DtG #4: Is a design manager just a product manager with less authority?

Greetings, friends, and welcome to the fourth installment of Designing the Gap! Today I want to talk about something very close to my heart: how, at times, being a design manager can feel uncomfortably close to being a product manager... just with less authority.

As a design manager, you’re shaping the vision, aligning stakeholders, balancing business and user needs, and advocating for long-term design quality. I’ve experienced this firsthand while leading design system teams, prioritizing the ever-changing needs of our customers (i.e., product teams) while ensuring our design solutions remain scalable, accessible, and user-friendly. Balancing these needs requires constant negotiation; proving how thoughtful design decisions can drive efficiency for those teams without compromising quality.

But when it comes to making actual product decisions, design leaders often find themselves in a reactive position, rather than a proactive one.

So, why does design leadership feel so much like product management, and what can we do to reclaim our strategic influence?

The overlap between design leadership and product management

Design leaders and product managers often share responsibilities, such as:

• Shaping product direction. Both influence product outcomes, often without direct ownership over execution.

• Aligning cross-functional teams. Both spend a significant amount of time communicating across design, engineering, and business teams.

• Advocating for users. Both push for user-centric thinking, sometimes needing to justify design decisions against business goals.

Despite this overlap, there’s a key difference: product managers typically have clearer authority over prioritization and execution. Design managers, on the other hand, often have to fight harder for influence.

Why design managers struggle for authority

Most organizations are structured to be product-led or engineering-led, but rarely design-led. At Mailchimp, for example, I noticed that design often had to work harder to demonstrate its strategic value beyond execution. In my experience, while product and engineering had clearer decision-making authority, design teams frequently needed to advocate for their impact on both user experience and business outcomes. This dynamic felt even more pronounced after Mailchimp was acquired by Intuit. 

What this reality means is that while product managers are expected to drive decision-making, design managers are often expected to advocate and influence, rather than decide.

Some key challenges include:

• Decision-making power sits elsewhere. Design managers can provide recommendations, but prioritization is often determined by product and engineering.

• Design is more subjective. Unlike engineering, where feasibility can be clearly evaluated, or product, where success is measured in revenue, design impact can feel harder to quantify.

• Design is perceived as executional. Many orgs still see design as "making things look good" rather than a strategic function.

In my current role leading the Thrivent design system, we navigated this challenge by giving my role a different title: Product Manager, even though I primarily function as a Design Manager. This was an intentional decision to ensure the role carries the appropriate strategic weight to own the direction of the design system which is, after all, a design-first product. Having this title allows me to operate with more autonomy and influence over decision-making.

However, I recognize that most of my design manager peers don’t have this luxury, especially those embedded within product teams where multiple product managers already have ownership over priorities. This makes it even more critical for design managers to build influence through collaboration and advocacy.

How design leaders can reclaim influence

If design managers are going to be expected to lead like product managers, they need to ensure they’re being treated as strategic partners, not just service providers. 

Some ways to do this:

1.Own the narrative of design’s impact

• Shift the conversation from "this looks better" to "this drives better outcomes."

  • When leading the design system team at Mailchimp, I worked closely with product managers to ensure that our work wasn’t just seen as a way to streamline UI assembly but as a tool to improve efficiency, accessibility, and user satisfaction. By reframing our design decisions in terms of business impact—i.e., how a more intuitive component library reduced engineering overhead and improved time-to-market—we were able to gain stronger executive buy-in for our efforts.

• Use data, case studies, and qualitative insights to prove design’s role in customer retention, engagement, and conversion.

2. Speak the language of business

• Understand product and engineering priorities deeply. What drives their decision-making, how they measure success, and where design can align to support those goals.

  • Product teams focus on metrics like user engagement, retention, and revenue growth, while engineering prioritizes scalability, performance, and feasibility. By understanding these priorities, design can frame its impact in ways that resonate across teams, ensuring design solutions are seen as essential rather than optional. 

• Position design decisions in terms of business impact. For example, a redesigned navigation can improve user pathing at the top of the funnel, helping users sign up more quickly. A refined user flow deeper into the product can reduce friction, improving time-on-task and ultimately decreasing churn. Connecting design choices directly to these outcomes helps reinforce the strategic value of design.

3. Push for earlier involvement in strategy

• Advocate for design to be part of product roadmaps from the start, rather than being brought in for execution.

• Build relationships with PMs and engineers that encourage collaboration, not just handoffs.

4. Empower your team to think beyond execution

• Encourage designers to frame their work in terms of business goals and ask better questions.

  • Framing work in business terms could look like explaining how a redesigned checkout flow reduces drop-off rates, or how an improved onboarding experience increases activation rates. The key is ensuring design decisions tie back to measurable outcomes.

  • Instead of asking, "How can I make this look better?" designers could be asking, "how does this design help the user complete their task more efficiently?"

• Develop designers into strategic thinkers, not just executional contributors.

  • Having core competencies like “product strategy” and “problem framing” in a job framework is key. These competencies help shift the expectations of design from being purely executional to being a key player in shaping outcomes. .

5. Welcome product management’s voice in design conversations

• Product design is a two-way street: if we want to have more input in product decisions, we also need to accept that product managers are fully entitled to have opinions about design.

• This can be tough, especially when feedback is coming from higher up in the chain and the product manager is merely a messenger. However, assuming best intent and engaging in discussion rather than shutting it down can lead to stronger collaboration and better outcomes.

• A collaborative approach where PM, design, and engineering feel heard leads to better buy-in, stronger alignment, and ultimately better product outcomes.

Final thought

A design manager isn’t just a product manager with less authority; but without active influence and strategic advocacy, it can sometimes feel that way. The more design leaders can position themselves as equal partners in decision-making, the more they can shape product strategy, rather than just reacting to it.

Things I’ve been reading this week:

• Why is the UX job market such a mess right now by Jared Spool. This piece breaks down why landing a UX job has become significantly harder in recent years. From the expiration of hiring incentives to an influx of junior talent and automated hiring systems, multiple factors have led to a flooded market with fewer openings. As someone who’s both hiring and has been part of this messy job market, this hit extremely close to home.

• Building a Stronger Design Culture Through Communities of Practice by Sónia Gomes. This piece explores how OutSystems nurtured its design culture by establishing Communities of Practice; spaces where designers could grow their skills, collaborate, and take ownership of their craft. Leading and fostering design communities, whether in design systems, product design, or content design, has been one of the most fulfilling parts of my career. I love running team-wide, design-focused sessions like work shares, knowledge shares, critiques, and design reviews because they truly bring people together around the work and help strengthen design culture.

• 5 ways to improve the quality of your design system documentation by Lewis Healy. I reference Atlassian’s design system documentation several times a week as a great example of documentation done well; and Lewis works on that team. This piece explores what separates high-quality design system docs from the rest, balancing usability, accessibility, clarity, effectiveness, and aesthetics. It also covers practical ways to measure these attributes, improve component content, and invest in visual appeal.

Thanks for reading this issue of Designing the Gap! How am I doing? Is there anything you want to see more (or less) of? Please let me know!

Thanks,

Ben