re creating a company with the scale, talent, and technology to help more organizations put their data to work with greater speed, confidence, and impact.During this transition period, you may see references to both the company and dbt Labs throughout our recruiting process as we integrate our teams, systems, and career sites.

About the role

the company + dbt Labs is hiring a Senior Manager to lead the Product Design team responsible for dbt Labs. This role reports to the Director of Product Design.

This is an exciting time to join! As the company and dbt Labs come together, you will help shape a coherent product experience, guide the design team through change, and influence the future of AI-powered data products. You will join a strong and talented design organization whose members care deeply about their craft, the practitioners they serve, and one another.

This is a people management and product leadership role for a design leader who wants to shape technical data products at scale. You will manage and develop a team of product designers, shape the UX strategy for dbt products, and partner with Product and Engineering leaders to define how data teams build, transform, govern, and trust their data. You will lead through strategy, coaching, direction, and cross-functional partnership.

What you'll doLead the dbt product design team

You will manage and coach a team of product designers who work across dbt platform and CLI-based products. Designers own the full design process from problem definition and research to UX/UI and partnering with eng/PM through delivery. You will build a culture where designers feel supported, challenged, and empowered to do thoughtful, high-quality work for deeply technical users. You will set clear expectations, give actionable feedback, support career growth, and create the conditions for strong design craft.

Own UX strategy for dbt

You will define and drive UX strategy across dbt’s product experience. You will identify the highest-impact experience opportunities, connect design priorities to product outcomes, and partner with Product and Engineering leadership as a strategic peer in roadmap and product direction conversations.

Provide design direction for technical data products

You will set direction for design work across complex workflows used by technical practitioners. You do not need to be an engineer, but you do need enough technical fluency to understand the domain, evaluate tradeoffs, and partner credibly with engineering leaders. You should be comfortable discussing data workflows, ELT, analytics engineering, developer tools, and infrastructure-oriented product experiences.

Shape AI and agentic product experiences

You will lead design strategy for AI-powered and agentic experiences within dbt. This requires more than adding AI features to existing workflows. You will help the team design systems that make AI assistance understandable, useful, and safe for high-stakes technical work. As dbt builds experiences where both humans and AI agents interact with the same data infrastructure, you will also think about how product surfaces need to work for both personas.

Help integrate the company and dbt Labs design

You will play an important role in co-creating a unified product experience and design culture. This is a change-leadership role. You will partner with the Director of Product Design to merge systems, processes, and culture. You will help designers navigate a new organizational context, build strong cross-functional relationships, and create clarity during a period of product and company evolution.

Build an AI-native design operating model

You will operationalize AI across the design lifecycle (from research synthesis and ideation to prototyping, documentation, and design QA). You will establish shared workflows, quality standards, and review practices that help the team move faster without compromising product quality or consistency. In partnership with the Director of Product Design and Product and Engineering leadership, you will also define cross-functional standards for when AI-generated work requires design review, ensuring clear expectations for human oversight, quality, and continuous improvement.

What we're looking forRequired experience

• You have 8+ years of product design experience and at least 5 years managing product designers.

• Strong people management skills, including coaching, performance development, direct feedback, and team culture building.

• Strong cross-functional leadership with Product, Engineering, Research, Data, Marketing, and executive stakeholders.

• Deep care for craft, with a leadership style focused on direction, critique, strategy, and coaching rather than acting as the primary IC designer.

• Designing for, or leading teams that design for, technically complex products such as ELT, data infrastructure, analytics engineering, developer tools, cloud platforms, data governance, observability, or adjacent enterprise infrastructure products.