Manager, Product Design

Zendesk builds software crafted to improve customer and employee experiences. We lead the industry with beautifully simple software, but we're constantly innovating and can't wait to outdo ourselves in the future! As a product design team, we believe in a collaborative working style with a bias towards rapid prototyping, experimentation, and a strong curiosity for our customers and their needs. We are looking for a Product Design Manager to join our team in Pune, India. In this role, you will lead and mentor a growing team of talented designers, ensuring they thrive in a global environment. You will play a key role in integrating designers into the broader design practice, maintaining a high bar of quality, and scaling the team as we continue to grow. As a Design Manager, you are a strong design leader who loves coaching, fostering collaboration, and driving impactful user experiences. You will shape the local design culture from the ground up, playing a critical role in building a world-class design practice that aligns with our global product strategy. This role reports to the Director, Product Design in the United States and will collaborate closely with teams and leaders in the United States, Australia, and Singapore. **What You'll Be Doing Everyday** - Translating strategy and business goals while managing designers across a diverse range of projects. - Actively building and maintaining relationships with cross-functional teams and stakeholders across Zendesk. - Helping scale our design practice by recruiting, hiring, and onboarding new employees. - Providing regular performance feedback, check-ins, and coaching to your direct reports. - Championing design quality by shaping design critiques, providing regular feedback, and more. - Adopting and refining processes, workflows, and templates that allow the team to scale our impact. - Providing design guidance and recommendations on Zendesk product initiatives. - Contributing to the development of the design practice by sharing successful practices, frameworks, tools, lessons learned, and more. - Fostering a growing design culture by keeping a pulse on team morale and finding opportunities for improvement. **What You Need To Succeed** - 5+ years of experience in software product design or related fields. - 3+ years of experience managing, coaching, and developing direct reports. - Experience mentoring software product designers to deliver their best work. - Understanding of SaaS, Enterprise software, Growth design, and/or Design systems. - Experience at building or scaling teams, ideally in a distributed or regional setting. - Collaborative mindset with excellent communication skills. - A portfolio that showcases your work, provides details of your role on projects, and shows examples of functional designs that teams you have managed have developed from start to finish. Please note that Zendesk can only hire candidates who are physically located and plan to work from Pune, Maharashtra. This role must attend our local office for part of the week, with a specific in-office schedule to be determined by the hiring manager.,