Design Manager

About the Role:

The design manager will facilitate the development of compelling and accessible student- and teacher-facing curriculum materials for our core mathematics and literacy products. This role will focus on several projects concurrently, including accessible epub development and state customizations to print and digital curriculum materials, such as teacher guides and digital resource libraries. In addition to managing several designers, the design manager will oversee the day-to-day design work and collaborate with cross-functional peers to develop creative solutions to potential blockers.

What You'll Do:

• Onboard and train new designers, preparing them to successfully take on work.
• Liaise between India and US teams, helping clarify briefs, timelines, feedback, and expectations.
• Review creative work, ensuring that the established design strategy is upheld across product mediums.
• Communicate regularly with supervisors, design and production teams, and cross-functional collaborators.
• Understand and execute project goals and maintain schedules, elevating concerns or blockers in a timely manner.

How you'll contribute:

• Onboard designers, reviewing expectations, processes, and best practices. Serve as a resource and give specific feedback and guidance when necessary.
• Support the definition and tracking of basic performance metrics for the India design team (e.g., turnaround time, revisions, on-time delivery).
• Develop a deep knowledge of product-specific visual design plans and understand how to implement that strategy across project types and varying constraints.
• Deliver design direction, generate mock-ups for illustrative purposes, and edit existing designs across programs.
• Perform detailed reviews of vendor-generated epubs and provide actionable feedback to ensure consistency with the established visual design, text styling, page structure, and accessibility standards.
• Evaluate and update existing template designs to accommodate state-specific content for printable worksheets and documents, book interiors, and/or covers. Create new prototypes as needed.
• Conduct page reviews, ensuring accuracy and proper implementation of design strategy.
• Mark up PDFs, noting reading order, image size guidance, or image adaptations to guide vendor and in-house production. Contribute to existing style guides and prototypes as needed.
• Drive iterative design workflows and print and digital processes, propose opportunities for efficiencies, raise potential risks and solutions, and assist in determining staffing needs.
• Attend feedback sessions, consolidate inputs, and ensure revisions are implemented accurately and efficiently.
• Ensure files meet accessibility and production requirements to support efficient handoffs

What You'll Bring:

• Creative problem-solver, capable of engaging with both mathematics and literacy curriculums.
• Ability to both lead and contribute as part of a cross-functional, cross-geography team
• A strong appreciation and understanding of both print and UX design best practices and WCAG standards.
• Working knowledge of HTML and CSS.
• Demonstrated accuracy and attention to detail.
• Deadline-driven mindset.
• Organizational and time-management skills, with the ability to manage multiple projects at once.
• Excellent communication, collaboration, and listening skills, proactively asks questions.
• Openness and ability to apply constructive feedback.
• Eagerness to learn.

Key Skills & Expertise:

Experience designing digital learning materials is preferred.

Software:

• (Expert) Design/edit layouts, create stylesheets and templates: Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop
• (Proficient) Design/edit prototypes: Figma and Web Developer Tools
• (Proficient) Collaboration and project management: Mural, SharePoint, Smartsheet
• (Proficient) Setting and reviewing math equations: MathML and MathType
• (Bonus) File and asset management: Woodwing Studio and Woodwing Assets
• (Bonus) Familiarity with AI Tools (i.e. Claude) to make Design review functions more efficient and to aid with developing design solutions at scale

Experience & Education:

• 5+ years of related graphic design experience with a bachelor's degree or equivalent
• 2+ years of experience managing a team
• A portfolio of work; including proven experience in digital and print design
• Experience in Education Publishing (Print and Digital), GK-12, Print Books