Fractional Head of DesignOps

Varun Prasad

Starting at

7,000

/mo

About this service

Summary

For scaling B2B SaaS teams who need strategic design leadership—but don’t need (or can’t justify) a full-time hire.

This service delivers fractional Head of DesignOps leadership, helping your team evolve their workflows, implement scalable systems, align cross-functional teams, and operate like a mature product org.

You'll get a strategic partner embedded in your team to drive process clarity, operational efficiency, and design system excellence.

FAQs

What’s the typical engagement period?
Most teams work with me on a 3–6 month basis, often longer. This ensures we have time to build and embed long-term improvements.
How available are you to our team?
I'm available on a part-time leadership basis (typically 10–20 hours/week) with weekly syncs, async comms, and regular check-ins with stakeholders.
What’s the difference between this and the retainer?
This service includes strategy, team leadership, coaching, roadmap planning, and org alignment—not just design system updates or audits.
Will you work directly with our leadership team?
Yes. I act as a thought partner to product, design, and engineering leads, and can also support recruiting and team scaling if needed.
Can we convert this into a permanent role later?
If that becomes the goal, I can help build your internal DesignOps function, hire the right person, and support a smooth handover.

What's included

DesignOps Strategy & Roadmap
Strategic plan for scaling your design operations across tools, teams, and workflows. Includes prioritisation of initiatives, capability building, and long-term goals.
Design System Leadership
High-level system governance, component audits, versioning plans, and collaboration with design system owners to ensure usability and adoption.
Workflow & Process Ownership
Designing and improving workflows for design–product–engineering alignment. Creation of rituals, standards, async processes, and playbooks.
Cross-Functional Team Alignment
Facilitating structure, clarity, and communication across teams—ensuring design, dev, and product work toward shared goals.
Performance Metrics & Governance Oversight
Implementation of measurable DesignOps KPIs (e.g. design debt, time to handoff, system adoption) and decision-making frameworks.
Leadership, Coaching & Team Enablement
Guidance and mentoring for internal design/system leads. Strategic input across hiring, onboarding, and scaling team maturity.

Skills and tools

Business Consultant

Design Systems Specialist

Operations Lead