Staff Product Designer, Design Systems & Foundations

📍 Job Overview

Job Title: Staff Product Designer, Design Systems & Foundations

Company: Jobgether (for a partner company)

Location: United States

Job Type: Full-time

Category: Design / Product Design / Design Systems

Date Posted: 2026-06-19

Experience Level: Senior / Staff (10+ years implied)

Remote Status: Fully Remote

🚀 Role Summary

• This is a senior individual contributor role focused on defining and scaling foundational design systems that power product development for a fast-growing, global SaaS platform.

• You will own the evolution of a core design system, ensuring consistency, scalability, and quality across all user experiences used by frontline teams worldwide.

• The role extends beyond component design to encompass interaction models, product frameworks, and system-wide design principles.

• You will partner closely with engineering, product, and design leadership to translate complex workflows into reusable systems that accelerate delivery and improve decision-making.

📝 Enhancement Note: While the job title is "Product Designer," the specific focus on "Design Systems & Foundations" and the emphasis on scaling, reusable systems, and influencing product direction positions this role within a specialized area of product design that has significant operational impact on development velocity and product consistency. This role requires a deep understanding of how design systems function as operational infrastructure for product teams.

📈 Primary Responsibilities

• Design System Ownership: Lead the definition, evolution, and maintenance of the company’s comprehensive design system, including UI components, design tokens, accessibility standards, and documentation.

• Framework Development: Define and scale shared interaction patterns, product frameworks, and system-wide design principles to ensure a cohesive and consistent user experience across all products.

• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner closely with engineering teams to ensure seamless implementation of design system elements, understanding technical constraints and product architecture to foster efficient development cycles.

• Adoption and Governance: Drive the adoption and consistent application of design system standards across multiple product areas and cross-functional teams through clear governance models and decision frameworks.

• Strategic Influence: Translate complex product insights and user needs into reusable, system-level solutions that enhance product development speed, team alignment, and overall design quality.

• Documentation and Enablement: Build and maintain comprehensive documentation, guidelines, and best practices to empower product and engineering teams to build with greater autonomy and adherence to standards.

• Innovation Exploration: Contribute to complex product initiatives and influence long-term product strategy, including exploring emerging technologies like AI in design workflows.

• Quality Assurance: Ensure the quality and accessibility of all design system outputs and their implementation within product interfaces.

📝 Enhancement Note: The responsibilities emphasize a blend of strategic design leadership and tactical execution within a systems context. The explicit mention of "scaling," "reusable systems," and "technical constraints" highlights the operational aspect of design systems, akin to building foundational infrastructure for product development. The role is about enabling other teams, which is a core tenet of effective operations.

🎓 Skills & Qualifications

Education:

• While no specific degree is mandated, a Bachelor's degree in Design, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Computer Science, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience is highly recommended for a role at this seniority level. Experience:

• Extensive experience (implied 10+ years) in product design, with a significant portion focused on building and scaling design systems.

• Proven track record of leading or substantially contributing to the evolution of design systems in a product organization.

• Demonstrated ability to work within ambiguous environments and shape foundational product infrastructure. Required Skills:

• Systems Thinking: Strong ability to think holistically across interaction design, UX frameworks, information architecture, and visual design principles.

• Design System Expertise: Deep understanding and practical experience with components, design tokens, accessibility standards, and design system governance.

• Product Design Craft: Excellent command of UI design, interaction design, and the creation of scalable design principles.

• Engineering Collaboration: Strong understanding of technical implementation constraints and effective collaboration with engineering teams.

• Stakeholder Alignment: Demonstrated ability to drive alignment, adoption, and consistency across diverse cross-functional stakeholders.

• Communication & Storytelling: Superior communication and storytelling skills to effectively influence design decisions and advocate for system adoption.

• Problem-Solving: Ability to translate