Design Program Manager - Workplace Guidelines & Standards (AMER)

The Workplace Design Guidelines and Standards team is looking for an experienced Senior Design Program Manager with strong cross-functional leadership skills to own the creation, implementation, and ongoing refinement of Amazon’s Global Workplace Design Guidelines and Standards for the Americas (US, Canada, Central America, South America). The Workplace Guidelines and Standards team’s mission is to deliver best-in-class, fully-integrated, accessible, and easily navigable documentation supporting the consistent design and delivery of corporate workplaces. This team ensures design practices align with Amazon’s high standards for corporate space, focusing on both innovative solutions and practical application across various design disciplines. As a Sr Design PM, you will have direct responsibility for coordinating with a wide variety of cross-functional partners to develop standards and guidelines to support new design solutions. You will act as a Subject Matter Expert, consulting with Concept Designers and Design & Construction delivery teams. You will integrate constraints and requirements from cross-functional stakeholders into efficient, scalable globally-relevant documentation that is accessible, customer-friendly, and secure. With your global and regional teammates, you will evaluate and prioritize projects in response to customer needs and technical team inputs. You bring most or all of the following to the role:
- Intermediate to advanced knowledge of building codes and accessibility standards.
- Strong behaviors in critical thinking, problem solving, issue resolution, risk assessment, and high attention-to-detail.
- Experience in managing and updating design standards and guidelines on a global scale.
- Experience in digital asset management and metadata-driven data architecture.
- Experience working in a matrixed organization.


Key job responsibilities
- Act as a regional Guidelines Subject Matter Expert (SME) by consulting with regional business partners during change requests and participate in the development of narrative justifications.
- Develop, drive adoption of, and maintain tools and procedures to accelerate the organization’s ability to adapt to changing priorities and urgent requests.
- Develop, or work with vendors to develop, standard specifications and guideline documents.
- Collaborate with peers across regions to elevate regional differences to a global perspective.
- Own the roadmap for new and revised guidelines and standards for your region.


A day in the life
The AMER Sr Program Manager for Workplace Guidelines will develop, publish, and maintain Design Guidelines and Standards. You will mainly collaborate with the Global Design Team’s AMER Design Manager, business team stakeholders, and program owners. Your Global Design counterpart will develop and publish Design Intent documents. You will review those Design Intent documents before they are finalized and act on them to translate the design to visuals and narratives that can be published as Guidelines. You may need to author - or engage a consultant to author - new documents that bridge the gap between what you receive from Design and what needs to be published in the Guidelines. A day in the life might be spent navigating and balancing multiple conversations, written requests, and constraints into visual and written instructions that help execution teams deliver outcomes aligned with Amazon’s high standards for corporate space. You work autonomously and creatively in a fast-paced, ambiguous environment. As a senior leader in the organization, you also role model best practices, influencing and operating at all levels - technical and non-technical - to overcome obstacles and deliver results. Your attention to detail and ability to inspect issues and processes brings simplified solutions to complex problems.

About the team
The Global Real Estate and Facilities (GREF) team provides real estate transaction expertise, business partnering, space and occupancy planning, capital investment program management, facility maintenance, and operations in more than 60 countries. GREF is organized into three pillars: Regional Portfolio Management, Global Centers of Enablement, and Global Centers of Expertise. Workplace Design and Construction sits within the Global Centers of Excellence and includes the disciplines of Global Design, Workplace Guidelines, Business Development, Global Integrated Facilities Management, and regional Design and Construction (D&C) delivery.
The Global Design team owns the design of GREF spaces, shaping design concepts that align with GREF’s strategic vision and brand identity, while enhancing employee well-being. Ultimately this team defines spaces that best support the way Amazonians work. The team’s regional Design Managers ensure that GREF design concepts and standards are seamlessly integrated into new, and renovation, projects.
The Workplace Guidelines team owns the creation, implementation, and ongoing refinement of Amazon’s Global Workplace Design Guidelines and Standards, ensuring regional teams have comprehensive documentation to support delivering and refreshing spaces that best support how Amazonians work in the office. This team includes global furniture, fixture and equipment (FF&E) development and implementation, as well as signage and wayfinding guidelines and standards.
The Design & Construction (D&C) delivery team delivers world-class spaces across the broad GREF portfolio, including new and refreshed office spaces, labs, Kuiper production facilities, studios, and spaces that we don’t yet know the businesses need. The team includes regional leaders and Global Construction Operations, as well as GREF Information Technology.
Inclusive Team Culture: Here at Amazon, we embrace our differences. We are committed to furthering our culture of inclusion. We have ten employee-led affinity groups, reaching 40,000 employees in over 190 chapters globally. We have innovative benefit offerings, and host annual and ongoing learning experiences, including our Conversations on Race and Ethnicity (CORE) and AmazeCon (gender diversity) conferences. Amazon’s culture of inclusion is reinforced within our 14 Leadership Principles, which remind team members to seek diverse perspectives, learn and be curious, and earn trust.
Work/Life Balance: Our team puts a high value on work-life balance. It isn’t about how many hours you spend at home or at work; it’s about the flow you establish that brings energy to both parts of your life. We believe striking the right balance between your personal and professional life is critical to life-long happiness and fulfillment. We offer flexibility in working hours and encourage you to find your own balance between your work and personal lives.
Mentorship & Career Growth: Our team is dedicated to supporting new members. We have a broad mix of experience levels and tenures, and we’re building an environment that celebrates knowledge sharing and mentorship. We care about your career growth and strive to assign opportunities based on what will help each team member develop into a better-rounded contributor.