Design Systems & Operations Lead

At PNC, our people are our greatest differentiator and competitive advantage in the markets we serve. We are all united in delivering the best experience for our customers. We work together each day to foster an inclusive workplace culture where all of our employees feel respected, valued and have an opportunity to contribute to the company's success. As a Design Systems & Operations Lead within PNC's Treasury Management Digital organization, you will be based in Pittsburgh, PA, Hamilton, NJ, or Houston, TX., This role sits at the intersection of Design Operations, Product Design, and Design Systems, partnering across Product, Research, Experience Design, UI, and Engineering teams to scale design quality, consistency, and delivery effectiveness.

This role operates horizontally across teams, ensuring that:

• Design systems are adopted and evolved based on real product needs.
• Design workflows are consistent, efficient, and scalable.
• Cross-crew alignment is strong between Design, Product, Research, and Engineering.

This role owns the effectiveness of the design delivery system, ensuring work is properly shaped, routed, governed, and delivered across Research, Experience Design, and Design System teams.

The role serves as an operator, orchestrator, and systems owner responsible for improving how work flows through the organization. This includes defining and optimizing operating models, enabling cross-functional collaboration, driving Design System adoption, and removing friction that slows teams down.

You will partner closely with Design Leadership to define DesignOps strategy while driving execution as a key operator and change agent across the organization.

This is a hands-on senior IC role that blends:

• Design delivery orchestration and operational leadership.
• Design System governance and adoption.
• Product design expertise and selective hands-on execution.

This role is ideal for a senior individual contributor who has experienced the challenges of scaling design organizations and has successfully built systems, processes, and operating models that improve delivery outcomes.

Core Responsibilities

1. Design Operations & Cross-Crew Orchestration

Design Delivery System Ownership

• Own the health and effectiveness of the design delivery ecosystem across Research, Experience Design, and Design System teams.
• Act as the operational connector across disciplines, ensuring the right work reaches the right team at the right time with clearly defined goals, dependencies, and success criteria.
• Design and optimize workflows, rituals, and operating models both within Design and across Product and Engineering.
• Drive operational consistency while maintaining team agility and delivery velocity.
• Identify organizational friction points and actively remove barriers to execution.

Intake, Work Shaping & Prioritization

• Own and evolve intake and work-shaping processes to ensure initiatives are properly defined, assessed, and routed before entering delivery.
• Partner with leadership on intake management, prioritization, roadmap alignment, and delivery planning.
• Support capacity planning and resource visibility across teams.
• Ensure new work enters the system with appropriate context, ownership, objectives, and success measures.

Stage Gates, Dependencies & Delivery Readiness

• Define and maintain stage gates across discovery, design direction, design system alignment, development readiness, implementation QA, and delivery closure.
• Ensure clear design readiness for development and implementation.
• Surface and manage cross-crew dependencies, blockers, unresolved decisions, and operational risks.
• Establish escalation paths and governance mechanisms to maintain delivery flow and reduce rework.
• Facilitate critiques, working sessions, alignment forums, and operational reviews.

Visibility, Metrics & Continuous Improvement

• Create visibility into:

o What teams are designing.

o Where duplication or divergence is occurring.

o Where Design System opportunities exist.

o Where operational bottlenecks are slowing delivery.

• Define and track Design health metrics, delivery metrics, and Design System adoption measures.
• Monitor and improve the effectiveness of the design delivery system over time.

Success measures may include

• Reduced design rework.
• Improved design readiness for development.
• Increased Design System adoption.
• Reduced one-off design solutions.
• Improved consistency across product experiences.
• Clearer ownership and accountability.
• Improved delivery flow and reduced operational friction.
• Design System Ownership & Activation
• Govern, champion, and evolve the Design System in partnership with Design Leadership.
• Co-own the Design System roadmap, including components, tokens, patterns, templates, and supporting assets.
• Define organizational governance models and contribution processes for Design System enhancements.
• Establish clear inclusion criteria for system components versus custom solutions.
• Drive Design System adoption as both a product and operational discipline.
• Partner with Product, Design, and Engineering leaders to align teams around system usage and implementation standards.
• Enable teams through documentation, education, working sessions, office hours, and ongoing support.
• Facilitate Design System audits and adoption reviews to improve consistency across products.
• Support design-to-development parity throughout the implementation lifecycle.
• Partner with engineering teams to improve Design System implementation, scalability, and maintainability.
• Product Design Leadership & Strategic Execution
• Lead or support select high-impact product initiatives where hands-on design involvement is required.
• Maintain direct exposure to product design work to inform operational improvements and Design System evolution.
• Establish quality benchmarks and best practices through participation in strategic initiatives.
• Create and deliver design concepts, workflows, prototypes, and experience solutions when needed.
• Partner with Product, Research, and Engineering teams to ensure experiences align with user needs and business goals.
• Support user research, usability testing, and iterative design improvements.
• Champion accessibility, usability, and responsive design best practices.
• Serve as a credible design practitioner capable of contributing to and evaluating design work across teams., * Transforms complex tasks into intuitive, accessible and easy-to-use designs through the entire experience lifecycle, from the first-time user to the expert.
• Leads and guides the discovery of customer and business needs through contextual inquiries, generative and quantitative research. Uncovers customer latent needs and creates vision to meet those needs.
• Sets the design direction and strategy. Leads others to execute visual, information, interaction and service design elements of the initiative that meets business and customer needs and delights customers. Communicates the initiative and product to others, including senior management, through user journeys, storyboards, prototypes, wireframes and other materials.
• Sets the direction for usability of new and existing products, makes adjustments to align with shifting customer expectations.
• Establish research methods and strategies, conduct studies, and present findings that will inform improvements in the customer experience.
• Coaches and mentors junior staff; Assists management team in training new staff.

