UI Engineer (L6), Design System at Netflix

📍 Job Overview

Job Title: UI Engineer (L6), Design System
Company: Netflix
Location: Warsaw, Masovian Voivodeship, Poland
Job Type: FULL_TIME
Category: Design Systems / Front-End Engineering Operations
Date Posted: July 30, 2025
Experience Level: 5-10 Years
Remote Status: Remote Friendly (On-site in Warsaw also an option)

🚀 Role Summary

This role is central to enhancing developer experience and productivity for hundreds of UI Engineers at Netflix by building and maintaining the "UI Paved Road" – a comprehensive system for UI component discovery, publishing, and lifecycle management.
The position requires a blend of strong front-end development skills, leadership in design system principles, and a strategic approach to fostering adoption and innovation across engineering teams.
The focus is on creating scalable, efficient solutions that reduce the complexity of building and managing software, directly impacting the speed and quality of UI development across the organization.
As an L6 UI Engineer, you will be expected to drive technical vision, influence engineering culture, and contribute significantly to the long-term evolution of Netflix's internal tooling and component ecosystem.

📝 Enhancement Note: While this role is for a UI Engineer, its focus on building and managing a design system, improving developer experience, and impacting engineering processes aligns it closely with "Operations" principles within a software development context, specifically in the realm of developer tooling and platform engineering. The emphasis on "developer happiness" and reducing "complexity of building and managing software" directly translates to operational efficiency gains for engineering teams.

📈 Primary Responsibilities

Develop, implement, and maintain scalable and efficient solutions for the discovery, publishing, and lifecycle management of UI components within Netflix's internal design system.
Champion and drive the adoption of best practices in code health, quality, and reusability across the engineering organization through the UI Paved Road initiative.
Collaborate closely with System Designers, UI Engineers, Product Managers, and other stakeholders to gather requirements, provide technical guidance, and ensure the design system meets the evolving needs of development teams.
Create and maintain comprehensive documentation, tutorials, and training materials to empower development teams to effectively leverage the UI Paved Road and its associated tooling.
Act as an industry evangelist by staying abreast of emerging technologies, design system trends, and generative AI advancements, identifying opportunities to enhance tooling functionality, performance, and developer experience.
Contribute to strategic ideation and innovation, bringing fresh perspectives and a willingness to experiment with new approaches to improve the UI development lifecycle.
Influence engineering culture by advocating for reduced developer overhead, promoting efficient workflows, and inspiring contributions to the design system and related platforms.

📝 Enhancement Note: The responsibilities highlight a strong focus on process improvement, adoption strategies, and cross-functional collaboration, which are core tenets of operations roles. The emphasis on "evangelize and drive adoption," "gather requirements," and "provide technical support" directly relates to operationalizing best practices and ensuring smooth integration of new systems.

🎓 Skills & Qualifications

Education:

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

Experience:

5-10 years of professional experience in front-end development with a strong emphasis on building and maintaining large-scale design systems, component libraries, or developer tooling platforms.
Proven track record of successfully influencing engineering culture and driving adoption of new technologies and best practices within an organization.

Required Skills:

Front-End Development & Tooling: Deep proficiency in modern JavaScript (ES6+), TypeScript, React, HTML5, and CSS3 (including preprocessors like Sass/LESS and CSS-in-JS solutions).
Design System Leadership: Extensive experience in architecting, developing, and maintaining robust UI component libraries and design systems, with a strong understanding of design tokens, theming, accessibility (WCAG), and component versioning strategies.
Communication & Influence: Exceptional ability to communicate complex technical concepts clearly and persuasively to both technical and non-technical audiences. Proven ability to influence stakeholders, drive consensus, and foster a collaborative environment.
Innovation and Creativity: Demonstrated capacity for innovative thinking, problem-solving, and generating creative solutions. A strong design sensibility with the ability to balance user-centric design principles with technical feasibility.
Code Health & Quality: Commitment to high standards of code quality, maintainability, and performance. Experience with unit testing, integration testing, and code review processes.
Developer Experience Focus: A passion for improving developer productivity, reducing friction, and creating delightful tooling experiences.

