Head of UI Engineering and Design Systems

Guardian Life•New York, NY

73d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Head of UI Engineering and Design Systems will lead Guardian's UI Engineering team in building and scaling AI-driven user interface capabilities across our digital ecosystem. Reporting into the Head of Enterprise Digital Technology, this leader owns the evolution of the Guardian Design System (GDS) and the engineering standards that make every digital experience consistent, accessible, and compliant. The role connects design systems, data, and AI-turning Guardian's digital experience vision into engineered reality through scalable, adaptive front-end systems.

Requirements

12 + years of front-end/UI engineering experience, including 5 + years leading enterprise-scale design-system teams.
Proven success integrating AI or machine-learning capabilities into front-end or design-system development.
Deep expertise in modern web frameworks (React, Angular, Vue), accessibility standards, and CI/CD pipelines.
Demonstrated ability to lead, inspire, and influence across design, product, and engineering functions.

Responsibilities

Define and execute the roadmap for AI-enabled UI engineering, ensuring alignment with Guardian's digital, data, and AI strategy.
Lead the evolution of the Guardian Design System (GDS) to support adaptive, personalized, and intelligent interfaces.
Establish enterprise-wide engineering standards, metrics, and governance for GDS adoption, accessibility, and performance.
Partner across product, data, and platform engineering to ensure seamless integration of AI capabilities within the front-end layer.
Drive innovation at the intersection of AI, front-end engineering, and design systems.
Embed Generative AI, Agentic AI, and contextual intelligence into the UI layer to enable adaptive, predictive, and human-centered experiences.
Introduce AI-augmented engineering workflows-including design-to-code automation, intelligent testing, and generative component creation.
Advance Guardian's front-end architecture for scalability, accessibility, and continuous delivery.
Lead and develop a team of UI engineers, cultivating a culture of technical excellence, curiosity, and innovation.
Build up-skill and future-skill pathways to deepen AI fluency and design-system mastery within the team.
Foster an inclusive, collaborative environment that values experimentation, quality, and learning.
Recognize and develop engineering talent to strengthen Guardian's next-generation digital capabilities.
Serve as the enterprise steward for design-system engineering, ensuring cross-platform consistency, compliance, and brand integrity.
Partner across architecture, data, AI, and digital product teams to align front-end strategy with Guardian's broader technology direction.
Represent UI engineering in forums driving digital transformation, AI ethics, and front-end governance.
Champion AI-driven experience engineering as a differentiator in Guardian's colleague and customer experiences.