A Designer on the Design Systems team works closely with creative and technical disciplines to create considered and elegant design systems supporting our company’s Web experiences. This hands-on design role balances creativity and logic, with a focus on UI supporting complex rich data, and helps ensure a holistic approach is thoughtfully extended across the entire design system. The ideal candidate has strong communication and presentation skills, with the ability to distill complex systems and provide systematic rationale for design proposals; a strong understanding of UI, product design, and documentation; an elegant design aesthetic, with exceptional attention to detail; Sketch and Figma expertise, including the ability to build technical design files with flexible symbols; experience working collaboratively with multi-disciplinary team members; a strong working knowledge of HTML, CSS, and content management systems.
Description
A Design Systems Designer is a systematic and technical designer who contributes to the creation of comprehensive, elegant design systems. They audit current implementations, identify potential areas for simplification and improved consistency. They design with flexibility in mind, ensuring designs are accessible and adaptive to varying workflows, viewports, technologies, and locales. They stress test designs across all possible variations, and refine as needed. They may create prototypes to convey states, transitions, and/or behaviors, but ultimately prepare design files with a high level of polish and attention to detail, ensuring layout, typography, and specs are pixel perfect, for reference by development teams and use by creative teams.
The ability to communicate flexibilities and/or limitations to both designers and development is essential. They partner with the creative branch lead to understand design direction and help inform priorities, and may work with larger project teams to explore and iterate on design options. A Designer consults with technical disciplines to ensure designs work within given limitations, and files are prepared with all necessary information to support the design intent. They promote thoughtful and purposeful design, rather than an enforcement of rules, by helping to define and/or improve how teams collaborate and leverage existing tools.
A Designer is also a presenter. They determine the best medium, and optimize design files for creative review – be it print, onscreen visuals, prototype, or code. They create presentation flows that establish and build on a foundation of design rationale. They clearly articulate design rationale and any applicable limitations. Participation in healthy debates to ensure design systems are as robust and considered as possible is key.
Key Qualifications
• 7–10 years experience in product design (especially for web), defining or extending design systems, UI design, and/or working within a brand’s strict style guidelines.
• Figma expertise, including file organization, technical symbol builds with flexibilities and overrides that reflect coded implementations, and preparation of pixel-perfect files for design team use.
• Clear communication and presentation skills that speak to both creative and technical audiences. Ability to articulate ideas verbally and through written guidance.
• Strong understanding of web development, including HTML and CSS.
• Keen interest in championing brand identity through a balance of consistency and flexibility.
• Systematic problem solver; able to anticipate the impact of design decisions well in advance of their application.
• Ability to deliver strong design rationale, and supporting files in a tight timeframe.
• Preferred: Acuity in product design, especially complex states and conditions.
• Preferred: Working knowledge of Sketch.
• Preferred: Working knowledge of Principle.
Education
BA or BFA in Graphic Design (or equivalent) preferred.
Hours may fluctuate based on project needs.