Preferred Skills:

Experience with generative AI technologies and their application in front-end development or design systems.
Familiarity with build tools (e.g., Webpack, Vite), CI/CD pipelines, and monorepo architectures (e.g., Lerna, Nx).
Experience with component documentation platforms (e.g., Storybook, Docz).
Knowledge of accessibility best practices and implementation patterns.
Experience working in a fast-paced, high-growth technology environment.

📝 Enhancement Note: The "Design System Leadership" and "Developer Experience Focus" requirements are critical for this role, indicating a need for individuals who can not only build but also operationalize and evangelize a complex system that impacts hundreds of engineers, aligning with operational excellence. The preference for GenAI experience points towards a forward-thinking operational approach.

📊 Process & Systems Portfolio Requirements

Portfolio Essentials:

Demonstrable examples of contributions to significant design systems, UI component libraries, or developer tooling projects.
Projects showcasing innovative solutions for component discovery, publishing, or lifecycle management.
Case studies detailing process improvements or efficiency gains achieved through the implementation of design systems or tooling.
Evidence of leadership in driving the adoption of best practices and influencing engineering teams.
Examples of high-quality, well-documented, and accessible UI components.

Process Documentation:

Showcase a structured approach to documenting complex systems, including component usage guidelines, API references, and architectural decisions.
Examples of creating developer onboarding materials or training resources for new tools or systems.
Documentation that clearly articulates the benefits and impact of implemented processes and systems on developer productivity and efficiency.

📝 Enhancement Note: For an L6 role focused on platform and developer experience, a portfolio demonstrating not just technical output but also strategic thinking around adoption, process optimization, and impact on developer workflows is crucial. This goes beyond standard front-end portfolios to include elements of operational strategy and execution.

💵 Compensation & Benefits

Salary Range:

Given the L6 level at Netflix and the specialized nature of this role, along with the Warsaw location, a competitive salary is expected. While specific ranges are not provided, industry benchmarks for senior/lead front-end engineers with design system expertise in major European tech hubs suggest a range of €70,000 - €110,000 annually, potentially higher depending on experience and negotiation.

Benefits:

Comprehensive health insurance coverage.
Generous paid time off and holidays.
Opportunities for professional development, including training, conferences, and access to learning resources.
Stock options or equity grants (common for L6+ roles at tech companies).
Relocation assistance if applicable.
Flexible working arrangements, including remote work options.
Access to cutting-edge technology and tools.
A culture that values innovation, creativity, and employee well-being.

Working Hours:

Standard full-time hours (approximately 40 hours per week), with flexibility often provided to manage personal schedules and optimize productivity, especially for remote employees. Netflix emphasizes results over strict adherence to hours.

📝 Enhancement Note: Salary estimates are based on general market data for senior engineering roles in Poland and the tech industry's compensation practices for L6-equivalent positions. Netflix is known for competitive compensation packages that often include equity.

🎯 Team & Company Context

🏢 Company Culture

Industry: Entertainment Technology / Streaming Services. Netflix operates at the intersection of media and technology, leveraging cutting-edge platforms to deliver its services globally. Company Size: Large Enterprise (over 10,000 employees globally). This scale means significant impact and the opportunity to influence processes used by hundreds of engineers. Founded: 1997. With a long history, Netflix has evolved from a DVD rental service to a global streaming giant, demonstrating a strong capacity for innovation and adaptation, which is reflected in its engineering culture.

Team Structure:

This role is part of the JavaScript Platform organization, specifically within a squad focused on the "UI Paved Road" initiative.
The team consists of approximately three squads within the larger JavaScript Platform team, all dedicated to improving developer experience and tooling for UI engineers.
The UI Paved Road team itself will likely comprise a mix of senior engineers, potentially a tech lead, and possibly product management oversight, working collaboratively to define and execute the roadmap.
Close collaboration with System Designers and other UI Engineering teams across Netflix is a key aspect of the team's operational model.

Methodology:

Data-Driven Decision Making: Emphasis on using data and metrics to understand developer pain points, measure the impact of tooling, and guide development priorities.
Agile Development: Likely follows agile methodologies (Scrum, Kanban) for iterative development, continuous feedback, and rapid iteration on tooling and platform features.
Developer-Centric Design: All tooling and platform development is guided by the principle of enhancing developer experience, productivity, and happiness.
Continuous Improvement: A culture of constantly seeking ways to optimize processes, improve code quality, and evolve the platform based on user feedback and industry trends.

