Design Program Manager, Product Experience

$103,500 - $155,295/Yr

Cardinal Health - Hartford, CT

Full-time - Mid Level

Hartford, CT

Merchant Wholesalers, Nondurable Goods

About the position

The Design Program Manager at Cardinal Health will play a crucial role in enhancing the Product Experience organization by establishing effective processes, improving operational excellence, and fostering collaboration across teams. This position focuses on driving the evolution of design practices, ensuring high-quality experiences, and supporting the overall culture within the organization.

Responsibilities

• Establish predictable, repeatable processes to help leaders and contributors prioritize, plan, and execute multiple parallel projects.
• Develop routines and systems to track and balance initiatives, capacity, work estimation, scheduling, and resource alignment.
• Proactively assess risk, raise flags, facilitate decision-making, and resolve issues before they become problems for the larger team(s).
• Capture, analyze, and aggregate UX, customer, and business metrics to measure impact at the project, portfolio, and organizational levels.
• Provide visibility and accurate reporting on organizational status, resource utilization, team performance, and project/program health when and where needed.
• Work with Product Experience and cross-functional teams to adopt and leverage standards, best practices, and definitions of good & done.
• Partner with product, engineering, and business partners to share design's working model and ensure a smooth product development process.
• Manage project and operational expenses, focusing on scope, time allocation, and funding.
• Support the hiring and onboarding of employees, manage contractors and vendors, and strategically balance attrition.
• Drive procurement, implementation, and adoption of tools (design, research, and project management) to empower our organization, work more effectively, and build upon each other's efforts.
• Streamline communications to ensure information and knowledge flows freely within our team, partners, and broader Cardinal Health.
• Own key programs, team rituals, and continuous-improvement efforts.
• Keep a finger on the cultural pulse of the Product Experience team and actively participate in shaping it, focusing on morale, attrition, unspoken feedback, and overall well-being.

Requirements

• 8-10+ years' experience in program, project, and/or operations management within a product design organization and/or creative agency, preferred.
• Bachelor's degree in related field, or equivalent work experience, preferred.
• Successfully created and managed a wide range of design-related processes, resources, programs, and improvements that have delivered measurable results.
• Experience working directly with designers, researchers, and strategists.
• Extensive knowledge of the inner workings of product, design and engineering teams from discovery through delivery, and can confidently think like, reason with, and proxy for a design leader.
• Experience overseeing complex cross-functional programs across multiple portfolios.
• High attention to detail and proven ability to manage multiple, competing priorities simultaneously with minimal supervision.
• Passion for owning and driving best practices for design teams and work that improves cross functional ways of working.
• Strong knowledge of project management tools and methodologies (Agile to Waterfall).
• Deep understanding and knowledge of human-centered design process.
• Strong skills in gathering and synthesizing information and can confidently communicate across teams and levels across the organization.
• Experience using data to identify problems and communicate solutions with measurable results.
• Deep experience in gathering feedback and data to deliver continual business and operational improvement.
• Engages with candor and empathy while sharing learnings from individual and team experiences to drive continual improvement for self and others.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills to effectively convey design principles, system updates, and project status to various audiences.
• Comfortable dealing with ambiguity and knowing how to move forward to solve open-ended challenges independently.

Benefits

• Medical, dental and vision coverage
• Paid time off plan
• Health savings account (HSA)
• 401k savings plan
• Access to wages before pay day with myFlexPay
• Flexible spending accounts (FSAs)
• Short- and long-term disability coverage
• Work-Life resources
• Paid parental leave
• Healthy lifestyle programs