UX/UI Designer (12 month contract)

AlgaeCal•Vancouver, BC

About The Position

In this 12-month contract, you’ll help restructure our existing single-brand design system into a scalable multi-brand architecture. That means separating shared platform foundations from brand-specific expression, building a net-new brand library, refactoring components, and supporting the prototype of a new e-commerce experience using the system you’ve helped create. This role requires someone who understands how a single component decision can ripple across dozens of pages, multiple brands, future launches, and developer workflows. You’ve worked with tokens, variables, component properties, variants, libraries, and documentation — and you know the difference between a tidy Figma file and a system that can actually scale. This is not a junior role, nor is it for someone who has only used a design system from the outside. We’re looking for someone who has been inside the machinery, understands how systems are structured, where they break, how they scale, and how to rebuild them without creating chaos for the teams who depend on them.

Requirements

A portfolio that proves you can build systems, not just screens, showing structured components, thoughtful patterns, scalable libraries, and design decisions that make life easier for everyone who uses the system.
Understanding of how tokens, variables, components, documentation, and governance all work together.
A serious design systems mindset, thinking in systems: Core foundations, Brand libraries, Experience libraries, Primitive tokens, Semantic tokens, Component-level decisions, Naming conventions, Library relationships, Governance, Versioning.
Ability to separate what should be shared from what should stay brand-specific.
Ability to spot unnecessary duplication, messy component logic, and brittle structures.
Advanced Figma skills: components, variants, component properties, nested instances, auto-layout, variables, tokens, and responsive behaviour.
Strong component architecture skills: understanding variants, properties, states, flexibility, and maintainability.
Token and variable experience: built or worked deeply with token architecture using Figma variables, understanding primitive, semantic, and component-level tokens.
Experience refactoring existing systems.
Strong understanding of design fundamentals: Typography, hierarchy, alignment, spacing, layout, visual balance.
Understanding of e-commerce experiences: product pages, offers, promotions, bundles, pricing hierarchy, content modules, CTAs, comparison sections, and purchase paths.
Front-end awareness: understanding of how front-end code works, HTML and CSS, component-based frameworks like React, and why certain design decisions are easy or difficult to implement.
Clear documentation and handoff habits: clear component specs, practical usage guidelines, and organized files.
Collaborative, low-ego operator: ability to ask good questions, explain thinking clearly, take feedback without defensiveness, and defend system decisions when necessary.
Humble: put the team and others' needs ahead of your own.
Hungry to learn more.
People smart: a great teammate.

Nice To Haves

Experience with Storybook, Chromatic, or a similar component/UI-kit environment.

Responsibilities

Restructure existing single-brand design system into a scalable multi-brand architecture.
Separate shared platform foundations from brand-specific expression.
Build a net-new brand library.
Refactor components.
Support the prototype of a new e-commerce experience using the system.
Collaborate with UX, Design, Development, E-commerce, and brand stakeholders.
Organize files so other designers can find what they need, understand how things work, and contribute without creating chaos.
Create clear component specs and practical usage guidelines.
Audit an existing component ecosystem, classify what belongs where, separate brand-specific assets from shared foundations, and migrate work without introducing inconsistencies.