Company Website: Netflix Company Website

📝 Enhancement Note: Netflix's culture, as detailed in its famous Culture Memo, emphasizes freedom and responsibility, high performance, and candid feedback. For an operations-focused role like this, it means being empowered to make decisions, take ownership, and drive impactful changes while being accountable for the results and the experience of the engineering community.

📈 Career & Growth Analysis

Operations Career Level: L6 UI Engineer. This is a senior individual contributor role, often equivalent to a Staff Engineer or Lead Engineer in other organizations. It signifies a high level of technical expertise, autonomy, and influence over technical direction and team practices. Reporting Structure: Likely reports to an Engineering Manager or Director within the JavaScript Platform organization. The role involves significant collaboration but direct reports are unlikely for an individual contributor. Operations Impact: The work directly impacts the efficiency, productivity, and quality of UI development for hundreds of engineers across Netflix. By streamlining the UI component lifecycle and providing robust tooling, this role contributes significantly to faster feature delivery, improved code consistency, and reduced development overhead, all of which have a downstream effect on the user experience and business agility.

Growth Opportunities:

Technical Leadership: Opportunity to grow into a Principal or Distinguished Engineer role, becoming a leading authority on design systems and front-end platforms within Netflix.
Domain Specialization: Deepen expertise in design systems, developer tooling, and platform engineering, potentially leading to specialized roles in platform architecture or developer productivity.
Cross-Functional Impact: Expand influence by working on broader platform initiatives or contributing to strategic technical decisions that affect multiple engineering domains.
Mentorship: Opportunity to mentor junior engineers and share best practices, fostering growth within the broader engineering organization.
Innovation Leadership: Lead initiatives for incorporating new technologies, such as generative AI, into the design system and development workflows.

📝 Enhancement Note: The L6 designation at Netflix implies a significant level of autonomy and strategic input. Growth here is less about climbing a management ladder and more about deepening technical mastery, expanding influence, and driving architectural and process-level improvements that have a wide-reaching impact.

🌐 Work Environment

Office Type: Netflix is known for its modern, collaborative office spaces designed to foster innovation and teamwork. While this role offers remote flexibility, offices typically feature open-plan areas, meeting rooms, and amenities to support employee well-being. Office Location(s): The job is based in Warsaw, Poland, indicating a significant engineering presence in Europe. Netflix also has offices in other major global hubs.

Workspace Context:

Collaborative Environment: Expect a highly collaborative atmosphere where sharing ideas, providing feedback, and working cross-functionally are encouraged. This is essential for a role focused on platform and system adoption.
Tooling and Technology: Access to state-of-the-art development tools, cloud infrastructure, and internal platforms designed to support efficient software development.
Team Interaction: Opportunities to engage with a diverse, international team of highly skilled engineers and designers, fostering a rich learning and exchange environment.

Work Schedule:

While a standard 40-hour work week is typical, Netflix offers significant flexibility. The focus is on delivering results and contributing effectively, allowing engineers to manage their schedules to optimize personal productivity and work-life balance, especially crucial for remote employees.

📝 Enhancement Note: The emphasis on flexibility and results aligns with a professional operations environment where efficiency and output are prioritized. The collaborative aspect ensures that the operational improvements being built are well-received and adopted by the target audience (other engineers).

📄 Application & Portfolio Review Process

Interview Process:

Initial Screening: A recruiter will likely conduct an initial phone screen to assess general fit, experience, and motivation.
Technical Phone/Video Interview: Expect a deep dive into your front-end development skills, JavaScript/TypeScript proficiency, React expertise, and understanding of design system principles. This may include coding challenges or system design questions.
Portfolio Review & Deep Dive: You will likely present specific projects from your portfolio, focusing on your role, technical decisions, process improvements, and the impact of your work. This is a critical stage for demonstrating your operations mindset and ability to drive change.
On-site/Virtual On-site Interviews: This usually involves meeting with various team members, including engineers, designers, and potentially leadership. Expect behavioral questions (STAR method), discussions about culture fit, problem-solving scenarios, and further technical assessments.
Hiring Manager Interview: A final conversation to discuss the role, team dynamics, and overall fit with the company's strategic goals.

