Design Systems & Operations Lead

Position Overview 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. Role Summary: 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. 2. 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. 3. 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 init