Product Design Lead - Design Systems

Pebl

$120K — $150K *
Consumer Technology
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 7+ years of product design experience with 3+ years focusing on design systems at a product company
  • Strong portfolio showcasing systems-level thinking and impactful component design at scale
  • Exceptional visual design skills with attention to typography, color, spacing, and interaction quality
  • Expert proficiency in Figma and design token architecture
  • Familiarity with design-to-code workflows involving GitHub and Storybook
  • Solid understanding of front-end basics including HTML, CSS, and React
  • Knowledge of accessibility standards and inclusive design principles
  • Strong written communication skills to convey clear, actionable documentation

Responsibilities

  • Own the design system's architecture, strategy, and evolution for web and mobile
  • Design and produce high-quality, production-ready components with built-in accessibility
  • Collaborate closely with frontend engineers to ensure smooth translation of design into code
  • Develop clear documentation on best practices, patterns, and contribution standards
  • Maintain governance models balancing system integrity with product team speed
  • Conduct regular audits for component consistency and design-to-code alignment
  • Integrate AI-powered design tools into the design system workflow
  • Proactively evolve the design system in response to shifts in technology and user needs

Benefits

  • Flexible Time Off to recharge as needed
  • Comprehensive Parental Leave for growing families
  • Health and Dental Insurance to cover employees and their families
  • Retirement Savings plus Employee Incentive Plan to share in company success
Full Job Description
What Makes You a Great Fit

Design systems are infrastructure. They determine how fast teams move, how consistent the product feels, and how much trust users place in every interaction. We're looking for a designer who understands this deeply - someone who brings both systems-level thinking and exceptional craft to the work.

In this role, you'll own and evolve our design system end-to-end: the component library, the token architecture, the documentation, and the workflows that connect design to production. You'll work in close partnership with engineering and product to ensure the system scales across web and mobile surfaces - and that it stays useful, adoptable, and ahead of the curve as our product and tooling landscape evolves.

This is a high-ownership, high-visibility role. You'll shape the shared language that every product team works from, and influence how designers and engineers across the org build together.

How You'll Make an Impact:
  • Own the architecture, strategy, and evolution of the design system - components, tokens, patterns, and documentation - across web and mobile surfaces
  • Design and ship production-ready components with a high bar for craft: well-defined states, variants, interaction models, responsiveness, and accessibility baked in from the start
  • Partner closely with frontend engineering to ensure system decisions translate cleanly into code - with shared ownership of quality, parity, and maintainability
  • Create clear, opinionated documentation and usage guidance: best practices, anti-patterns, decision frameworks, and contribution standards that teams can act on immediately
  • Build and maintain governance models that balance system integrity with the speed product teams need
  • Conduct regular audits to identify inconsistencies, gaps, and opportunities to improve component coverage and design-to-code parity
  • Lead the evaluation and integration of AI-powered design tooling - including Figma AI, MCP integrations, StoryBook MCP and generative workflows - into how the system is built and consumed
  • Anticipate shifts in the product, platform, and tooling landscape, and evolve the system proactively towards an agentic workflow.


Let's Connect If You Have:
  • 7+ years of product design experience, with at least 3 years owning or significantly contributing to a design system at a product company
  • An outstanding portfolio demonstrating systems-level thinking, component craft, and real impact at scale
  • Extraordinary visual design taste - a rigorous, opinionated eye for typography, color, spacing, and interaction quality that raises the bar across every surface
  • Expert-level Figma skills: component architecture, variables, tokens, auto-layout, and the discipline to keep a shared library production-aligned
  • Comfort working across the design-to-code workflow - you know your way around design tokens, Storybook, and GitHub, and can collaborate closely with engineers on implementation
  • Strong understanding of front-end fundamentals (HTML, CSS, React or equivalent) and how design decisions translate into code
  • Knowledge of accessibility standards and a commitment to inclusive design baked into every component by default
  • Strong written communication skills - you write documentation that is clear, opinionated, and easy to act on
  • Track record of leading cross-functional initiatives and influencing senior stakeholders on system strategy and investment


Bonus Points
  • Experience integrating AI tools into design and development workflows - AI-assisted prototyping, automated component generation, design-to-code pipelines
  • Background building or contributing to open-source design systems
  • Familiarity with design-to-code automation tools and AI-driven product development workflows
  • External thought leadership through writing, speaking, or open-source contributions in the design systems space
  • Experience in enterprise SaaS, fintech, or other complex, data-dense product environments


Why This Role Matters

A strong design system isn't just a component library - it's a force multiplier. It's what lets teams move faster without sacrificing quality. It's what keeps a product feeling coherent as complexity grows. And in an era where AI tools are increasingly part of the design and development workflow, a well-structured system becomes the foundation everything else is built on. We are a fast paced company, and impact is made fast.

Our Commitment to You

At Pebl, we're committed to supporting our team with comprehensive rewards and benefits designed to meet diverse needs across roles and locations. Our core offerings include:
  • Flexible Time Off - Take the time you need to recharge.
  • Parental Leave - Support for growing families.
  • Health and Dental Insurance - Where applicable, to cover you and your loved ones.
  • Retirement Savings + Employee Incentive Plan - Plan for the future while sharing our success.

Please visit our career page for more information.

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