Design Systems Lead: Semantic Tokens & Cross‑Platform Coherence

Apply; New York (NY); On-site; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Apply is seeking a Design Systems Lead who will bootstrap a semantic token system supporting design and product teams across platforms. You’ll own the repo in GitHub while staying fluent in Figma to keep design and engineering aligned.

You’ll set high visual quality standards, encode UI best practices for mobile, web, and React, and drive adoption through robust documentation and governance.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience owning design systems at large organizations.
• Ability to operate as a 50/50 design‑engineer with strong visual craft and code skills.
• Excellent eye for visual design and consistency across platforms.
• Deep understanding of mobile, web, and React UI nuances.

Responsibilities

• Bootstrap and own semantic token system across multiple platforms and frameworks.
• Own the design system repo on GitHub as source of truth including versioning and changelog.
• Set a high bar for visual design quality across surfaces the system touches.
• Encode mobile/web/React UI best practices into the system.
• Define and govern contribution model, reviewing inbound contributions with quality and consistency.
• Bridge Figma and code to keep design and engineering in sync.
• Own clear documentation to help teams adopt components and tokens and drive onboarding.
• Bake in accessibility (WCAG) and theming defaults (dark mode).
• Maintain a system roadmap balancing new work, migrations, and deprecations.
• Incorporate AI tooling into the design systems workflow for AI-native design.
• Operate with autonomy in a fast-moving, ambiguous environment.

Skills

Design systems ownership

Design-engineer balance

Figma proficiency

GitHub proficiency

Semantic design tokens

Component API design

Documentation excellence

WCAG accessibility knowledge

AI tooling familiarity

Ambiguity tolerance

Tools

GitHub

Figma

Storybook

Job description

Apply is seeking a Design Systems Lead who will bootstrap a semantic token system supporting design and product teams across platforms. You’ll own the repo in GitHub while staying fluent in Figma to keep design and engineering aligned.

You’ll set high visual quality standards, encode UI best practices for mobile, web, and React, and drive adoption through robust documentation and governance.