Product Design Lead, Design Systems

About the company

Our client is a workforce software company bringing HR, IT and finance into one unified platform. Its 40+ products help businesses manage everything from payroll and hiring to devices and expenses. The company invests heavily in design systems so these products feel like one connected experience.

The role / why it matters

As Product Design Lead, Design Systems, you will shape the patterns and design language used across the entire platform. This is a hands-on Staff/Principal-level individual contributor role with broad strategic ownership. You will partner with approximately 18 dedicated engineers and help define an AI-native approach to design quality, prototyping and implementation.

What you'll do

• Design scalable, repeatable interaction patterns, UX flows and frameworks that go beyond component and token libraries.
• Build patterns that work across dense product experiences and the growing mobile design system.
• Develop AI-driven systems that define, measure and check design quality against shared standards.
• Create AI prototyping tools and code-based checks that help teams produce high-quality implementations.
• Own platform-wide initiatives from identifying a problem and setting strategy through hands-on prototyping and delivery.
• Work closely with engineers, product managers and designers to improve craft and the platform's design language.
• Raise the quality of work across teams while remaining an active practitioner.

Requirements

What we're looking for

• 8-20 years of product design or design systems experience, with approximately 12 years a strong fit for the role's scope.
• Prior Staff, Principal or Lead-level responsibility and the ability to combine vision and strategy with hands-on individual contributor work.
• Experience designing systems, repeatable interaction patterns and UX frameworks for complex B2B…