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 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.

The 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. It 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.

• 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 design activity, duplication, Design System opportunities, and operational bottlenecks.
  • 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, increased Design System adoption, reduced one‑off design solutions, improved consistency across product experiences, clearer ownership and accountability, and improved delivery flow.

• 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…