PNC Employees take pride in our reputation and to continue building upon that we expect our employees to be:

• Customer Focused - Knowledgeable of the values and practices that align customer needs and satisfaction as primary considerations in all business decisions and able to leverage that information in creating customized customer solutions.
• Managing Risk - Assessing and effectively managing all of the risks associated with their business objectives and activities to ensure they adhere to and support PNC's Enterprise Risk Management Framework.

• Advanced Figma systems expertise (Components, Variants, Variables, Tokens, Libraries)
• Deep experience scaling and governing Design Systems.
• Strong UX and Product Design fundamentals across the end-to-end product lifecycle.
• Proven experience establishing or improving DesignOps functions, workflows, or operating models.
• Strong understanding of:

o Front-end architecture

o Component-based systems

o Responsive design principles

o Design-to-development workflows

• Experience working within Agile product delivery environments.
• Experience supporting cross-functional delivery models at scale.
• Accessibility (WCAG) expertise integrated into design practice.
• Experience defining metrics, performance indicators, and operational measures for design organizations.

Nice-to-Have

• Storybook and Design System tooling ecosystems.
• Design maturity assessment and organizational transformation experience.
• Process optimization, service design, or operating model design experience.
• Analytics and measurement frameworks for adoption, efficiency, and quality.

Soft Skills

Must-Have

• Operator mindset (not strategist-only, not designer-only).
• Systems thinker who identifies patterns across teams and addresses root causes.
• Strong organizational and operational leadership skills without direct people management.
• Ability to influence peers, leaders, and cross-functional partners.
• Bias toward action, simplification, and continuous improvement.
• Ability to establish standards and governance without creating unnecessary bureaucracy.
• Strong facilitation and alignment-building capabilities.
• Ability to navigate ambiguity and build structure where it does not yet exist.

Nice-to-Have

• High emotional intelligence and organizational awareness.
• Coaching and mentorship mindset.
• Executive communication and stakeholder management experience.
• Change management and organizational design experience., Successful candidates must demonstrate appropriate knowledge, skills, and abilities for a role. Listed below are skills, competencies, work experience, education, and required certifications/licensures needed to be successful in this position.

Preferred Skills

Agile Web Development, Business Requirements Documentation (BRD), Data Visualization, Digital User Experience, Employee Engagement, IT Architecture, JavaScript, Wireframing

Competencies

Business Analytics, Creativity, Design Thinking, Effective Communications, Graphic Visualization, Group Facilitation, Product Development Life Cycle, Requirements Analysis, Solutions Development, User Experience Design, User Interface Design

Work Experience

Roles at this level typically require a university / college degree, with 5+ years of industry-relevant experience. Specific certifications are often required. In lieu of a degree, a comparable combination of education, job specific certification(s), and experience (including military service) may be considered.

Education

Bachelors

PNC offers a comprehensive range of benefits to help meet your needs now and in the future. Depending on your eligibility, options for full-time employees include: medical/prescription drug coverage (with a Health Savings Account feature), dental and vision options; employee and spouse/child life insurance; short and long-term disability protection; 401(k) with PNC match, pension and stock purchase plans; dependent care reimbursement account; back-up child/elder care; adoption, surrogacy, and doula reimbursement; educational assistance, including select programs fully paid; a robust wellness program with financial incentives.

In addition, PNC generally provides the following paid time off, depending on your eligibility: maternity and/or parental leave; up to 11 paid holidays each year; 9 occasional absence days each year, unless otherwise required by law; between 15 to 25 vacation days each year, depending on career level; and years of service.

To learn more about these and other programs, including benefits for full time and part-time employees, visit pncthrive.com .