Design Systems Lead

Imprint · San Francisco, CA · 3 wk ago

On-siteArt & Creative$190k–$210k/yrFull-time

About the role

Define and drive the long-term vision and roadmap for Imprint's design system, balancing immediate product needs with long-term platform investments. Partner deeply with Product Design, Engineering, Product Management, and AI teams to ensure system components are scalable, maintainable, production-ready, and aligned to shared priorities.

Establish governance, contribution models, and decision-making frameworks that give product teams a shared source of truth and let them move faster without sacrificing quality or consistency.

Evolve the design system beyond traditional Figma libraries and Storybook documentation toward machine-readable, AI-consumable foundations that connect design tooling, code generation, and AI-assisted development.

Mentor a small team of design systems designers and partner with developers, raising the bar on systems thinking, prioritization, and ownership across the group.

Stay hands-on by contributing directly to component architecture, documentation, patterns, and guidelines, and by leading complex initiatives from strategy through execution.

Responsibilities

Define and drive the long-term vision and roadmap for Imprint's design system
Partner deeply with Product Design, Engineering, Product Management, and AI teams
Ensure system components are scalable, maintainable, production-ready, and aligned to shared priorities
Establish governance, contribution models, and decision-making frameworks
Evolve the design system towards machine-readable, AI-consumable foundations
Mentor a small team of design systems designers
Contribute directly to component architecture, documentation, patterns, and guidelines
Lead complex initiatives from strategy through execution

Requirements

8+ years of product design experience, including significant design systems ownership and experience leading or managing design systems teams
Deep understanding of component architecture, design tokens, accessibility standards, and design-to-development workflows
Strong product judgment with the ability to prioritize high-impact work and make tradeoffs between near-term product needs and long-term system investments
Experience partnering closely with frontend engineers and engineering leadership to ship system components that are actually adopted and trusted
Comfort working in a fast-moving startup environment where you own both the strategy and the execution, and where the system needs to evolve continuously
Excellent ability to communicate and influence across functions, including educating and advocating for design systems with teams that haven't worked with one before

Qualifications

Required: 8+ years of product design experience
Required: Significant design systems ownership and experience leading or managing design systems teams
Required: Deep understanding of component architecture, design tokens, accessibility standards, and design-to-development workflows
Required: Strong product judgment with the ability to prioritize high-impact work and make tradeoffs between near-term product needs and long-term system investments
Required: Experience partnering closely with frontend engineers and engineering leadership to ship system components that are actually adopted and trusted
Required: Comfort working in a fast-moving startup environment where you own both the strategy and the execution, and where the system needs to evolve continuously
Required: Excellent ability to communicate and influence across functions, including educating and advocating for design systems with teams that haven't worked with one before

Skills

Experience with modern frontend technologies, component-based development, Storybook, and design token infrastructure
Experience with AI-assisted design, code generation, or agent-driven workflows
Experience building design systems in high-growth startup environments

Benefits

Competitive compensation and equity packages
Leading configured work computers of your choice
Flexible paid time off
Fully covered, high-quality healthcare, including fully covered dependent coverage
Additional health coverage including access to One Medical and the option to enroll in an FSA
20 weeks of paid parental leave for the primary caregiver and 8 weeks for all new parents
Access to industry-leading technology across all of our business units

Pay

$190K - $210K

Schedule

Full-time