SharkNinja is hiring a UX Design System Lead to build, maintain and evolve its UI design system across the DTC and ecommerce digital estate. The role sits at the intersection of design, technology and product, owning a single source of truth for designers and engineers.
What you'll do
- Own and evolve the UI design system across DTC digital properties
- Define and maintain design tokens, component libraries, patterns and guidelines
- Audit and improve the design system based on product needs, accessibility standards and best practices
- Balance consistency with flexibility, setting standards while allowing product judgment
- Design, build and maintain a library of reusable UI components across web and digital touchpoints
- Use Figma variables, component architecture and token structures for scalable foundations
- Collaborate with front-end engineering to ensure components are accurately implemented in code
- Establish versioning, contribution and governance processes for the design system
- Act as primary point of contact and subject matter expert for the design system
- Develop documentation, guidelines and training resources for adoption
- Champion design system usage and consistency across DTC digital projects
- Build alignment across designers, engineers and product managers through influence
- Ensure UI components meet WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility standards
- Apply accessibility requirements to component behaviour, interaction patterns and documentation
- Define and uphold UI quality standards across the DTC digital estate
- Stay ahead of UI trends, tooling and accessibility requirements
- Work with UX, Product, Engineering and Marketing teams to support digital organisation needs
- Partner with Engineering on design tokens, component libraries and handoff workflows
- Influence design and engineering decisions to drive consistency, efficiency and quality
- Present design system updates, roadmap and impact to senior stakeholders
What we're looking for
- 5+ years in UX or Product Design, with 3+ years focused on design systems
- Experience building and scaling a design system in a product-led organisation
- Expert proficiency in Figma, including variables, component architecture and auto layout
- Expertise in Figma variables and design tokens mapping to coded token structures
- Strong systems thinking to identify patterns, inconsistencies and scale solutions
- Experience defining design tokens, components, patterns, documentation and contribution models
- Working knowledge of front-end fundamentals, including HTML and CSS
- Strong understanding of WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility standards
- Ability to balance consistency with flexibility across product teams
- Comfortable partnering with Engineering on tokens, libraries and handoff workflows
- Clear communicator and cross-functional influencer without formal authority
- Comfortable operating in a governance role, setting standards and managing contributions
- Detail-oriented and reliable with accurate, current documentation
- Excellent communication and stakeholder-management skills
- Bachelor's degree in Design, Interaction Design or equivalent experience
Nice to have
- Experience within ecommerce, DTC or another complex digital product environment
- Hands-on experience with design-token pipelines and associated tooling
- IAAP/WAS accessibility certification or equivalent accessibility credentials
- Experience with component-library tooling, including documentation at the code layer
- Familiarity with Git and design-system change, review and release workflows
- Experience working with Engineering to establish design-to-code workflows and governance
Good to know
- Hybrid working arrangement