Design System Architect

Marex; Greater London; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 110,000; Full time

Job summary

Marex is seeking a senior product designer to own and evolve the Marex Design System (MDS). You will collaborate with the Lead Product Designer and UI engineers to deliver a standardized, self-serve system across Marex products.

Your work will align design and code, ensuring consistent experiences and scalable components. Key focus includes governance, token and component patterns, and migration planning while ensuring accessibility and strong collaboration with engineering and branding teams.

Qualifications

• 6+ years in product design, including time owning a design system used by multiple teams.
• Experience designing dense, data-heavy interfaces (trading, operations, finance).
• UX research, usability testing and prototyping experience.
• Ability to work with product owners, BAs and developers to shape requirements.
• Experience with AI tooling in design systems and design-to-code token pipelines.
• Familiarity with Storybook and accessibility considerations for dark themes and dense data.

Responsibilities

• Own the design system: components, tokens, patterns, documentation and governance.
• Shape the roadmap with the Lead Product Designer based on impact across products.
• Establish and run contribution, review, versioning, release and deprecation processes.
• Spend time with the business to understand users of MDS and their needs.
• Collaborate with product teams and development streams to create reusable system components.
• Keep Figma and code aligned; plan migrations when they diverge.
• Build components and tokens that engineers can implement directly.
• Ensure Marex's brand is reflected in the design system and feasible to build.

Skills

Product design

Figma

Design systems

React / MUI

AI tooling

UX research

Accessibility

Storybook

Finance domain familiarity

Tools

Figma

React

MUI

Storybook

Job description

About Marex

Marex Group plc (NASDAQ: MRX) is a diversified global financial services platform providing essential liquidity, market access and infrastructure services to clients across energy, commodities and financial markets. The group provides comprehensive breadth and depth of coverage across four core services: clearing, agency and execution, market making, and hedging and investment solutions. It has a leading franchise in many major metals, energy and agricultural products, with access to 60 exchanges. The group provides access to the world’s major commodity markets, covering a broad range of clients that include some of the largest commodity producers, consumers and traders, banks, hedge funds and asset managers. With more than 40 offices worldwide, the group has over 3,000 employees across Europe, Asia and the Americas.

About Marex

Marex Group plc (NASDAQ: MRX) is a diversified global financial services platform providing essential liquidity, market access and infrastructure services to clients across energy, commodities and financial markets. The group provides comprehensive breadth and depth of coverage across four core services: clearing, agency and execution, market making, and hedging and investment solutions. It has a leading franchise in many major metals, energy and agricultural products, with access to 60 exchanges. The group provides access to the world’s major commodity markets, covering a broad range of clients that include some of the largest commodity producers, consumers and traders, banks, hedge funds and asset managers. With more than 40 offices worldwide, the group has over 3,000 employees across Europe, Asia and the Americas.

For more information visit https://www.marex.com/

Vacancy Number: VN3221

Department Description

Marex has unique access across markets with significant share globally both on and off exchange. The depth of knowledge amongst its teams and divisions provides its customers with clear advantage, and its technology-led service provides access to all major exchanges, order-flow management via screen, voice and DMA, plus award-winning data, insights and analytics.

The Technology Department delivers differentiation, scalability and security for the business. Technology provides digital tools, software services and infrastructure globally to all business groups. Software development and support teams work in agile ‘streams’ aligned to specific business areas. Our other teams work enterprise-wide to provide critical services including our global service desk, network and system infrastructure, IT operations, security, enterprise architecture and design.

Role Summary

Marex's products span client-facing trading, risk, data and reporting platforms and internal tools for front and back office teams. Most sit on the Marex Design System (MDS), built on MUI and maintained by a small product design team working with front-end engineers across the business.

You will own MDS alongside the Lead Product Designer and UI Engineer: tokens, components, theming, patterns, accessibility, documentation and adoption. The aim is a standardised, self-serve system that gives users one consistent experience across Marex products. MDS grew organically under delivery pressure, so part of the job is bringing design and code into line and keeping them there.

The role reports to the Lead Product Designer.

