Design System Lead

Location: Vienna, Virginia (Hybrid)

About the role

The Platform Design Systems Lead is responsible for the strategic development, governance, and adoption of design-system practices for an assigned platform. This role ensures platform-specific design tokens, components, patterns, and documentation stay aligned with enterprise guidance. The position enables scalable, consistent, and accessible digital experiences by fostering shared patterns, reusable guidance, and sustainable design-to-development workflows.

Responsibilities

• Define and evolve the platform design-system roadmap in alignment with product goals and enterprise guidance.
• Champion design-system adoption within the assigned platform, driving consistent use of approved patterns, tokens, and components.
• Represent platform needs and feedback in design-system conversations to ensure practical platform implementation.
• Partner with platform design, engineering, product, and accessibility stakeholders to ensure solutions meet user and business needs.
• Maintain platform-level governance models, contribution workflows, and scalable processes.
• Apply working knowledge of front-end technologies to evaluate implementation feasibility and support collaboration with engineering partners.
• Build and maintain platform documentation in tools such as Storybook and Zeroheight.
• Create training, workshops, and support materials to onboard platform teams and promote best practices.
• Plan and conduct regular platform audits for design consistency, code alignment, and accessibility conformance.

Requirements

• 5+ years of experience in design systems, product design, design operations, front-end engineering, or a related digital product discipline.
• A proven track record of leading, governing, or significantly contributing to design-system adoption for a product area, platform, or large-scale digital experience.

Skills

• Working knowledge of front-end technologies such as HTML, CSS/SCSS, JavaScript/TypeScript, and modern component frameworks or libraries such as React or Vue.
• Familiarity with design token management, theming systems, and component-library architecture.
• Understanding of CI/CD concepts relevant to design-system delivery, including build, test, release, versioning, and documentation workflows.
• Experience with design tools such as Figma and documentation platforms such as Storybook or Zeroheight.
• Ability to identify technical and process gaps and collaborate with designers, developers, and product partners.
• Strong understanding of design principles, UI/UX best practices, accessibility standards (including WCAG), and inclusive digital experience practices.
• Excellent communication, facilitation, leadership, and change-management skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience partnering with front-end engineering teams on component-library workflows, design token pipelines, or CI/CD practices.
• Hands-on experience creating front-end prototypes or implementation examples using technologies like HTML, CSS/SCSS, JavaScript/TypeScript, React, or Vue.
• Experience supporting a hybrid design-system model where enterprise guidance is adapted into platform-specific practices.
• Experience with mobile or cross-platform design-system considerations, including React Native, SwiftUI, or Jetpack Compose.
• Background in design operations, design tooling, documentation strategy, or platform-level design-system governance.
• Experience supporting accessibility audits, design-system quality reviews, or adoption measurement.
• Contributions to open-source design systems, UI libraries, or reusable internal platform libraries.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, vision, life, and disability insurance plans.
• Employee Stock Purchase Program (ESPP).
• 401K program with company match after 12 months of tenure.
• Health Savings Account (HSA) on the HDHP plan.
• SupportLinc Employee Assistance Program (EAP) with up to 8 free counseling sessions.
• Corporate discount savings program and other discounts.
• On-demand training program, access to certification prep, and a library of technical and leadership courses/books/seminars after 6+ months of tenure.
• Certification discounts and perks to associations that include CompTIA and IIBA.
• Dedicated customer service team for consultants and a certified Career Coach.