Principal Design Program Manager, International Packaging

About the Role

This is a rare opportunity to help define a function and leave a fingerprint on how global healthcare packaging gets made. As our Principal Design Program Manager for International Packaging and Industrial Design, you won't just run programs; you'll establish the philosophy, frameworks, and standards that future DPMs will build on.

You'll be handed ambiguous, high-stakes problems and expected to bring structure, strategy, and a point of view in addition to consistent and quality execution. Your decisions will shape how design, marketing, supply chain, and operations work together at a systems level across three global markets.

We're building a design operations function that believes process and operations is a creative act, and that the best systems make great design possible. If you thrive in ambiguity, build with intention, and know how to make global design and packaging programs run, we'd love to talk.

Define what great looks like

• Establish the standard for how design operates globally: the frameworks, decision-making models, and principles you build become the foundation the team scales from.
• Operate as the internal subject matter authority on global packaging program management. Leadership, design, legal, and supply chain turn to you for strategic counsel and guidance.
• Contribute to process development, onboarding standards, and the craft development of the DPM function as it grows.
• Build the frameworks other DPMs and future hires will use, this is as much about designing the operating system as running it.

Drive org-level prioritization

• Design the global prioritization framework, the criteria, inputs, and escalation model that surface regional urgency, regulatory deadlines, creative capacity, and business impact, so that decision-makers can make faster, better-informed tradeoff calls.
• Build the mechanisms (dashboards, briefing formats, escalation paths) that get the right tradeoffs in front of the right leaders before they become problems.
• Influence roadmap and planning decisions across design, supply chain, and marketing by providing a clear, data-informed picture of capacity and risk.

Global program leadership

• Architect and steer the end-to-end program model for packaging and print graphics across multiple regions, including AU, CAN, and UK, in close partnership with regional design and production teams. You are the connective tissue ensuring timeline integrity, dependency mapping, and risk visibility, not the sole executor of regional work.
• Build and maintain strong regional relationships with design, marketing, supply chain, and legal counterparts in each market, trusted enough that people come to you early.

Compliance & regulatory fluency

• Develop working knowledge of healthcare packaging compliance requirements across regions, and embed compliance checkpoints upstream in the creative process.
• Translate regulatory requirements into clear creative briefs and review criteria that designers and legal can both work from.

Creative partnership

• Partner with designers from brief through final production file, understanding creative intent well enough to protect it through the operational and compliance gauntlet.
• Bring broad fluency across print graphics production, structural packaging, and industrial design/CMF - color management, dielines, press-ready specs, vendor pre-press workflows - enough to translate between disciplines, ask the right questions, and know where things typically break. You're not expected to be the deepest expert in any one domain, but you're the person who can speak all their languages and engage credibly in each conversation.
• Build the mechanisms - capacity dashboards, resourcing reviews, structured tradeoff conversations - that make the creative team's bandwidth and constraints visible to stakeholders, so capacity conversations happen proactively with leadership rather than reactively with designers.

You Have

• 8-10+ years in design program management or creative operations, with meaningful time in healthcare, consumer goods, or a regulated packaging environment.
• Proven track record building processes from scratch. You've created process infrastructure where little existed, and you're energized by that, not intimidated by it.
• Broad packaging program expertise. You've owned programs from kickoff to press check and can speak to exactly where things typically go wrong to avoid it.
• Demonstrated organizational influence. You've shaped how a team or function operates beyond your own programs, without relying on leadership to do it.
• Experience designing prioritization frameworks that stakeholders actually adopt - not just building Gantt charts, but shifting how an org makes sequencing decisions.
• Cross-disciplinary fluency in industrial design, structural packaging, and CMF - enough to be a credible partner across the full packaging design ecosystem, without needing to be the deepest expert in any one area.
• Proficiency with PM tooling (Asana, Airtable, Google Suite, Dropbox) and comfort reviewing work in Figma.

Benefits

Our Benefits (There Are More but Here Are Some Highlights):

• Competitive salary & equity compensation for full-time roles
• Unlimited PTO, company holidays, and quarterly mental health days
• Comprehensive health benefits including medical, dental & vision, and parental leave
• Employee Stock Purchase Program (ESPP)
• 401k benefits with employer matching contribution
• Offsite team retreats

We are committed to building a workforce that reflects diverse perspectives and prioritizes ethics, wellness, and a strong sense of belonging. If you're excited about this role, we encourage you to apply-even if you're not sure if your background or experience is a perfect match.

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