Job Summary
The Design Leadwill lead and mentor a team of designers,establishand scale a robust design system, and serve as the connective tissue between design, product, and engineering. You will be a hands-on practitioner who is equallycomfortableshaping strategy and executing ata high levelof craft.
As our first design leader, you will have a unique opportunity to formalize how design is practiced at our company,from defining standards and processes to championing the role of design in an increasingly AI-accelerated product development environment. You thrive at the intersection of systems thinking and creative problem-solving, and you are energized by the challenge of scaling a design function from the ground up.
Primary Responsibilities
- Lead, mentor, and support a team of 2+ designers, providing regular feedback, career development guidance, and hands-on design coaching.
- Set the tone for design quality, craft, and collaboration across the organization.
- Conduct regular design critiques and foster a feedback culture that is constructive, inclusive, andgrowth-oriented.
- Hire and onboardadditionaldesign talent as the team scales.
- Architect and implement a comprehensive, scalable design system,includingcomponentlibraries, design tokens, interaction patterns, and documentation,that enables designers and engineers to move faster with consistency.
- Establish and enforce design best practices, accessibility standards, and brand guidelines across all product surfaces.
- Create andmaintaindesign documentation to ensure shared understanding across the organization.
- Serve as the internal Figma expert,setting up shared libraries, file organization conventions, naming standards, andcomponentgovernance.
- Train and upskill designers (and relevant cross-functional partners) on advanced Figma capabilities including auto layout, variables, prototyping, and Dev Mode.
- Stay current on Figma platform updates and evaluate new features for adoption by the team.
- Collaborate closely with Product and Engineering to integrate design seamlessly into the product development lifecycle, from discovery through delivery.
- Act as a strategic partner to product managers and engineering leads, influencing roadmap decisions with design thinking and user-centered insights.
- Facilitate design reviews and align stakeholders on design direction, rationale, and tradeoffs.
- Proactively evaluate and champion emerging AI-powered design tools and workflows that improve design velocity, quality, and output.
- Partner with product and engineering teams to experiment with AI tooling (e.g., generative UI, AI prototyping, design-to-code) and develop internal guidelines for responsible and effective use.
- Position the design team as an early adopter and internal champion of AI-assisted workflows across the company.
- Other duties as assigned.
Job Qualifications
Required
- 7+ years of experience in product design, with at least 2 years in a design leadership or senior IC role within a product-driven technology organization.
- Deepexpertisein Figma, including advanced features such as component architecture, variables/tokens, auto layout, and prototyping.
- Demonstrated experience building or significantly maturing a design system from the ground up.
- Strong portfolioshowcasingboth end-to-end product design work and systems-level thinking.
- Excellent communication and facilitation skills, with the ability to present design rationale clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
- Proven ability to mentor and grow designers at varying experience levels.
- Solid understanding of front-end development principles and how designs translate to engineering implementation.
Preferred
- Experience working in a fast-growing startup or within a company that is actively scaling its design function.
- Familiarity with AI-powered design tools and a genuine curiosity about how AI is reshaping design workflows.
- Experience with user research methods and the ability to integrate user insights into design decisions.
- Exposure to working closely with product managers and engineers in an Agile or continuous delivery environment.
- A track recordof advocating for and improving accessibility across product experiences.
Benefits and Perks
- Full benefits package, including Paid Time Off (PTO), medical, dental, vision, 401(k) with match, robust EAP, wellness program, and much more
- The salary range for this position is $150,000- $190,000 (USD). The base salary range represents the anticipated low end and high end of the range for this position. The actual compensation will be influenced by a wide range of factors including, but not limited to previous experience, education, pay market/geography, and scheduled hours.
