Director of Design Foundations, Lyft
$203-253.8k
Eligible for equity awards and bonuses
More information about location
3+ days a week in office
Ride sharing company
Be an early applicant
Ride sharing company
1001+ employees
Be an early applicant
$203-253.8k
Eligible for equity awards and bonuses
More information about location
3+ days a week in office
1001+ employees
Company mission
To improve people’s lives with the world’s best transportation.
Role
Who you are
- 99% of the Lyft experience takes place in the real world and it’s critical you know how to think beyond the pixel. As a qualified candidate, you bring deep experience building elegant, beloved products, a sharp eye for detail, and the vision to push boundaries and shape what comes next
- You can inspire a team and drive action
- You have experience leading teams designing for online and offline
- Your work demonstrates customer obsession while delivering meaningful business impact
- You must be a proven design leader, an excellent communicator, a seasoned collaborator, and a cross-functional, cross-organizational team player that can thrive in a very fast-paced, dynamic working environment
- You are comfortable working closely with passionate designers, product managers, engineers, scientists, marketers, and executives that care deeply about creating beautiful, high-impact products
- 10+ years of applied product design management experience with a track record of delivering high-quality user experiences
- Technical understanding and execution of UX design and general design principles and best practices
- Experience leading and mentoring multi-disciplinary teams of design professionals
- A passion for design, design process, and design management
- Proven ability to manage workflows, project plans and ship high quality design
- A ‘big picture’ approach in helping establish, support, and engage teams, while still managing the details
- Great communication skills, written and verbal, with a diverse group of stakeholders
- Attention to detail with borderline obsessive organizational skills
- Relevant understanding and appreciation of current product design processes and systems
- Comfortable with ambiguity and malleable workflows
- Strong conflict resolution and negotiation skills
- Resilience and equanimity in dealing with change, challenges and adversity
- Proactive in seeking opportunities to improve and expand team, personal skills and experience
- Knowledge of accessibility best practices and industry standards
What the job involves
- Lyft is seeking a Director, Design Foundations to oversee our three core central design functions: design systems, content design, and design operations
- Design Foundations, as a central team, is responsible for defining the patterns of our UI and interaction language, product voice and tone, and design program management that all of our teams across Lyft rely on to build the end user features that define the Lyft experience and brand
- The leader we’re looking for will lead this central team to deliver a consistent, accessible, and branded experience for all of our customers
- They will provide technical and creative direction to guide their team’s output as well as work closely with cross-organizational partners to shape the future of transportation as experienced through our products
- This leader will also chair the Design Functional Excellence council at Lyft, composed of senior design leaders across Lyft, with a mission to define quality and craft excellence for all design teams across the company
- The functional excellence group will build the rituals and practices to deliver on these expectations, and will nurture a strong and supportive design community
- Own and shape the design system and design standards that define the Lyft product experience
- Lead, mentor, and inspire a multi-disciplinary team of 30+ including systems-focused product designers, content designers, and program managers
- Push the boundaries of your team’s execution. Foster creativity to explore divergent concepts and create a trajectory for the company
- Provide technical and creative direction that supports and elevates the quality of the work and design system
- Own and drive the design project lifecycle from strategic planning, scheduling, requirements gathering, design reviews, delivery and implementation to launch
- Lead the team to define and deliver the step-change processes and tools that enable effective team workflows and collaboration
- Partner closely with Marketing to bring the brand to life through the design system and content guidelines
- Chair the cross-org Design Functional Excellence Council to drive design excellence broadly across Lyft, continuing to elevate our (already) strong design community within Lyft and a strong design reputation outside of Lyft
- Collaborate, communicate, and negotiate with other design leaders, product managers, engineers and stakeholders at all levels across the organization
- Lead quarterly planning and prioritization with cross-functional teams, balancing multiple inputs and needs
- Provide up to date visibility into current projects, team utilization, project health and priorities
- Manage the resource allocation within Central Design and across partner teams
- Build relationships with cross-functional team members and executives across organizations, and effectively speak to process, design goals, and team vision
Our take
Lyft has aimed for consistent growth, making sure to pitch itself as a more reliable and friendly ride-sharing option than its main competitor, Uber. Uber has a greater market share and operates globally, but Lyft hopes to compete by its focus on ride-sharing over Uber's more diversified business approach and as a more rider-friendly and greener alternative to Uber.
Operating only in the USA and Canada, Lyft is in a position of being less affected by global events than Uber but also more vulnerable to local conditions. As an example, while it doesn't face the regulatory hurdles around employment rights that Uber does, it is unable to balance out the cost of the unusually expensive US auto insurance across its operations.
In 2022, Lyft acquired PBSC Urban Solutions, a bike-share equipment and technology supplier, allowing Lyft to compete in new verticals and reaffirming its commitment to green transportation. It has also trialed and launched Lyft Assisted, where drivers help passengers from their door into the car to get to medical appointments. These developments chime well with Lyft's unique selling point as a friendlier and more environmentally aware ride-sharing app.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
-2% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 14 rounds)
Jun 2018
$600m
LATE VC
Mar 2018
$200m
LATE VC
Total funding: $4.9bn
Company benefits
- Great medical, dental, and vision insurance options
- Mental health benefits
- In addition to 12 observed holidays, salaried team members have unlimited paid time off, hourly team members have 15 days paid time off
- 401(k) plan to help save for your future
- 18 weeks of paid parental leave. Biological, adoptive, and foster parents are all eligible
- Pre-tax commuter benefits
- Lyft Pink - Lyft team members get an exclusive opportunity to test new benefits of our Ridership Program
- Family building benefits
- Lyft Pink - Lyft team members get an exclusive opportunity to test new benefits of our Ridership Program
Company HQ
China Basin, San Francisco, CA
Leadership
John Zimmer
(Co-Founder)Originally an Analyst at Lehman Brothers, Zimmer then founded Zimride which was a private ridesharing company that pivoted into Lyft.
Logan Green
(Co-Founder)Founded Zimride, a private ridesharing company which later pivoted into Lyft.
Salary benchmarks
We don't have enough data yet to provide salary benchmarks for this role.
Submit your salary to help other candidates with crowdsourced salary estimates.
Share this job
View 104 more jobs at Lyft