Design System Specialist

Royal Mail; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 60,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

Royal Mail in London is seeking a Design System Specialist to own the design side of the design system, focusing on token architecture, component design, governance and roadmap. This is a permanent full-time role with a hybrid schedule (three days on-site).

You will connect engineering, product management and design, plan the design system roadmap, monitor drift, generate documentation, support design QA and drive architecture decisions with stakeholder alignment.

Qualifications

• Strong systems thinking and holistic view of design systems.
• Experience planning and managing a roadmap across engineering, product management and design.
• Ability to articulate and defend architectural decisions to stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Plan and manage the design system roadmap, prioritising work across engineering, product management and design.
• Act as the connect between engineering, product management and design leadership, translating needs and constraints.
• Manage competing stakeholder priorities and deliver to deadline under pressure, keeping the roadmap realistic.
• Architect the design system for clarity at scale, including token architecture and component guidelines.
• Own the propagation pipeline from Figma into engineering's codebase and the Figma-to-code contract, ensuring tokens and patterns are codified.
• Define and maintain conventions across Figma (structure, naming, handoff annotations) and enforce them as the team scales.
• Operate drift-monitoring agents between Figma and production, triaging issues with human judgement.
• Build automation around the system (plugins, scripts, Make workflows) to reduce repetitive work.

Skills

Systems thinking

Roadmap planning

Stakeholder management

Job description

Royal Mail is recruiting a Design System Specialist based in London Farringdon on a hybrid schedule (three days per week on-site). The role is a permanent, full-time individual contributor responsible for owning the design side of the design system, including token architecture, component design, governance and roadmap. The specialist will connect engineering, product management and design, plan and manage the design system roadmap, operate agents that monitor drift, generate documentation and support design QA, with a focus on architecture decisions, judgment calls and stakeholder alignment.

What you'll do

• Plan and manage the design system roadmap, prioritising and sequencing work across engineering, product management and design
• Act as the connecting point between engineering, product management and design leadership, translating needs and constraints between the three
• Manage competing stakeholder priorities and deliver to deadline under pressure, keeping the roadmap realistic and on track
• Architect the design system for clarity at scale, including token architecture, component rules and documented decision criteria
• Own the propagation pipeline from Figma into engineering's codebase and the Figma-to-code contract, partnering with engineering and frontend teams so tokens, components and patterns are consumable by code and designers
• Define and maintain conventions across Figma, including file structure, layer naming and handoff annotations, and keep them enforced as the team scales
• Operate agents that monitor drift between Figma and production, flag issues and support design QA, reviewing outputs and triaging where human judgement is needed
• Build automation around the system, including plugins, scripts and Figma Make workflows, to remove repetitive work from designers and engineers

What they're looking for

• Strong systems thinking
• Experience planning and managing a roadmap across multiple stakeholder groups
• Stakeholder skills to make the case for why the system matters