Design Systems Specialist - Fully Remote | Upto $80/hr

mercor; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; GBP 73,000 - 83,000; Full time

Job summary

Mercor is seeking a Design Expert to lead AI-enabled product design initiatives on a remote contract basis. You will craft design systems, contribute to rapid prototyping, and collaborate with cross-functional teams across product and engineering.

Must have 5+ years in product design or AI-native roles, ownership of design systems, and fluency with vibecoding and leading-edge tooling (Figma, Framer, AI assistants). Portfolio of shipped work is highly valued.

Qualifications

• 5+ years as product designer, design lead, or AI-native engineer.
• Ownership of production-ready design systems or AI-driven workflows.
• Fluency in vibecoding or design tooling; strong user-centered design practice.

Responsibilities

• Develop scenarios for rapid prototyping and design-system work.
• Collaborate across design, product, and engineering in AI projects.
• Create rubrics to assess senior-level product judgment.

Skills

Product design

Design leadership

AI tooling

Rapid prototyping

User-centered design

Tools

Figma

Framer

Cursor

Replit

Claude Code

Vibecoding

Job description

About the job Mercor connects elite creative and technical talent with leading AI research labs. Headquartered in San Francisco, our investors include Benchmark , General Catalyst , Peter Thiel , Adam D'Angelo , Larry Summers , and Jack Dorsey . Position: Design Expert Type: Contract Compensation: $70–$80/hour Location: Remote

Role Responsibilities

• Construct scenarios spanning rapid prototyping, design system development, and cross-functional product-design-engineering collaboration.
• Build tasks across AI-assisted application development , natural-language-to-code workflows, and rapid prototyping ( Vibecoding ); and UX/UI design , design systems, and component libraries.
• Develop scenarios involving tools such as AI coding assistants (Cursor, Claude Code, v0, Replit) for the Vibecoding subdomain, and Figma , prototyping tools ( Framer ), and design systems tooling for the Design subdomain.
• Apply subdomain-specific methodologies (iterative prompt-driven development for Vibecoding; human-centered design principles and heuristic evaluation for Design).
• Author rubrics that distinguish authentic senior-level product judgment from generic tutorial-level or template-driven work.

Qualifications

Must-Have

• 5+ years working as a product designer, design lead, or AI-native engineer/vibecoder at a major product- or design-forward company.
• Direct ownership of product design systems or AI-assisted development workflows shipped to production.
• Fluency in vibecoding or design tooling, plus understanding of user-centered design principles and rapid prototyping practices.

Preferred

• A portfolio of shipped work is strongly preferred in place of a formal credential.
• Prior rubric, training, or design critique authorship is a plus.