September 18–19, 2026 · San Francisco · Moscone West Two days. 6 tracks. 40 speakers. The conference where design operations leaders come to think bigger.
Sarah Chen Head of Design Systems · Airbnb
Marcus Williams VP Design Operations · Spotify
Ananya Patel Design Infrastructure Lead · Google
James Okafor Co-Founder · DesignSync
Elena Rodriguez Director of Design · Figma
Kai Thompson Senior Design Engineer · Vercel
Head of Design Systems · Airbnb "Scaling Without Chaos: The Design Systems Maturity Model"
VP Design Operations · Spotify "Ops at Scale: Lessons from 500 Designers"
Design Infrastructure Lead · Google "Instrumenting Your Design Org: Metrics That Actually Matter"
Co-Founder · DesignSync "The Embedded Model vs. The Center of Excellence: Which Wins?"
Director of Design · Figma "Bridging Design & Engineering: Real Workflows That Stick"
Senior Design Engineer · Vercel "Design Tokens as Product: From Figma to Prod in Under a Day"
DesignOps Summit is organized into six deep-dive tracks so you can build the exact schedule that fits your role and goals. Each track runs across both days.
🏗 Design Systems & Infrastructure — Tokens, component libraries, multi-brand theming, and the org structures that keep systems healthy at scale.
📐 Design–Engineering Partnership — Handoff workflows, shared tooling, cross-functional rituals, and making Figma-to-code actually work.
📊 Metrics & Measurement — How to instrument your design org, make the case to leadership, and track what actually matters.
🤖 AI in DesignOps — Practical applications of AI for design work: from generative UI to automated accessibility and content ops.
🌱 Team Structure & Culture — Embedded vs. centralized models, hiring, onboarding, career ladders, and building teams that last.
🚀 Leadership & Strategy — Influencing executives, securing headcount, setting a design vision, and leading through ambiguity.
Full schedule — including workshops, panels, and lightning talks — on the Schedule page.
DesignOps Summit is built for practitioners, not passive listeners. Every track includes at least one hands-on workshop, and our hallway track is legendary — attendees consistently say the hallway conversations are worth the ticket price alone. Expect curated roundtables for different company stages (startup / scale-up / enterprise), an open design critique session, a tooling fair where vendors do live demos and take questions, and an opening-night rooftop reception at a venue with genuinely excellent views. We keep things to 1,200 attendees so it stays personal. No cattle-call keynotes.
DesignOps Summit completely changed how I think about my role. I came as a skeptic — 'ops' sounded like bureaucracy — and left with a clear framework for scaling our design practice. I've recommended it to every design leader I know.
The speaker quality is absurd. These aren't just people with good job titles — they're people who have actually done the hard work and are willing to share the honest version of it, failures included.
Early Bird pricing is available until July 31, 2026. Group discounts available for teams of 4+ — email us at hello@designopssummit.com.
$649per person
$899per person
$1,499per person
Sponsored By
We are back at Moscone West in San Francisco — purpose-built for events like this, with natural light, excellent A/V, fast Wi-Fi, and enough room to spread out without feeling cavernous. Moscone West is in the heart of SoMa, walkable from dozens of hotels, great restaurants, and transit links. SFO is 20 minutes away. We have a hotel block at the nearby Marriott Marquis ($279/night) — details in the FAQ.
Submitting a talk proposal or want to be notified when registration opens? Fill out the form below. CFP closes June 30, 2026.
Early Bird pricing closes July 31. Join 1,200 design operations leaders for two days that will change how you think about your craft.