Perplexity is seeking a Design Systems Lead to bootstrap and own a semantic token system spanning multiple platforms and frameworks. This is a 50/50 design-engineer role owning the design system repo on GitHub while staying fluent in Figma, partnering with feature teams across mobile, web and React.
What you'll do
- Bootstrap and own an intuitive semantic token system across platforms and frameworks
- Own the design system repo on GitHub, including versioning, release management and changelog
- Set and uphold a high bar for visual design quality across every surface
- Navigate differences between mobile, web and React UI best practices and encode them into the system
- Define and run the contribution model and governance, reviewing inbound contributions
- Bridge Figma and code to keep design and engineering in sync
- Own documentation and drive adoption through onboarding, office hours and hands-on support
- Bake in accessibility (WCAG) and theming, including dark mode, as defaults
- Maintain a system roadmap balancing new work, migrations and deprecations
- Bring new AI tooling into the design systems workflow
- Operate with autonomy in a fast-moving, ambiguous environment
What we're looking for
- Extensive experience owning design systems at large organizations
- Equal credibility in visual craft and in code
- Impeccable eye for visual design
- Deep understanding of mobile, web and React UI best practices
- Strong product sensibilities to evaluate contributions from feature teams
- Fluency in Figma while primarily living in GitHub
- Experience designing and maintaining semantic design tokens and scalable component APIs
- Track record driving adoption through documentation and cross-functional partnership
- Working knowledge of accessibility standards (WCAG)
- Readiness to work with new AI tooling and comfort with ambiguity
Nice to have
- Experience building a semantic token system from scratch across multiple platforms
- Track record scaling a design system through fast org growth
- Experience defining contribution models and governance for multi-team design systems
- Familiarity with component tooling and documentation platforms (e.g., Storybook)
- Experience mentoring designers and engineers and growing a design systems practice