Senior Staff UX Designer - Design System
About The Position
Workiva is seeking a Senior Staff UX Designer to join our centralized Design Foundations team. This team owns and evolves Workiva’s enterprise design system, which supports shared components, interaction patterns, accessibility standards, tooling, and cohesive cross-product experiences across our B2B platform. As a senior staff-level individual contributor, you are a highly trusted systems leader who drives impact through strategy, execution, and influence. You own company-wide design foundations initiatives, lead system architecture decisions, and ensure the design system delivers measurable value across teams and products. You partner deeply with designers, engineers, and product managers to align priorities, navigate constraints, and deliver extensible solutions that scale. This role is ideal for a designer who thrives in complexity, thinks long-term, and amplifies their impact by shaping systems, guiding teams, and defining the future experience vision—without formal people management responsibilities. What You’ll Do Design Systems Strategy & Architecture: Own the strategy, execution, and measurement of Workiva-wide Design Foundations initiatives. Lead the architecture and long-term evolution of Workiva’s enterprise design system, ensuring it remains inclusive and extensible Strategic Execution: Partner deeply with Product Management and Engineering to prioritize initiatives, align roadmaps, and translate complex, cross-functional needs into actionable plans Enablement & Leadership: Guide and support product designers in using design system assets effectively. Build cross-organizational consensus and influence strategic direction through clear rationale and thoughtful tradeoffs Experience Vision: Define the aspirational future-state vision for how Workiva products will mature. Identify opportunities to simplify, standardize, and improve experiences across the ecosystem Governance & Metrics: Define system governance, contribution models, and quality standards. Establish success metrics for system adoption and use insights to guide prioritization Mentorship: Mentor designers across teams, raising design maturity and systems fluency organization-wide while fostering a strong culture of systems thinking. What You’ll Need Minimum Qualifications Experience: 10+ years of experience as an individual contributor in UX, product design, or systems design Systems Expertise: Significant experience leading or evolving a corporate design system in a complex, multi-product organization Software Proficiency: Expert-level proficiency with Figma, including libraries, variables, and scalable system workflows. Education: B.A./B.S. degree in Design, HCI, CS, or a related field (or equivalent professional experience)
Requirements
- 10+ years of experience as an individual contributor in UX, product design, or systems design
- Significant experience leading or evolving a corporate design system in a complex, multi-product organization
- Expert-level proficiency with Figma, including libraries, variables, and scalable system workflows.
- B.A./B.S. degree in Design, HCI, CS, or a related field (or equivalent professional experience)
Nice To Haves
- Proven ability to own and drive company-wide design initiatives end-to-end, including governance and lifecycle management
- Demonstrated ability to build cross-functional consensus and influence strategic prioritization without formal authority
- Strength in translating complex organizational needs into clear systems strategies and the ability to define/evaluate success metrics
- Deep advocacy for accessibility, inclusion, and design quality across all system decisions
- Comfort collaborating closely with engineers and discussing implementation tradeoffs
- Exceptional ability to articulate a strong point of view on design system practices and communicate complex architectural concepts to diverse audiences
- Experience creating, maintaining, or evolving an AI-ready/readable design system.
- Background in front-end development or experience working closely with component libraries (React, etc.)
- Experience designing cross-platform systems (web and native).
- Familiarity designing for users in highly regulated industries (Finance, ESG, Compliance)
Responsibilities
- Own the strategy, execution, and measurement of Workiva-wide Design Foundations initiatives.
- Lead the architecture and long-term evolution of Workiva’s enterprise design system, ensuring it remains inclusive and extensible
- Partner deeply with Product Management and Engineering to prioritize initiatives, align roadmaps, and translate complex, cross-functional needs into actionable plans
- Guide and support product designers in using design system assets effectively.
- Build cross-organizational consensus and influence strategic direction through clear rationale and thoughtful tradeoffs
- Define the aspirational future-state vision for how Workiva products will mature.
- Identify opportunities to simplify, standardize, and improve experiences across the ecosystem
- Define system governance, contribution models, and quality standards.
- Establish success metrics for system adoption and use insights to guide prioritization
- Mentor designers across teams, raising design maturity and systems fluency organization-wide while fostering a strong culture of systems thinking.
Benefits
- A discretionary bonus typically paid annually
- Restricted Stock Units granted at time of hire
- 401(k) match and comprehensive employee benefits package
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Mid Level
