Senior Design Manager, Core

Posted Sep 27

About This Role

Strava is the leading subscription platform at the center of connected fitness, with more than 100 million community members in over 190 countries. The platform offers a holistic view of your active lifestyle, no matter where you live, which sport you love, and/or what device you use. Everyone belongs on Strava when they are pursuing an active life.

The core product design team focuses on building the best in class experiences for all users on Strava related to the home & feed, groups & community, and athlete activities & progress. Additionally, this team is responsible for building a holistic design system.

We use design, research, data, strategy and empathy to guide cross-functional teams toward our common goal of becoming the preeminent platform for athletes. It is important to us to include diverse perspectives and empower our teams to do phenomenal work.

In this role, you will collaborate across the design organization and company. Developing the platform and processes that shape our core product strategy, roadmap, and the user experience on Strava. You will be responsible for some of the most important aspects of our athlete experience and community.

For more information on compensation and benefits, please click here.

You’re excited about this opportunity because you will:

  • Be a leader in supporting the development and growth of a very hardworking team that designs experiences our athletes love and rave about.
  • Align team development with company goals and values.
  • Continue to evolve our design system, and be the champion voice of the athlete throughout the organization.

You will be successful here by:

  • Leading and coaching — energizing your team to deliver excellent results while keeping them happy and engaged. Supporting team balance through additional hiring and helping shape team growth.
  • Creating design vision and strategy
  • Delivering design ideas and excitement toward execution
  • Aligning high-quality design work with athlete delight, company objectives, and a sense of a well-rounded and simple cross-app experience.
  • Being responsible for our team of designers to build a comprehensive design system
  • Being collaborative and having an alignment-centric mentality with product leadership
  • Your ability to think in terms of user lifecycles, reusability, consistency, and scale, knowing when to pursue systems and frameworks vs. one-offs in collaboration with other orgs.

We’re excited about you because:

  • You have 5+ years of experience managing, supporting, and growing experienced design teams.
  • You have a growth mindset, passion for learning, and willingness to adapt and evolve your own perspective when collaborating with teammates who bring different backgrounds, perspectives, and expertise.
  • You are experienced in leading and supporting a design team through growth and change and can orient towards positive business and athlete impact.
  • You have partnered across the organization to help teams with complementary skills and perspectives (e.g. product management, engineering, qualitative research, data & analytics, customer support). Coming together to form a full picture of a problem or opportunity.
  • You have outstanding communication and storytelling skills (written and verbal), a collaborative mentality, and the ability to persuade and encourage project teams, peers, and stakeholders on the value of a people-centered design approach.
  • You have a deep passion and understanding for people-centered design and methodologies, which integrates multiple types of data (e.g. qualitative findings, market research, survey data, analytics, competitive landscape) into a singular strategic point of view
  • You have experience with navigating the balance and tradeoffs between serving product team roadmaps and company-wide roadmaps.
  • You have deep, hands-on experience and shareable examples of leading a variety of design projects from start to finish and across all stages of a product lifecycle (discovery to go-to-market). Using business strategies, design thinking, and collaboration to balance user needs and business objectives.

About Strava

Strava is Swedish for “strive,” which epitomizes who we are and what we do. We’re a passionate and committed team, unified by our mission to connect athletes to what motivates them and help them find their personal best. With billions of activity uploads from all over the world, we have a humbling and adventurous vision: to be the record of the world’s athletic activities and the technology that makes every effort count.

Strava builds software that makes the best part of our athletes’ days even better. Just as we’re deeply committed to unlocking their potential, we’re dedicated to providing a world-class, inclusive workplace where our employees can grow and thrive, too. We’re backed by Sequoia Capital, Madrone Partners and Jackson Square Ventures, and we’re expanding in order to exceed the needs of our growing community of global athletes. Our culture reflects our community. We are continuously striving to hire and engage diverse teammates from all backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives because we know we are a stronger team together.

In light of the global pandemic, Strava is currently working in a fully remote capacity. As always, we remain committed to fully supporting our employees, especially their mental health and well-being, through these challenging times. Despite challenges in the world around us, we are continuing to grow camaraderie and positivity within our culture, and we are unified in our commitment to becoming an antiracist company. We are differentiated by our truly people-first approach, our compassionate leadership, and our belief that we can bring joy and inspiration to athletes’ lives — now more than ever. All to say, it’s a great time to join Strava!

Strava is an equal-opportunity employer. In keeping with the values of Strava, we make all employment decisions, including hiring, evaluation, termination, and promotional and training opportunities, without regard to race, religion, color, sex, age, national origin, ancestry, sexual orientation, physical handicap, mental disability, medical condition, disability, gender or identity or expression, pregnancy or pregnancy-related condition, marital status, height and/or weight.

We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation.

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