Responsibilities

Role specific

• Own the design system: components, tokens, patterns, documentation and governance.
• Shape the roadmap with the Lead Product Designer based on impact across products.
• Put processes in place where they are missing (contribution, review, versioning, release, deprecation) and run them.
• Spend time with the business to understand who uses MDS and how.
• Work with the product team and development streams to dentify shared patterns across products and turn them into system components.
• Keep Figma and code aligned, and plan migrations when they disagree.
• Build components and tokens to a standard engineers can implement directly.
• Work with brand and engineering so the system reflects Marex's identity and what can realistically be built.
• Measure adoption and raise systems thinking across the design team.

All staff

• Ensuring compliance with the company’s regulatory requirements under the FCA, NFA, AMF, AFM, MAS.
• Adhere to the operational risk framework for your role ensuring that all regulatory or company determined parameters are complied with.
• Role model for demonstrating highest level standards of integrity and conduct and reflecting Company Values.
• At all times complying with the FCA’s Code of Conduct
• To ensure that you are fully aware of and adhere to internal policies that relate to you, your role or any other activities for which you have any level of responsibility
• To report any breaches of policy to Compliance and/ or your supervisor as required
• To elevate risk events immediately
• To provide input to risk management processes, as required.

Competencies, Skills, Experience & Qualifications

Skills and Experience

Essential

• 6+ years in product design, including time owning a design system other teams depend on.

Technical Skills

• Strong Figma: variants, variables, component architecture, library publishing, token workflows.
• Comfortable with how systems are implemented in code, ideally MUI or a comparable React library, with a working understanding of React component structure.
• Comfortable using AI tools in their day-to-day workflow, and experience designing and writing for AI (prompts, agent instructions, AI-driven interfaces).

Desirable

• Experience with dense, data-heavy interfaces (trading, operations, finance or similar).
• UX research and usability testing, and prototyping.
• Working directly with product owners, BAs and developers to shape requirements.
• AI tooling in design systems work and design-to-code token pipelines.
• Storybook.
• Accessibility for dark themes and dense data.
• Familiarity with financial markets or post-trade workflows.

Competencies

• Self-starter who works well in ambiguity and puts structure in place where it's missing.
• Experience bridging design and development, translating between the two and keeping them aligned.
• Pragmatic, clear and concise, and comfortable wearing more than one hat in a small team.
• Influences without authority: builds trust with product teams and engineers to drive adoption and contribution.
• Systems thinker who spots shared patterns across products and abstracts them well.
• Champions new ways of working, including AI, across the team.
• Candidates with less years' experience will also be considered

Conduct Rules

• Act with integrity
• Act with due skill, care and diligence
• Be open and cooperative with the FCA, the PRA and other regulators
• Pay due regard to the interests of customers and treat them fairly
• Observe proper standard of market conduct
• Act to deliver good outcomes for retail customers

Company Values

Be collaborative - by working together across the organisation, we foster teamwork, can better respond to challenges and successfully deliver for our clients

Act with integrity - we pride ourselves on our honesty and high ethical standards. We apply these values when working with all our clients, colleagues and other stakeholders

Be adaptable and entrepreneurial - we embrace change as markets evolve to constantly increase our efficiency and create innovative solutions for our clients. We are interested in the world around us and inquisitive about understanding the challenges and opportunities our clients face.

Be respectful - how we treat each other, and our clients says everything about who we are. We always act respectfully and treat people fairly in everything we do.

Nurture talent - we aim to grow our own talent and make Marex the place ambitious, hardworking and talented people choose to build their career. This means giving and taking stretch opportunities, taking risks, and committing to career development and support - for ourselves, and our teams.

Marex is fully committed to being an inclusive employer and providing an inclusive and accessible recruitment process for all. We will provide reasonable adjustments to remove any disadvantage to you being considered for this role. We value the differences that a diverse workforce brings to the company. We welcome applications from candidates returning to the workforce. Also, Marex is committed to avoiding circumstances in which the appearance or possibility of conflicts of interest may exist within the hiring process.

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