Design Systems Lead: Cross-Platform Token & UI Architect

Perplexity; New York (NY); On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Perplexity is seeking a Design Systems Lead who will own an extensive semantic token system across platforms and frameworks. You will work 50/50 in design and engineering, primarily in GitHub while staying fluent in Figma to keep design and code aligned.

You’ll set standards for visual quality, accessibility, and documentation to scale the system across orgs. You’ll collaborate with product feature teams across mobile, web, and React surfaces, define governance, and drive adoption through

Qualifications

• Extensive experience owning design systems at large organizations.
• Hybrid role blending design craft and engineering with credible code skills.
• Impeccable eye for visual design and system quality.
• Deep understanding of mobile, web, and React UI differences.
• Strong product sense to evaluate and integrate contributions across teams.
• Fluency in Figma, with primary work in GitHub repository ownership.
• Experience designing semantic tokens and scalable component APIs.
• Proven ability to document and drive adoption across an org.
• Knowledge of accessibility standards (WCAG) and accessibility‑first thinking.
• Comfort with ambiguity and adoption of AI tooling in workflows.

Responsibilities

• Bootstrap and own a semantic token system that works across platforms and frameworks.
• Own the design system repo on GitHub as source of truth for components, tokens, and standards, including versioning and changelog.
• Set and uphold a high bar for visual design quality across surfaces the system touches.
• Align mobile, web, and React UI best practices within the system.
• Define and run the contribution model and governance for inbound team contributions.
• Keep design and engineering in sync, bridging Figma and code for end‑to‑end coherence.
• Own clear, first‑class documentation to drive adoption across the org via onboarding and office hours.
• Bake in accessibility (WCAG) and theming (including dark mode) as defaults.
• Maintain a system roadmap balancing new work, migrations, and deprecations.
• Bring new AI tooling into the design systems workflow and shape AI‑native systems.

Skills

Design systems

Designer‑Engineer

Semantic tokens

Figma

GitHub

Accessibility WCAG

Documentation

AI tooling

Cross‑functional partnering

React/UI systems

Tools

Storybook

Job description

Perplexity is seeking a Design Systems Lead who will own an extensive semantic token system across platforms and frameworks. You will work 50/50 in design and engineering, primarily in GitHub while staying fluent in Figma to keep design and code aligned.

You’ll set standards for visual quality, accessibility, and documentation to scale the system across orgs. You’ll collaborate with product feature teams across mobile, web, and React surfaces, define governance, and drive adoption through