Who We Are
Nando's Peri Peri USA is growing fast and we're looking for a Senior Design Manager to help bring our new restaurants to life and to drive our renovation projects across the fleet, ensuring that all locations meet or exceed our brand standards. We bring marinated, flame-grilled chicken and PERi PERi joy to guests every day. We move quickly, care about craft, and back our restaurants with the tools they need to succeed, smart commercial thinking and operational empathy.
Nando's Vision
At Nando's, we want to be the most loved restaurant brand in North America, sharing the spirit of Nando's PERi-PERi with everyone who chooses to access it. We will redesign and build a business that thrives as it answers fully to its consumers' needs—and endures over time through genuinely putting people at the heart of what we do. We will lead with our values and act with care, compassion, and kindness. By doing this, we will Change Lives Together, every day and everywhere.
Role Summary
The Senior Manager, Design leads the crossfunctional design program for Nando's restaurant portfolio, ensuring every new restaurant opening (NRO), renovation, and brand-led refresh meets our aesthetic, operational, and commercial standards. This role owns the design governance framework, sets the multiyear physical environment roadmap, leads internal and external design partners, and ensures design excellence across all pipeline types.
The Senior Manager, Design shapes the design strategy and standards of the built environment, anticipates risks across markets, manages programlevel design budgets, and ensures crossfunctional teams (Development, Construction, Operations, Procurement, Facilities, Brand) are aligned on priorities, sequencing, workflows, and required deliverables. This role does not originate design concepts but ensures that work produced by external design consultants is accurate, technically sound, fully coordinated, and aligned with brand requirements, directly influencing the long-term integrity of the Nando's brand through effective design leadership, problemsolving, and decisionmaking.
Key Responsibilities
Design Strategy, Standards & Roadmap
- Contributes to shaping the multiyear physical environment strategy, ensuring design standards evolve to meet guest expectations, operational efficiency, cost performance, and brand direction.
- Lead the creation, governance, and continuous improvement of brand design standards, including layouts, spatial logic, FF&E, finishes, detailing, and material specifications.
- Monitor emerging design and construction trends and work jointly with Construction to evaluate impacts, mitigate risks, and develop recommendations that ensure Nando's environments remain operationally efficient, costeffective, and futureready.
- Partner with Brand, Operations, and Development to ensure standards reflect consumer preferences, operational realities, and emerging restaurant formats.
Program Leadership & Cross-Functional Alignment
- Lead the design program across NROs, remodels, refreshes, special projects, and strategic initiatives. Ensure alignment with pipeline sequencing and business priorities.
- Set clear workflows, tools, calendars, and approval gates for all teams involved in design, permitting, procurement, and construction.
- Facilitate crossfunctional reviews, ensuring timely decisionmaking and risk mitigation that protects schedule and investment.
- Serve as the primary design leader representing Design in crossfunctional forums, budget reviews, pipeline meetings, and executive discussions.
Consultant, Vendor & Partner Management
- Lead and manage multiple external design partners (Architect of Record, Interior Design, MEP, Structural, Kitchen, South African suppliers) to deliver coordinated, highquality work at scale.
- Establish performance expectations, KPIs, and operating rhythms for external partners; manage accountability, scorecards, and alignment across all markets.
- Drive early detection of design issues and ensure timely resolution across disciplines.
Design Deliverables, Technical Quality, & Documentation
- Oversee all design deliverables, including feasibility studies, test fits, design development packages, materials packages, permit drawings, bid sets, construction drawings, and shop drawings.
- Govern the quality and accuracy of technical documentation across all consultants; ensure constructability, code compliance, and alignment with Nando's standards.
- Author and approve critical design guidelines, templates, tools, and review protocols.
- Maintain updated internal documentation to support brand and operational initiaives such as display planograms and marketing initiatives
Budget Ownership, Cost Strategy & Value Engineering
- Manage the design program budget, including forecasting, prioritizing spend, and approving design-related costs within delegated thresholds.
- Lead value engineering strategy across the portfolio, ensuring cost optimization without compromising design intent or guest experience.
- Partner with Procurement and Construction to evaluate, negotiate, or rationalize FF&E, finishes, and material selections.
Risk, Compliance, & Governance
- Own the design governance framework, including documentation requirements, risk assessments, and corrective action plans.
- Ensure adherence to life-safety requirements, regulatory codes, material performance standards, and accessibility guidelines.
- Identify and mitigate risks across markets or pipelines; elevate enterpriselevel risks as needed.
CrossFunctional Collaboration & Leadership
- Partner with Operations to ensure layouts, adjacencies, and circulation support peakperiod performance, food safety, and team ergonomics.
- Collaborate with Construction to drive clarity, reduce rework, and support schedule predictability.
- Support Facilities on asset management and long-term maintainability strategies.
- Align with Procurement on material sourcing, lead times, and global/local supply strategies.
Procurement Coordination & Inventory Management
- Oversee design-related procurement activities, specifically South African sourced items.
- Manage and maintain all local art and FF&E inventory
- Work in partnership with the greater project team to ensure selections and corresponding logistics are practical, cost-aligned, and delivered according to project timelines.
Team Development & Leadership
- Lead design contributors, internal partners, and external teams through influence, coaching, and strong communication.
- Build cross-functional capability by improving tools, processes, systems, and learning programs related to design.
- Rolemodel Nando's values; cultivate psychological safety, constructive challenge, and collaborative problemsolving.
Success Profile
The Senior Manager, Design is a strategic thinker, a skilled collaborator, and a technical expert who leads with curiosity and operational empathy. They excel at problemsolving within complexity, and balancing design intent with commercial realities. They bring discipline to documentation, governance, and decisionmaking and thrive in a fastpaced development environment.
Why This Role Matters
The ideal candidate brings a designer's eye, a technician's rigor, and a leader's intuition. They are highly detailoriented and technically fluent, with a strong ability to guide consultants, navigate complex drawing sets, and identify issues long before they surface in the field. At the same time, they think beyond the page—connecting design decisions to operations, commercial outcomes, and longterm brand integrity.
This role calls for a problem-solver who can balance creativity with practicality, set direction across multiple workstreams, and bring discipline to documentation, standards, and governance. They thrive in fast-paced, multi-project environments, collaborate naturally across functions, and understand how the built environment directly shapes guest experience, operational efficiency, team ergonomics, and financial performance.
Requirements:
Basic Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in architecture, Interior Design, Environmental Design, or related field
- 7+ years' design experience, including hospitality or retail environments
- Expert-level understanding of construction documentation, coordination, and design delivery
- Experience leading multiple consultants and cross-functional teams across markets
- Proven ability to lead program budgets, reviews, and VE decisions
- Strong communication, leadership, prioritization, and strategic problem-solving skills
This role is based in Washington, D.C. and includes full-time presence at our Restaurant Support Office.
Salary Range is $100,000 to $140,000 and will be based on experience.
Compensation: $100,000 - $140,000
