Design Transformation Lead, Amazon Design Excellence

Description

Amazon's design organization is evolving. As customer expectations rise and AI transforms how we work, we need leaders who can drive change at scale across decentralized teams. The Design Transformation Lead partners across design organizations to elevate design maturity, build capabilities, and drive adoption of new practices and tools that enable design excellence.

Success means earning trust with design leaders and senior ICs, understanding their challenges, and creating frameworks that solve problems they already have—with enterprise coherence as a byproduct. You'll design transformation initiatives, e.g. AI adoption, capability building, tooling integration, that stick because they deliver value, not because they're required.

You bring deep design fluency—you've done the work and understand the craft—combined with expertise in change management, capability building, and technology integration. You know how to navigate complex stakeholder landscapes, build coalitions, and drive adoption across organizations that don't report to you.

Key job responsibilities

• Design and lead transformation initiatives that elevate design practice across multiple business areas, including AI adoption, design maturity evolution, and new methodology implementation

• Evaluate, integrate, and optimize design tooling and technology infrastructure, ensuring tools connect effectively and enable efficient workflows

• Earn trust with design and research practitioners, design leaders, and cross-functional partners by demonstrating deep craft knowledge and understanding their day-to-day challenges

• Partner across business areas to understand challenges, align on transformation priorities, and drive adoption

• Create frameworks, playbooks, and operating mechanisms that scale design excellence while respecting organizational context and autonomy

• Measure transformation impact through adoption metrics, capability growth indicators, and design maturity assessments

• Navigate organizational dynamics and resistance to change, building coalitions and aligning incentives to drive sustainable transformation

• Establish governance frameworks for new practices that balance consistency with flexibility

• Communicate transformation vision and progress to stakeholders at all levels, from practitioners to executives

• Partner with cross-functional teams (engineering, product, data science) to ensure transformation initiatives enable effective collaboration and shared success

About the team

You'll join Amazon Design Excellence (ADX), the central design organization partnering with design teams across Amazon's lines of business. Design teams are embedded in their businesses while ADX provides frameworks, capabilities, and infrastructure that elevate practice company-wide.

Within ADX, you'll work in the Design Quality & Excellence (DQ&E) pillar, defining what great design looks like at Amazon scale. We shape how design teams adopt AI, govern design systems, develop capabilities, and optimize their tooling infrastructure. Our work requires balancing enterprise coherence with organizational autonomy—building solutions that work for teams of 5 designers and teams of 500.

We're a small, high-leverage team shaping how thousands of practitioners work.

Basic Qualifications

• 7+ years of design experience

• 5+ years of experience in design practice (UX/product design, research, design ops or related disciplines) with demonstrated craft expertise

• 2+ years in design operations or a role with significant design operations responsibilities

• 3+ years of experience leading organizational change, transformation initiatives, or capability building programs

• Experience driving adoption of new practices, tools, or methodologies across multiple teams or organizations

• Experience with design tools, technology infrastructure, and workflow optimization

Preferred Qualifications

• Knowledge of project management tools and methodologies (agile to waterfall)

• Experience working and contributing to project playbooks, building schedules, managing issues/risks, establishing communication plans and stakeholder management

Amazon is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of protected veteran status, disability, or other legally protected status.

Los Angeles County applicants: Job duties for this position include: work safely and cooperatively with other employees, supervisors, and staff; adhere to standards of excellence despite stressful conditions; communicate effectively and respectfully with employees, supervisors, and staff to ensure exceptional customer service; and follow all federal, state, and local laws and Company policies. Criminal history may have a direct, adverse, and negative relationship with some of the material job duties of this position. These include the duties and responsibilities listed above, as well as the abilities to adhere to company policies, exercise sound judgment, effectively manage stress and work safely and respectfully with others, exhibit trustworthiness and professionalism, and safeguard business operations and the Company’s reputation. Pursuant to the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

Our inclusive culture empowers Amazonians to deliver the best results for our customers. If you have a disability and need a workplace accommodation or adjustment during the application and hiring process, including support for the interview or onboarding process, please visit https://amazon.jobs/content/en/how-we-hire/accommodations for more information. If the country/region you’re applying in isn’t listed, please contact your Recruiting Partner.

The base salary range for this position is listed below. Your Amazon package will include sign-on payments and restricted stock units (RSUs). Final compensation will be determined based on factors including experience, qualifications, and location. Amazon also offers comprehensive benefits including health insurance (medical, dental, vision, prescription, Basic Life & AD&D insurance and option for Supplemental life plans, EAP, Mental Health Support, Medical Advice Line, Flexible Spending Accounts, Adoption and Surrogacy Reimbursement coverage), 401(k) matching, paid time off, and parental leave. Learn more about our benefits at https://amazon.jobs/en/benefits .

USA, WA, Seattle - 129,500.00 - 175,100.00 USD annually