Design Ops expert

(12-month FTC)

📍 London (Hybrid) | Toyota Connected Europe

About the role:

We’re hiring a Design Operations expert to build and scale the operational backbone of Toyota Experience Design (TxD). Our design teams work across digital products, in-car experiences, and strategic initiatives, partnering with product, engineering, and business stakeholders across Europe and globally. As the organisation grows, we’re looking for someone to bring clarity, structure, and performance visibility to how design operates and scales.

This is a systems-focused role, responsible for improving how we plan, prioritise, deliver, and measure design work, ensuring our design teams can operate efficiently while maintaining high quality.

What you’ll be doing:

• Define and evolve a lightweight design operating model across various design teams.

• Improve how work is planned, scoped, and delivered.

• Support quarterly planning, prioritisation, and roadmap alignment.

• Improve visibility of capacity, demand, and dependencies.

• Build and maintain clear reporting frameworks .

• Track key design performance metrics.

• Reduce waste, duplication, and coordination overhead.

• Facilitate communication across distributed teams.

What we’re looking for:

• Experience in Design Ops operating in complex, cross-functional organisations.

• Track record of improving ways of working and operational efficiency.

• Strong data and reporting skills (Excel, Jira dashboards, etc).

• Comfortable working with tools like Jira, Confluence, Airtable, Figma, and AI.

• Ability to manage multiple workstreams and dependencies.

• Strong stakeholder management and communication skills.

• Strong commercial awareness: understands cost, budget, efficiency, trade-offs, etc.

• Systems thinker with a pragmatic, outcome-focused approach.

• Comfortable working in ambiguity and driving clarity.

• Focused on enabling teams, not controlling them.

What this role is not:

• Not a tooling rollout or transformation programme

• Not a people management position

Why join us:

• Work on complex, large-scale design challenges across automotive and digital.

• Partner directly with senior stakeholders and influence how design operates within Toyota Connected Europe.

• Opportunity to shape and scale a high-impact design function.

• Time-boxed role with clear outcomes and visibility of impact.