Program Manager

TinkerLabs · India

About the company

TinkerLabs is a problem-solving and innovation consulancy that applies Design Thinking and Behavioral Science to address complex business and social impact challenges. Since 2013, the team has partnered with 100+ organizations across 15+ industries, including Fortune 500 companies, leading Indian enterprises, and global non-profits. Clients range from Microsoft, Unilever, Tata Group, Mahindra & Mahindra, Flipkart, and L&T to the Gates Foundation, UNFPA, and GIZ. Through consulting engagements, sprints, and workshops, TinkerLabs helps teams generate bold, human-centered, and simple ideas that drive meaningful change. More information about their work and collaborations is available at

About the role

Can you turn ambitious project visions into seamless operational reality? We are hiring for a Program Manager who can balance high-energy facilitation with rigorous operational mastery for a very important and elaborate education programme at TinkerLabs. 

We’ve partnered with a large corporate to equip students from design and engineering institutes in India to build products and services for a social impact cause using our methodology. The goal is to help students build strong ideas and connect them to an incubator that brings their ideas to life. 

We’re looking for a Program Manager who can run this national-scale design thinking workshop program - you’ll be the force that turns a complex programme run smoothly for all stakeholders involved. And when a session needs a facilitator, you are able to stand up and run it yourself.

This is not a coordination role. You are expected to shape the plan for the year, defend it with the client, and then deliver it.

What will you do

• Master multi-city operations: Build and manage the end-to-end programme roadmap across multiple colleges nationwide. Track milestones, coordinate schedules, mitigate risks and bottlenecks, manage stakeholder and client communications and ensure seamless delivery
• Organise the chaos: Drive key activities and keep track of all moving parts - institutional partnerships, workshop content, facilitators training, workshop sessions, student submissions, feedback loops and important project tasks without missing a beat
• Manage client trust: Lead client-facing communications with poise and empathy. Set clear expectations, navigate bottlenecks seamlessly and bring grounding and ease to complex timelines
• Streamline team resourcing: Balance workloads, forecast talent needs and hire the right people
• Manage hybrid delivery: Seamlessly bridge the gap between digital learning platforms and in-person events across various facilitators- keeping student engagement consistent and the quality of project high
• Facilitate with high energy: Lead engaging, interactive design thinking workshops both in-person and online 

What are we looking for:

Must haves:

• Proven facilitation & coaching experience: 3+ years of experience leading workshops, teaching, or facilitating design thinking, human-centered design (HCD), or experiential learning modules.
• Genuine facilitation ability: Has ability to command a room independently for 30+ participants - adapt on the fly when an exercise isn't landing, and build quick rapport with college students and faculty alike
• Strong project management chops: Track record of managing complex projects/programmes with multiple moving parts, stakeholders, and strict deadlines - nothing goes missing when working with you
• Solid client management and communication skills : Comfortable delivering bad news, collaborating on solutions, sending clear emails and being seen as a trustworthy face for the client.
• Willingness to travel: Eagerness to travel to college campuses across India (Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3) for live workshop modules

Good to haves:

• Experience working with colleges, universities or student communities in India.
• Comfort using AI tools as part of workshop delivery and content preparation.
• A design or education background.

Besides the work, what is in it for you:

• Ownership from day one. You won't just follow a playbook - you will shape how this massive programme journey unfolds and scales.
• High-impact learning. You will watch students transform from passive learners into confident, empathetic problem-solvers over the course of a full academic year.
• High Impact, High Velocity: We move fast and aim high, offering an environment where you do meaningful, rewarding work while respecting personal boundaries.

How to apply:

To help us get a feel for how you think, we’d love for you to respond to one question:

Tell us about a time when you managed a complex, long-term project with many moving parts. What were the main challenges and how did you pivot from there?

Please feel free to share the response in any format you would do justice to - write it, draw it, record it.

Please share your response, updated resume and relevant work sample/facilitation videos to curios@tinkerlabs.in with the subject line: Program Manager_(Your name)

As a human will review all the applications, everyone will receive a reply in due time