Lead Product Designer, Design Systems (Contract Talent)

Robert Half•San Ramon, CA

About The Position

Robert Half is hiring for a Lead Product Designer, Design Systems to join the Experience Design department. This role focuses on creating digital experiences that connect businesses with exceptional talent and empower job seekers. The ideal candidate is systems-minded with deep experience in enterprise design systems, passionate about scaling design across platforms while ensuring consistency, accessibility, and global inclusivity. This role transforms product needs into scalable frameworks, reusable components, patterns, and guidance to enhance consistency and efficiency. The position will lead strategic design system initiatives to improve quality and accessibility, drive adoption, and evolve the system based on user, business, and engineering needs.

Requirements

BA or equivalent in related fields.
5-8+ years of experience in Product Design or UX Design.
3+ years of dedicated experience contributing to and evolving enterprise design systems across multiple products or platforms.
A portfolio that demonstrates how you've shaped scalable design patterns, systemized complex UI challenges, and delivered cohesive accessible experiences across platforms.
A strong eye for visual craft, interaction quality, and detail, with the ability to maintain a high bar for consistency across a complex design system.
Expert proficiency in Figma, including component architecture, variables, design tokens, Auto Layout, and scalable library management.
Exceptional knowledge of accessibility standards and commitment to inclusive design.
Strong understanding of front-end technologies (HTML, CSS, React, or similar) and the ability to collaborate effectively with engineering on implementation.
Experience working across the design-to-code workflow, including design specifications, Storybook, design QA, implementation validation, and maintaining parity between design and code.
Strong communication and documentation skills with the ability to clearly articulate design intent, system rationale, and implementation guidance to cross-functional teams.
All applicants must have an online portfolio accompanying their resume/CV.

Nice To Haves

Familiarity with design system analytics, adoption metrics, or measuring design system impact.
Experience designing for internationalization and localization.
Experience with accessibility audits and partnering on remediation efforts.
Experience with automation, AI-assisted workflows, MCPs, or Figma plugins that improve design system operations.

Responsibilities

Translate product and experience needs into scalable design system solutions by evolving reusable components, patterns, foundations, and guidance.
Partner closely with engineering to evolve the design system, ensuring solutions are scalable, technically aligned, accessible, globally inclusive, and easy for teams to adopt and implement.
Evaluate product designs to identify opportunities for standardization, determining when solutions should become reusable system assets versus remain product-specific.
Build strong partnerships with UX, Product, Engineering, Marketing, Brand, and other cross-functional partners to understand their needs and improve the overall design system experience.
Lead strategic design system initiatives and contribute to roadmap planning by identifying opportunities that improve the long-term health, quality, and adoption of the system.
Champion design quality through accessibility reviews, implementation validation, and ongoing system stewardship.
Partner with front-end engineers to ensure system decisions translate effectively into code with shared ownership of quality, parity, and maintainability.
Contribute to the evolution of design system governance by evaluating new requests, balancing flexibility with consistency, and helping establish standards that enable teams to move quickly while maintaining a cohesive experience.
Champion adoption of the design system through consultation, education, documentation, and partner engagement.
Measure adoption and identify opportunities to improve the designer and developer experiences.
Mentor designers and foster a culture of collaboration, continuous learning, systems thinking, and design excellence.
Contribute to the ongoing operation of the design system, including Figma libraries, documentation, release communications, design reviews, and continuous improvements to team processes and workflows.