Portfolio Review Tips:

Highlight Impact & Operations: For each project, clearly articulate the problem you solved, the processes you improved or implemented, and the quantifiable impact (e.g., reduced development time, increased component adoption, improved code quality metrics).
Focus on Design Systems & Tooling: Showcase your experience in building, managing, and evolving design systems or developer platforms. Explain your design principles, architectural choices, and how you handled challenges like scalability, maintainability, and adoption.
Demonstrate Collaboration: Provide examples of how you worked with designers, product managers, and other engineers. Illustrate your ability to gather requirements, provide technical support, and influence stakeholders.
Showcase Innovation: If you have experience with emerging technologies like GenAI or have implemented novel solutions, be sure to highlight these.
Prepare for "Why Netflix?": Articulate your understanding of Netflix's culture and how your values and working style align with it.

Challenge Preparation:

Coding Challenges: Be prepared for live coding exercises focusing on JavaScript, React, and potentially TypeScript. Practice common data structures, algorithms, and component implementation patterns.
System Design: Prepare for discussions around designing scalable systems, specifically related to component management, asset pipelines, or developer tooling. Think about architecture, trade-offs, and scalability.
Behavioral Questions: Practice using the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result) to answer questions about your past experiences, focusing on leadership, problem-solving, collaboration, and handling challenges.

📝 Enhancement Note: The interview process will heavily scrutinize your ability to not just code but to think strategically about developer productivity and operational efficiency. A portfolio that clearly demonstrates this operational impact will be key.

🛠 Tools & Technology Stack

Primary Tools:

JavaScript/TypeScript: Core languages for development.
React: Primary UI library/framework.
HTML/CSS: Foundational web technologies.
Design System Tooling: Likely includes tools like Storybook for component development and documentation, potentially custom internal tools for component discovery and publishing.
Build Tools: Webpack, Vite, or similar for module bundling and build optimization.
Monorepo Tools: Potentially Lerna, Nx, or Yarn Workspaces to manage multiple packages within a single repository.

Analytics & Reporting:

Internal analytics platforms for tracking tool usage, component adoption, and developer satisfaction metrics.
Tools for monitoring application performance and code health.

CRM & Automation:

While not directly customer-facing, internal systems for managing developer feedback, bug tracking (e.g., Jira), and CI/CD pipelines (e.g., Jenkins, GitHub Actions) are integral to the operational workflow.
Version control system: Git (likely via GitHub or a similar platform).

📝 Enhancement Note: Proficiency in the core front-end stack is a given. The emphasis here is on experience with tools that support large-scale component management, developer workflow optimization, and the operational aspects of a design system.

👥 Team Culture & Values

Operations Values:

Freedom & Responsibility: Employees are given significant autonomy and expected to take ownership of their work and its outcomes. This translates to taking responsibility for the health, adoption, and impact of the design system and tooling.
High Performance: A commitment to excellence and delivering exceptional results, pushing boundaries to achieve ambitious goals.
Impact: Focus on work that has a meaningful impact on the company's goals and the experience of its users (in this case, developers).
Candor & Transparency: Open and honest communication is valued, encouraging direct feedback and transparent discussions about challenges and progress.
Innovation: A culture that actively encourages experimentation, creative problem-solving, and exploration of new technologies.

Collaboration Style:

Cross-Functional Integration: Strong emphasis on working closely with designers, product managers, and other engineering teams to ensure alignment and shared success.
Proactive Feedback: Regular and constructive feedback loops are encouraged to foster continuous improvement in both individuals and systems.
Knowledge Sharing: A culture that promotes sharing expertise, best practices, and learnings across teams, often through internal tech talks, documentation, and collaborative sessions.

📝 Enhancement Note: The "Freedom & Responsibility" and "Impact" values are particularly relevant to an operations-focused engineering role. It implies that engineers are empowered to identify operational inefficiencies and are responsible for implementing solutions that drive tangible improvements for the broader engineering organization.

