Manager, Product Design

From our employee experience to our products, design matters at Sprout Social. We’re looking for a Product Design Manager to join our team as we continue to build beautiful, helpful and easy-to-use software that powers human connection. You’ll be surrounded by smart, ambitious and caring teammates that want to build great things together.

As a Product Design Manager, you’ll have the opportunity to play the role of ‘player-coach.’ While you continue to flex your honed set of individual contributor skills, you’ll also tackle cultivating the people growth of a small team of direct reports. We are looking for someone who welcomes the opportunity to nurture quality craft in their people, as well as to demonstrate quality craft through design.

Our people leaders strengthen our team, processes, culture and work. In concert with your peer Design Managers and Design Leadership, you’ll help Sprout continue to be a great place to practice your craft as a designer. You’ll sharpen the skills of your direct reports, impact org-wide process and culture, improve rituals, bolster critiques, and influence product strategy.

You’ll also own the experience of key areas in our software. From project kickoff to release, you’ll have your hand in the direction of what we make, how we make it and how we tell its story. You’ll put all of your design skills on display. Even better: you’ll learn new ones along the way.

As you spend time growing others, our Design Leadership team will spend time growing you. You’ll develop your leadership skillset and hone your management style. You’ll collaborate with other designers, engineers, and product executives. With our feedback-driven culture, you’ll help designers run workshops to get project input while offering helpful advice of your own to teammates across the company.

We care deeply about our people and strive to be great bosses. We’re eager to hear your favorite 1:1 questions you ask direct reports. We’re excited to trade tips on leading effective meetings. We’re looking forward to exchanging management articles and advice. Hopefully, we’ll learn new leadership practices from you, too! We’ve built a thoughtful and strong design culture, and we’re looking forward to you adding your own influence to all that we do.

• Experience managing people, shaping design culture, and leading teams
• Evidence of solid partnerships across product and engineering to facilitate the successful delivery of unified product experiences
• Examples of structuring projects, processes, tools or initiatives to set teams up for success

• Sharp communication skills, with the ability to effectively give and receive feedback, facilitate working sessions and influence strategy
• Experience working on SaaS applications
• Ability to nurture and mature research processes to ensure we aren’t just shipping product - we’re shipping value
• Practice exercising divergent and convergent thinking, with the ability to activate a team against a vision

Note: When applying, please include a link to samples of your work. This could be a portfolio website, a zip file of artifacts, or a case study of a specific project that showcases your people leadership skills.

Within 1 month, you will:

• Experience Sprout’s in-depth onboarding, covering everything from our company mission and values, hearing directly from executives and founders, to deep training on our products and the value that Sprout delivers to our customers.
• Partner with the Design Leadership team to define success for your role and your team
• Spend 1:1s with your direct reports to understand their goals, strengths, and opportunities so that you can help with their career progression.
• Build relationships across Sprout so that you understand the business, and the partners you’ll need to help your team make progress.
• Learn all about Sprout’s Design, Engineering, and Product organizations. Get exposed to how we design, build, and go to market. 
• You’ll be encouraged to give us feedback to make things better, too. We don’t just welcome feedback, it’s part of our culture.

Within 3 months, you will:

• Learn the voice, thinking, and habits of our users while developing a solid foundation of knowledge on our product. 
• Attend product planning, stand-ups and rituals across the wide range of teams you’ll be a part of.
• Collaborate with your team and begin designing real world work!
• Influence a strong culture of design critique and collaboration, ensuring our designers and our work are held to a high-quality standard.
• Help your team think through complex problems and offer guidance on presenting their work effectively.
• Weigh in on resourcing, helping align design skill sets to business needs.

Within 6 months, you will:

• Develop a career plan alongside each of your direct reports and continue conversations with your manager on your own growth path
• Further your influence on our design and product strategy as you learn more about our customers and industry.
• Ship work into the world and get real user feedback so that we can continue to make our work even better.
• Introduce new rituals and processes to improve the delivery of our designs.

Within 12 months, you will:

• Dream with design leadership on our long term team vision.
• Keep defining what design management means at Sprout. We can’t wait to hear your own unique ideas of how you’ll make our work and our company even better.

Of course what is outlined above is the ideal timeline, but things may shift based on business needs and other projects and tasks could be added at the discretion of your manager.

About Sprout Social
Sprout Social powers open communication between individuals, brands and communities through elegant, sophisticated software. We are relentless about solving hard problems for our customers and committed to both customer and team success. Our team’s shared belief in Sprout’s mission promotes a culture of openness, empowerment and fun. 

We’re proud to regularly be recognized for our team, product and culture. Our benefits program includes:

• Insurance and benefit options that are built for both individuals and families
• Progressive policies to support work/life balance, like our flexible paid time off and parental leave program 
• High-quality and well-maintained equipment—your computer will never prevent you from doing your best
• Wellness initiatives to ensure both health and mental well-being of our team
• Ongoing education and development opportunities via our Grow@Sprout program, employee-led diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and mentorship programs for aspiring leaders
• Growing corporate social responsibility program that is driven by the involvement and passion of our team members
• Beautiful, convenient and state-of-the-art offices in Chicago’s Loop and downtown Seattle, for those who prefer an office setting

Whenever possible, Sprout wants to provide our team with the flexibility to work in the location that makes the most sense for them. For those that prefer an office setting, this role may be based in our Chicago or Seattle locations. If you prefer to work from your home, we can accommodate that for many locations across the United States. We are not set up in all states, however, so please take a look at the drop down box in our application to see whether your state is listed.

Sprout Social is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer and an Affirmative Action Employer. We do not discriminate based on identity- race, color, religion, national origin or ancestry, sex (including sexual identity), age, physical or mental disability, pregnancy, veteran or military status, unfavorable discharge from military service, genetic information, sexual orientation, marital status, order of protection status, citizenship status, arrest record or expunged or sealed convictions, or any other legally recognized protected basis under federal, state, or local law. Learn more about our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion in our 2021 DEI Report.

If you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the employment process, please contact us by email at [email protected] and let us know the nature of your request and your contact information. We'll do all we can to ensure you're set up for success during our interview process while upholding your privacy, including requests for accommodation. Please note that only inquiries concerning a request for reasonable accommodation will be responded to from this email address.

For more information about our commitment to equal employment opportunity, please click here (1) Equal Opportunity Employment Poster  (2) Sprout Social's Affirmative Action Statement (3) Pay Transparency Statement.

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