Design System Architect / Principal Design Engineer

Talentech Finland; Helsinki; On-site; EUR 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Talentech is seeking a senior frontend system lead to turn Duo into a shared foundation for how we design and build Talentech products across the Nordics. You will partner with our Design System Lead and Director of Product Design in Helsinki, plus designers and engineers, to shape the technical direction and adoption.

You will lead architecture, implement key components and tokens, and help product teams embed the system in real products.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience with frontend architecture and design systems.
• Experience building or maintaining production design systems.
• Knowledge of design tokens and scalable UI systems.
• Ability to move between architecture and hands-on implementation.
• Strong English communication in a distributed Nordic team.

Responsibilities

• Lead the technical direction of design system foundations, tokens and components.
• Turn architectural decisions into working implementations.
• Help product teams adopt the design system in real products.
• Solve recurring problems at system level and keep docs and components aligned.
• Define component APIs and technical conventions with design and engineering.
• Improve accessibility and testing practices across the system.
• Collaborate to modernise older UI foundations gradually.
• Explore AI tooling integration to improve the system and adoption.

Skills

Frontend architecture

Design systems

Component libraries

Accessibility

Cross-functional collaboration

Job description

Talentech is building a more unified product experience across a broad portfolio of HR and recruitment products.

A key part of that work is Duo, our new design system. We are looking for someone to help turn Duo from a growing design system into a shared foundation for how we design and build products across Talentech.

Join our journey

Talentech is building a more unified product experience across a broad portfolio of HR and recruitment products.

A key part of that work is Duo, our new design system. We are looking for someone to help turn Duo from a growing design system into a shared foundation for how we design and build products across Talentech.

About the role

This is not a role where you define architecture and hand it over to someone else. You will help lead the technical direction, build the system, and drive adoption across the organisation. You will work closely with our Design System Lead and Director of Product Design in Helsinki, as well as designers, engineers, architects and product teams across the Nordics.

The goal is simple: teams should not need to solve the same UI and frontend problems again and again. Instead, we want shared foundations that make good, accessible and consistent product development easier.

How we design and build

Our design system connects Figma, design tokens, components, documentation and production code.

Our products have different histories and technology stacks, so we need pragmatic architecture. Shared standards need to work across different environments and support gradual modernisation, not require everything to be rebuilt at once.

Accessibility is part of the component architecture and behaviour by default.

AI is also becoming part of how we design and build. We want our design system to work not only for people, but also for AI-assisted workflows.

That includes structured documentation, component metadata, design-to-code connections, MCP-based tooling and guardrails that help AI-generated work stay aligned with our shared UX and accessibility standards.

This area is evolving quickly, and part of the role is helping us figure out what good looks like.

In this role, you will

• Lead the technical architecture of our design system foundations, tokens and components.
• Work hands-on with the system and turn architectural decisions into working implementation.
• Help product teams adopt the design system in real products.
• Solve recurring problems at system level instead of letting teams build parallel solutions.
• Keep Figma, documentation, components and implementation aligned.
• Define component APIs, behaviour and technical conventions together with design and engineering.
• Help modernise older UI foundations and component libraries gradually.
• Build accessibility into components, including semantics, keyboard interaction and focus management.
• Improve testing, release practices, documentation and developer experience.
• Explore how AI tooling can use the design system reliably, and how AI can help us maintain and improve it.

We're looking for someone who

• Has strong experience with frontend architecture, design systems or shared UI infrastructure.
• Has built or maintained production design systems or large component libraries.
• Understands modern component architecture, design tokens and scalable UI systems.
• Can move comfortably between architecture and hands-on implementation.
• Understands that a design system succeeds through adoption, not just through the number of components it contains.
• Works well across design, engineering and technical leadership.
• Understands the technical side of accessibility.
• Can find practical shared solutions across different frontend stacks.
• Communicates clearly in English and is comfortable working in a distributed Nordic organisation. Finnish language skills are a plus for day-to-day collaboration in Helsinki.

Nice to have

Experience with AI-assisted development, MCP, design-to-code tooling, code generation, Storybook, monorepos or machine-readable design systems.

You do not need to have all the answers about how AI will change design system work. We are looking for someone who wants to help build those answers with us.

Why this role now?

Building components is the easy part.

The harder part is making a shared system change how an organisation actually builds products. That is where we are now.

We need someone who can connect architecture, implementation and organisational change, and help make the design system a real foundation for how Talentech products are built in the future.