⚡ Challenges & Growth Opportunities

Challenges:

Driving Adoption: Overcoming inertia and encouraging widespread adoption of the design system and associated tooling across diverse engineering teams with varying needs and priorities.
Scalability & Maintainability: Ensuring the design system and platform tooling can scale effectively to support Netflix's growing product suite and engineering headcount, while remaining maintainable.
Balancing Innovation with Stability: Integrating new technologies and approaches (like GenAI) without compromising the stability and reliability of existing systems.
Cross-Team Alignment: Managing requirements and expectations from numerous stakeholder teams, ensuring the platform serves a broad set of needs effectively.

Learning & Development Opportunities:

Deep Dive into Design Systems: Becoming an expert in the architecture, implementation, and strategic management of large-scale design systems.
Platform Engineering Expertise: Developing skills in building robust, scalable developer tools and platforms that directly impact engineering productivity.
Generative AI Applications: Gaining practical experience in applying GenAI to front-end development and tooling challenges.
Industry Engagement: Opportunity to represent Netflix at industry conferences and contribute to the broader developer community through talks or publications.

📝 Enhancement Note: The challenges presented are typical of operational roles focused on platform development and change management within large organizations. The growth opportunities are geared towards deepening technical expertise and expanding strategic influence in areas critical to operational efficiency.

💡 Interview Preparation

Strategy Questions:

"Describe a time you influenced a team to adopt a new process or technology. What was the outcome?" (Focus on your approach to driving adoption and overcoming resistance, relevant to operationalizing the design system).
"How would you measure the success of a design system or a developer tooling platform?" (Prepare metrics related to adoption rates, developer satisfaction, efficiency gains, and reduced bug counts – key operational KPIs).
"Walk me through the process of designing and building a reusable UI component. What considerations are important for scalability and maintainability?" (Demonstrate your understanding of component lifecycle management and operational best practices).
"Imagine a scenario where a key engineering team is resistant to using the design system. How would you address this?" (Focus on communication, understanding their needs, and finding solutions that benefit them and the overall system).

Company & Culture Questions:

"What interests you about Netflix's culture, particularly the 'Freedom & Responsibility' aspect?" (Relate this to your ability to take ownership of operational improvements).
"How do you stay updated on industry trends in front-end development and design systems?" (Show your commitment to continuous learning, which is vital for operational relevance).
"Describe a time you had to collaborate closely with designers. What was your approach to ensuring alignment?" (Highlight your cross-functional operational collaboration skills).

Portfolio Presentation Strategy:

Structure for Impact: For each project, use a clear narrative: Problem -> Your Solution (Process/Tool) -> Impact (Metrics/Results).
Quantify Operations: Whenever possible, use numbers to demonstrate the operational value of your work. Examples: "Reduced component integration time by 30%", "Increased component reuse by 50%", "Improved developer satisfaction scores by 15%".
Showcase Process Thinking: Explain not just what you built, but how you built it, including your decision-making process, collaboration methods, and any process improvements you introduced.
Be Ready for Deep Dives: Anticipate detailed questions about your code, architectural decisions, challenges faced, and how you handled them. Be prepared to discuss trade-offs.

📝 Enhancement Note: Preparing for these questions will require you to frame your experiences through an "operations" lens. Think about efficiency, process, adoption, and measurable impact, even for technical roles.

📌 Application Steps

To apply for this UI Engineer position:

Submit your application through the provided Netflix careers link.
Portfolio Customization: Tailor your resume and portfolio to prominently feature projects related to design systems, component libraries, developer tooling, and any work that demonstrates process improvement, efficiency gains, or enhanced developer experience.
Resume Optimization: Ensure your resume clearly highlights your years of experience, proficiency in key technologies (JavaScript, TypeScript, React), and any leadership or influential roles you've held in past projects. Use keywords from the job description.
Interview Preparation: Practice articulating your contributions using the STAR method, focusing on operational impact. Prepare to discuss your design system philosophy and how you would approach building and scaling one at Netflix.
Company Research: Deeply understand Netflix's culture memo, values, and its approach to engineering. This will help you align your answers and demonstrate cultural fit.

⚠️ Important Notice: This enhanced job description includes AI-generated insights and operations industry-standard assumptions. All details should be verified directly with the hiring organization before making application decisions.

UI Engineer (L6), Design System