Senior Design Systems Specialist

About The Team

Grindr is an AI-native platform powering how millions of gay people connect globally. With 15M+ monthly users, 130B+ annual messages, and a team of fewer than 200, we move fast, stay lean, and tackle technical problems at a scale few companies ever see. The Design team at Grindr operates with a small footprint and an outsized mandate - owning the visual and interaction language of a product used by millions of people daily. This role sits at the foundation of how the team scales its craft: building and maintaining the design system that powers Grindr's core app and, over time, the broader product surface.

About The Job

Own the development, documentation, and ongoing refinement of Grindr's core design system - components, tokens, patterns, and the guidelines that govern how they are used.
Partner directly with product designers and engineers to ensure the system is adopted consistently and evolves to meet real product needs.
Identify and resolve design inconsistencies across the core app, driving toward a more coherent and efficient product experience.
Contribute strong visual design craft to the system - not just structural rigor, but considered, polished execution that raises the quality bar for the whole product.
Operate with a high degree of autonomy in a lean environment - prioritize effectively, make defensible decisions without heavy process, and move fast without creating debt.
Lead the charge on integrating our design system with AI tools.

Role Requirements

• 5+ years of product or visual design experience, with at least 2-3 years of focused design systems ownership - building or significantly evolving a system, not just contributing to one.
• Strong visual design skills - typography, color, iconography, spacing, and motion - with a portfolio that shows craft alongside systems thinking.
• Proficiency in Figma, including component architecture, variables, auto layout, and design token management.
• Track record of partnering with engineers to implement design systems in code - comfortable working across the design-to-development handoff.
• Experience documenting systems clearly for audiences with varying levels of design fluency - product designers, engineers, and non-design stakeholders.

You May Thrive In This Role If You Are

• AI-native or rapidly becoming so - you actively use AI tools in your workflow and are always looking for new ways to leverage them.
• Thriving in environments where you are the primary owner of a system, not one contributor among many - you make decisions, document them, and stand behind them.
• Care as much about the quality of what the system produces as the quality of the system itself - visual craft and structural rigor are not in tension for you.
• Are energized by constraints - limited headcount, fast timelines, and high standards feel like the right conditions to do your best work, not obstacles to it.

Benefits And Perks

• Health, Dental & Vision Full premium coverage for you. Partial coverage for dependents.
• Family Formation Up to $300,000 in fertility and family-building support, covering IVF, surrogacy, egg freezing, and adoption.
• Retirement: 401(k) with 6% match and immediate vesting.
• Compensation: Industry-competitive compensation, company bonus, and equity for every employee.
• Gender-Affirming Care : Industry-leading gender-affirming offerings with up to 90% cost coverage, access to Included Health, monthly stipends for HRT, and more.
• Time Off & Rest Flexible vacation policy. Two company-wide rest weeks per year.
• Other Benefits: Monthly stipends for cell phone, internet, wellness, food, and commuting, breakfast/lunch.

About Grindr

Grindr is building the Global Gayborhood in your Pocket. With more than 15 million monthly active users, Grindr has become a fundamental part of the gay community and is charting a path to make the world more free, equal, and just. As a public company, we're moving into the next chapter: becoming an AI-native organization that's redefining what's possible for our community. We're embedding AI into our product and operations, moving with startup speed while operating at scale. Everything we do is rooted in impact for our users and outcomes for the business. This isn't social work, it’s impact through excellence. Business success is what gives us the power to serve our community and the seat at tables others can't reach.

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