Product Design Manager, Design System

Consumer Reports•Yonkers, NY

1d•Remote

About The Position

Consumer Reports is an independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to a fair and just marketplace for all. CR is known for its rigorous testing and trusted ratings on thousands of products and services, reporting extensively on consumer trends and challenges, and surveying millions of people in the U.S. each year. The organization leverages its evidence-based approach to advocate for consumer rights, working with policymakers and companies to find solutions for safer products and fair practices. CR’s Design System team builds the core components, patterns, and infrastructure that enable better product experience for its members. The Product Design Manager will own the design, evolution, and day-to-day advancement of this design system. Reporting to the Director, Product Design, this hands-on leader is responsible for designing scalable, high-quality components and patterns while establishing the processes that enable product teams to contribute while maintaining consistency, quality, and coherence. While the primary focus is owning and advancing the design system, this role will also contribute directly to product design initiatives as needed, partnering with cross-functional teams to ensure system integrity, consistency, and thoughtful user experience execution. This role is accountable for driving the quality, consistency, and scalability of the system while enabling teams to effectively adopt and contribute to it. It sits at the intersection of craft, systems thinking, execution, and enablement.

Requirements

You have 5–8+ years of experience in product design, including hands-on experience building, launching and maintaining a design system.
Your portfolio demonstrates systems thinking and component-based design.
You’ve worked in lean or early-stage design system environments.
Your experience includes contributing to or establishing a federated or contribution-based system model.
You have a solid understanding of scalable design patterns, modular frameworks, and accessibility standards.
You can strike a balance between strategic system evolution and tactical product needs.

Nice To Haves

You have collaborated with engineering teams and have a familiarity with front-end implementation constraints.
You enjoy strong communication skills and are comfortable working in cross-functional environments.

Responsibilities

Design and deliver high-quality, reusable components, patterns, and interaction models that are scalable, accessible, and aligned with engineering constraints.
Define and evolve contribution guidelines and workflows to establish and manage a federated contribution model that enables teams to effectively contribute and scale the design system.
Set and uphold contribution standards and quality expectations for the design system, including reviewing and approving contributions from product teams.
Contribute to system architecture decisions in partnership with engineering.
Own prioritization decisions for the design system backlog and roadmap based on product needs, system gaps, and adoption goals.
Partner with project management to support intake, planning, and delivery of design system work.
Partner closely with Product, Engineering, and Design to ensure system alignment with product needs, including alignment between design assets and coded components and informing component architecture, tokens, and implementation patterns.
Track adoption and identify gaps in system usage and coverage across product teams.
Contribute to product design initiatives as needed, applying and extending system components in real-world contexts.
Balance system integrity with pragmatic product delivery needs.