Design System & OPS Lead

UOB; Singapore; On-site; SGD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

UOB is seeking a Design System Lead to oversee Design Operations and scale the design system across native mobile and web platforms. You will define priorities, guide teams, and work with technology partners to ensure consistent, accessible experiences.

The role focuses on building reusable components, design tokens, patterns, and clear guidance while embedding design into delivery and AI-enabled workflows for improved efficiency.

Qualifications

• Proven design system leadership across multiple teams and markets.
• Strong craft in reusable interface design and component architecture.
• Experience with design tokens, patterns, templates and accessibility.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design system's direction and priorities across native mobile and web.
• Develop and maintain reusable components, templates, design tokens and usage guidance.
• Establish governance for changes and contributions with clear ownership.
• Drive adoption and build team capability with practical guidance and training.
• Manage design processes from concept to handover and testing.
• Support design quality, testing and app-store activities within Design Operations.
• Develop foundations for AI-assisted workflows and machine-readable assets.
• Measure adoption, quality and impact to drive continuous improvement.

Skills

Design system leadership

Digital product / experience design

Team leadership

Design tokens

Figma libraries

Design-to-development collaboration

Tools

Figma

Design system tooling

Job description

**About the Role** We are looking for a Design System Lead with responsibility for Design Operations to lead the development, quality and adoption of UOB TMRW’s design system across native mobile and web platforms.The primary focus of the role is to ensure that the design system provides a reliable foundation for digital banking experiences: reusable components, patterns, templates, design tokens and clear guidance that teams can confidently apply. You will set priorities, guide the design system team and work closely with technology partners to keep design standards aligned with their implementation.## Alongside this, you will manage the processes and operational practices that embed design into the organisation—from concept development and design reviews through to delivery, testing and app-store management activities. This includes improving how teams collaborate, maintaining clear responsibilities and helping resolve issues that affect design quality or delivery.## AI-Enabled Design and Delivery As UOB develops AI-enabled ways of working, this role will help evolve the design system and supporting processes so they can be used effectively by both people and approved AI tools.## This includes making design knowledge more structured and machine-readable, with explicit rules for how components, patterns, layouts and content should be used. You will partner with design and technology teams to explore how these foundations can support AI-assisted design, improve design-to-development workflows and automate appropriate documentation and quality checks.## The role will balance these improvements with day-to-day delivery needs, testing new approaches before wider adoption and maintaining appropriate human review, design standards and information security controls.## **Key Responsibilities**## **Lead the design system’s direction and priorities** * Define and manage the design system roadmap across native mobile and web, balancing customer needs, business priorities, delivery requirements and longer-term improvements.* Translate requests from teams and markets into clear priorities. Determine where existing solutions should be reused or improved, where new capabilities are needed and where justified exceptions should be accommodated.## **Develop and maintain a high-quality, reusable system*** Lead the development and maintenance of components, patterns, templates, design tokens and usage guidance. Ensure that the system addresses visual design, interaction behaviour, content requirements, accessibility and relevant states, including errors and alternative paths.* Partner with engineering teams to keep design libraries and implemented components aligned. Support consistent experiences across platforms and markets while allowing for native platform conventions, localisation and valid customer or business differences.## **Establish practical governance and contribution processes*** Define how teams propose, review, approve and contribute changes to the design system. Establish clear ownership, quality standards and documentation requirements so that the system can evolve without unnecessary duplication or inconsistency.* Maintain visibility of changes, dependencies and exceptions. Ensure that teams understand what is available, how it should be used and how changes affect existing experiences.## **Drive adoption and build team capability*** Embed the design system into the everyday work of product designers, UX content designers, journey owners and technology teams. Provide practical guidance, examples and training that help teams apply the system correctly and work more independently within agreed standards.* Lead and coach design system designers, setting clear priorities and expectations for quality. Work with research and delivery teams to identify recurring customer problems and translate relevant findings into improvements to shared patterns and guidance.## **Manage design processes and operational practices*** Manage how design is integrated into the wider delivery process, from concept development through design reviews, handover, implementation and testing.* Work with discipline leads, journey owners and technology partners to clarify responsibilities, required inputs, review points and decision-making. Improve design tooling, documentation and collaboration practices, reducing avoidable handovers, repeated work and uncertainty over the latest approved information.## **Support design quality, testing and app-store activities*** Coordinate design quality assurance with design, testing and technology teams. Establish practical checks against approved designs and system standards, help prioritise visual and interaction defects, and ensure that recurring issues inform improvements to the system.* Oversee app-store management activities within the Design Operations remit, coordinating assets, access and submission requirements with the relevant platform, business and technology teams. Ensure that design-related dependencies and readiness issues are visible ahead of releases.## **Develop the foundations for AI-assisted workflows*** Lead the design-system contribution to AI-enabled delivery, including structured documentation, machine-readable design assets, component rules and reusable design knowledge.* Partner with technology teams to test how approved AI tools can apply these standards in design generation, implementation and quality checking. Assess outputs against agreed quality criteria, identify where human judgement remains necessary and use findings to improve the underlying rules and documentation. Contribute to evolving operating practices, standards and responsibilities as these approaches mature.## **Measure effectiveness and drive improvement**## * Monitor design system adoption, reuse, coverage, contribution quality and recurring defects. Assess whether the system and supporting processes are helping teams produce more consistent experiences with less avoidable effort and rework.* Use feedback and delivery evidence to prioritise improvements. Communicate progress, risks and decisions clearly to stakeholders, with a focus on practical outcomes rather than activity alone.**Skills and Experience** * Proven design system leadership. Significant experience in digital product or experience design, with a demonstrated track record of leading and scaling design systems across multiple teams, products or markets. Experience should include developing the system itself, not only managing its administration.* Strong design craft and practical tool knowledge. A strong understanding of reusable interface design, interaction patterns, component architecture, templates and design tokens. Confidence working with Figma libraries, components, variants and variables, with the ability to review work and guide design system decisions.* Native and web experience. Experience supporting native mobile and responsive web products, with an understanding of platform conventions, accessibility, localisation and the need to accommodate different customer segments without unnecessary fragmentation.* Design-to-development understanding. Experience working closely with engineering teams to connect design standards with implemented components. Able to discuss component behaviour, states, properties and design tokens, and resolve differences between design intent and technical implementation.* Design operations experience. Experience establishing or improving design workflows, documentation, tooling, review practices and delivery coordination. An understanding of design testing and quality assurance is important; experience supporting app-store operations is an advantage.* Stakeholder management and sound judgement. Able to work effectively with design, research, content, product, journey owners and technology teams. Confident explaining decisions, negotiating priorities and balancing shared standards with justified business or market requirements.* Team leadership and capability development. Experience setting direction, prioritising work, coaching designers and building ownership within a team. Able to support adoption through clear guidance and practical collaboration.* AI and automation awareness. An understanding of how structured design knowledge and machine-readable assets can support AI-assisted workflows. Practical experience evaluating or experimenting with AI-enabled design, documentation or quality-checking approaches is valuable, alongside sound judgement about their limitations and appropriate controls.* Evidence of measurable improvement. Able to demonstrate how previous work improved design consistency, system adoption, accessibility, delivery efficiency or quality. Examples should explain both the design decisions and how teams adopted the resulting changes.* Experience in complex organisations. Experience working across markets or within financial services or another regulated environment would be an advantage. Comfortable improving established ways of working while maintaining reliable day-to-day support.