Senior Design Technologist

JobSpace; Auckland; Hybrid; NZD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Social events

Remote working

Flexible hours

Professional development

Job summary

Datacom is seeking a Senior Design Technologist to own the design system and its implementation across design leadership, researchers and engineering teams. You will build and maintain scalable component libraries, tokens, UX guidelines and production-ready UI components to enable efficient, consistent product delivery.

You’ll shape tooling, automation pipelines and AI-augmented workflows that improve delivery velocity while ensuring accessibility, performance and governance across the system.

Qualifications

• 5+ years in UI/visual design and/or front-end development.
• Experience building design systems or component libraries at scale.
• Knowledge of design systems, token architecture, component APIs, and documentation standards.
• Experience translating design decisions into production-ready front-end code.
• Familiar with tools like Figma, Storybook, GitHub, MUI and design token pipelines.
• Knowledge of WCAG accessibility, user-centred design and information architecture.
• Experience in cross-functional teams with designers, researchers and engineers.
• Ability to create clear, structured documentation for humans and AI-assisted workflows.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills.
• Bachelor's degree in Design, CS, SE or equivalent practical experience.

Responsibilities

• Owning and maintaining the design system as the single source of truth for components and UX guidelines.
• Building and maintaining production-ready UI components and scalable front-end patterns.
• Encoding design decisions into tokens, interaction patterns, accessibility rules, and layout systems.
• Creating and maintaining clear documentation for designers, engineers and AI tooling.
• Building automation pipelines and tooling to translate design decisions into code.
• Ensuring front-end code quality, accessibility (WCAG) and performance.
• Collaborating with engineering to integrate design system outputs into build processes.
• Evolving the design system from customer feedback and research outcomes.
• Contributing technical expertise to governance discussions.
• Evaluating new front-end technologies, AI tooling and design-to-code pipelines.
• Sharing knowledge to enable scalable adoption of the design system.
• Maintaining high visual craft and interaction quality as products scale.
• Contributing to standardized tooling and processes for design system best practices.

Skills

UI/Visual design

Front-end development

Design systems

Tokens architecture

Documentation standards

Accessibility WCAG

Cross-functional teams

AI-assisted workflows

Communication and collaboration

Bachelor's degree or equivalent

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent in Design/CS/SE

Tools

Figma

Storybook

GitHub

MUI

Design token pipelines

Job description

Jora New Zealand will close on 9th September 2026. Thank you for being with us, we are cheering you on as you continue your career journey.

Datacom works with organisations and communities across Australia and New Zealand to make a difference in people's lives and help organisations use the power of tech to innovate and grow.

About the Role (Your Why)

The Senior Design Technologist role sits at the intersection of design systems thinking and engineering delivery. Working closely with design leadership, researchers, and engineering teams, you'll own the technical implementation of the design system and help ensure it remains the single source of truth across the organisation.

You’ll be responsible for building and maintaining scalable component libraries, design tokens, UX guidelines, and production-ready UI components that enable efficient and consistent product delivery. This role combines strong front-end engineering capability with deep design systems knowledge, helping bridge the gap between validated design decisions and working code.

You’ll also contribute to the evolution of tooling, automation pipelines, and AI-augmented workflows that improve delivery velocity and support scalable product development practices.

Our offices are based across New Zealand. The core team is based in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, so these are our preferred locations. We like to bring people together in person when we can, but we are mindful of the benefits of working from home for work/life balance. We therefore leave it to you and the team you join to figure out what works best!

What You’ll Do

At the moment, as Senior Design Technologist you will be focused on:

• Owning and maintaining the design system as the single source of truth for components, patterns, interaction flows, and UX guidelines
• Building and maintaining production-ready UI components and scalable front-end patterns
• Encoding design decisions including design tokens, interaction patterns, accessibility requirements, and layout rules into structured, reusable systems
• Creating and maintaining clear, structured documentation for designers, engineers, and AI-assisted tooling
• Building and maintaining automation pipelines and tooling that translate design decisions into working code
• Ensuring front-end code quality, accessibility compliance (WCAG), performance, and standards alignment
• Partnering with engineering teams to support seamless integration between design system outputs and build processes
• Evolving the design system based on customer feedback, user insights, and research outcomes
• Contributing technical expertise to design and pattern governance discussions
• Evaluating emerging workflows, front-end technologies, AI tooling, and design-to-code capabilities to improve delivery efficiency
• Sharing knowledge and capability across teams to support scalable adoption of the design system
• Maintaining a high standard of visual craft and interaction quality as products scale
• Contributing to standardised approaches, tooling, and processes that support best practice across the design system discipline

We are an pretty agile company, and are keen to respond to customer, technology and internal stakeholders' changing requirements and this can mean we evolve in our roles to meet those needs.

What You’ll Bring

Required experience:

• 5+ years' experience across UI/visual design and/or front-end development
• Demonstrated experience building and maintaining design systems or component libraries at scale
• Strong knowledge of design systems, token architecture, component APIs, and documentation standards
• Experience translating design decisions into production-quality front-end code
• Familiarity with modern tooling such as Figma, Storybook, GitHub, MUI, and design token pipelines
• Knowledge of accessibility standards (WCAG), user-centred design principles, and information architecture
• Experience working within cross-functional teams alongside designers, researchers, and engineers
• Proven ability to create clear, structured system documentation consumable by both people and AI-assisted workflows
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills with the ability to articulate technical and design decisions clearly
• Bachelor's degree in Design, Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related discipline — or equivalent practical experience

Nice to have:

• Experience working in AI-augmented or AI-led product delivery environments
• Knowledge of agentic AI workflows, orchestration, and AI-assisted design-to-code pipelines
• Understanding of machine-readable documentation structures and AI context engineering
• Experience within SaaS or product-led environments
• Understanding of CMS and CRM platforms
• Front-end performance optimisation experience
• Relevant certifications in front-end development, UX/UI design, or design systems

Why Join Us Here at Datacom?

Datacom is one of Australia and New Zealand's largest suppliers of Information Technology professional services. We have managed to maintain a dynamic, agile, small business feel that is often diluted in larger organisations of our size.

It's our people that give Datacom its unique culture and energy that you can feel from the moment you meet with us. We care about our people and provide a range of perks such as social events, chill-out spaces, remote working, flexi-hours and professional development courses to name a few. You'll have the opportunity to learn, develop your career, connect and bring your true self to work.

You will be recognised and valued for your contributions and be able to do your work in a collegial, flat-structured environment. We operate at the forefront of technology to help Australia and New Zealand's largest enterprise organisations explore possibilities and solve their greatest challenges, so you will never run out of interesting new challenges and opportunities.

We want Datacom to be an inclusive and welcoming workplace for everyone and take pride in the steps we have taken and continue to take to make our environment fun and friendly, and our people feel supported.