Senior Manager, Product Design - UGC

Overview

Scribd, Inc. is on a mission to advance human understanding. Our products — Scribd, Slideshare, Everand, and Fable — help billions move from access to insight, application, and expertise.

Culture at Scribd, Inc. supports bold, real work, debate, and action focused on the customer. Scribd Flex allows flexible work styles and locations, with occasional in-person attendance required for all employees.

We hire for GRIT — the intersection of passion and perseverance toward long-term goals. We focus on Goals, Results, Innovation, and Team through collaboration and attitude.

This posting reflects an approved, open position within the organization.

Scribd's Design team is a 25-person group spanning Product Design, Research, and Brand Design—working across Scribd, Everand, Fable, and Slideshare. We move fast, bias toward action, and value debate and candor. Everyone owns their work end-to-end with high trust and autonomy, and we celebrate wins, learn from losses, and have fun.

We are hiring a Senior Design Manager to lead the 5-person UGC Product Design team at a moment when AI is reshaping the space and the decisions we make will define how we operate for years to come. UGC spans customer trust, core features, and discovery across Scribd and Slideshare. AI opens opportunities to make content more useful, trustworthy, and navigable s role owns team performance, clarity, and execution, sets the bar for strategic thinking and design delivery, and translates ambitious ideas into product impact reaching millions of people.

If you enjoy leading smart, curious designers through messy problem spaces, you will have a lot of fun here.

Lead and develop the UGC design team

• Build and lead a high-performing team of senior product designers—owning their growth, output, and accountability.
• Challenge designers to define the real problem before jumping to solutions—and maintain that standard consistently.
• Provide direct, specific feedback that sharpens thinking and improves outcomes.
• Own performance management with conviction—including raising the bar, addressing gaps early, and following through on consequences.
• Partner closely with the Principal UGC Design Lead—challenging thinking, aligning on standards, and ensuring craft direction translates into execution.

Improve systems, not just features

• Drive how the team integrates AI into practice—from workflow and prototyping to quality and speed.
• Bring clarity to ambiguous problems and drive simplification.
• Translate strategy into clear priorities, resourcing, and sequencing of design work.
• Strengthen planning, handoff, and cross-team alignment without adding unnecessary process.
• Help shape how the broader Design org thinks about ways of working, tooling, and raising the bar across pillars—not just within UGC.

Strengthen culture and accountability

• Shape team rituals that reinforce clarity, ownership, and high standards.
• Hold designers accountable to role expectations and impact.
• Create an environment of psychological safety paired with high performance.
• Contribute to Design org hiring, calibration, and bar-raising efforts.

The Essentials

• Track record of raising the bar for senior designers—including direct, consequential performance conversations.
• 10+ years of product design experience, including 5+ years of people management experience.
• Hands-on approach to AI—actively experimenting with how it can change how the team works, not just thinking about it.
• Comfort leading through ambiguity where problem definition is part of the work.
• Strong product judgment—able to connect design decisions to business outcomes and push back when framing is wrong.
• Experience operating as a peer to senior product and research leadership—influencing roadmap, resourcing, and strategic direction.

The application

• Resume.
• Portfolio or work samples that demonstrate leadership and measurable impact.
• Password, if applicable.

At Scribd, Inc., your base pay is one part of your total compensation package and is determined within a range. Our pay ranges are based on local cost of labor benchmarks for each role, level, and location. San Francisco is our highest geographic market in the United States.

In…