Lead Design Engineer

About the Role

At Step, we believe the gap between design and engineering should be as close to zero as possible. We're looking for a Design Systems Engineer to help make that vision a reality. This role sits at the intersection of design and engineering, owning the systems, tooling, and infrastructure that allow our teams to build beautiful, consistent, high-quality products at speed. You'll work across Figma, code, and AI-powered workflows to ensure our design system isn't just documented—it lives equally in design and production.

You'll partner closely with Product Design and Engineering leadership to evolve our design platform, reduce friction in the product development process, and create a future where moving from an idea to production is faster, more reliable, and nearly lossless. This isn't a role for someone who simply enjoys maintaining component libraries. We're looking for someone who enjoys building the platform that enables great product teams to do their best work.

Responsibilities

• Own the connection between our design system and production code, ensuring they evolve together rather than separately
• Build and maintain reusable components, design tokens, and shared foundations across iOS, Android, and Web
• Partner closely with Product Designers to translate high-fidelity designs into production-quality components with exceptional visual accuracy
• Collaborate with Engineering to create scalable component architecture that is flexible, performant, accessible, and easy for teams to adopt
• Continuously improve our design-to-code workflow through better tooling, automation, documentation, and developer experience
• Develop systems that allow designers and engineers to move faster while maintaining an exceptionally high bar for quality and consistency
• Improve governance around component APIs, tokens, naming conventions, versioning, and adoption across teams
• Review implementations, identify opportunities to improve the design system, and raise the overall quality of our products
• Explore and build AI-powered workflows that improve how we design, build, document, and maintain our products
• Help shape the future of how product development happens at Step

Qualifications

You might thrive in this role if you have:

• Significant experience building and evolving design systems for modern consumer software products
• Strong frontend engineering experience building reusable component libraries and design infrastructure
• Deep understanding of design tokens, component architecture, accessibility, documentation, and modern design system best practices
• Strong understanding of Figma and how modern design teams build and maintain systems
• A systems thinker who naturally looks beyond individual components to improve the entire product development workflow
• An exceptional eye for visual detail and a passion for building interfaces that feel polished and intentional
• Someone who enjoys collaborating equally with designers and engineers and can comfortably speak both languages
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to influence technical and product decisions across disciplines
• Curiosity about AI and emerging design tools, with a desire to continually rethink how products are designed and built
• Experience shipping high-quality mobile or web applications
• A portfolio or examples of work demonstrating both technical execution and thoughtful design systems thinking

Even better if you have:

• Experience with React Native or building cross-platform component libraries
• Experience building token pipelines or design system tooling
• Experience with Storybook or similar documentation platforms
• Experience building Figma plugins or internal developer tools
• Experience using AI to improve design workflows, automate repetitive work, or build design tooling

Benefits

• Competitive compensation and stock options
• Generous medical, dental, vision, and company-paid life insurance
• 401k plan with Safe Harbor company matching
• Flexible vacation policy and paid company holidays
• 12 weeks paid parental leave with flexible return to work
• Company-provided technology package

Logistics

Location: Remote (US) or San Mateo, CA, with occasional travel for team offsites and key meetings

Reports to: Head of Design

Education: Bachelor's degree or an equivalent combination of education, training, and experience

We encourage you to apply even if you don't meet every single qualification. Strong candidates rarely check every box, and we'd rather meet you than miss you.