Lead Product Designer – Design Foundations

Jobtailor; Town of Texas (WI); On-site; USD 140,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Jobtailor seeks a senior design leader to own and evolve Interstate, shaping design tokens, components, and reusable patterns to deliver measurable product value.

You will set quality standards for visual and interaction design, advocate accessibility, and drive AI-assisted design across product areas. Expect collaboration with product, engineering, and design teams to elevate the design voice.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree with 6+ years of related experience, or higher qualifications.
• Systems thinking including token architecture, components, states, and governance.
• Expertise in visual and interaction design quality.
• High agency and influence in ambiguous problem spaces.
• Ability to ship quickly without sacrificing quality.
• Clear communication, teaching, advocacy, and documentation skills.
• Fluency with AI-assisted design and agent-based workflows.
• Strong WCAG compliance and assistive technology experience.
• Ability to connect design decisions to measurable outcomes.
• Nice to have: experience with design systems stewardship and token pipelines.

Responsibilities

• Own and evolve Interstate, including guidelines, tokens, components, reusable patterns, and structural decisions.
• Set design direction for ambiguous features and connect it to product and customer value.
• Set quality standards for design execution, accessibility, and usability.
• Create interaction and visual patterns across product areas and user types.
• Define contribution, versioning, and deprecation models for Interstate.
• Shape Interstate's AI tooling by making the system machine-readable and defining how agents compose UIs.
• Identify gaps in the system, drive improvements, communicate changes, and measure adoption.
• Develop other designers' judgment through critique, pairing, and clear standards.
• Collaborate with product managers, designers, engineers, and the broader organization.
• Report to the Design Director as the senior-most individual contributor and design voice for Interstate.

Skills

Visual and interaction design quality

Systems thinking

AI-assisted design

WCAG compliance

Clear communication

Education

Bachelor's degree + 6 years experience

Master's degree + 4 years experience

Ph.D. + 1 year experience

10+ years related experience

Tools

Figma

Style Dictionary

HTML

CSS

React

AI tooling

Job description

• Own and evolve Interstate, including guidelines, tokens, components, reusable patterns, and structural decisions
• Set design direction for ambiguous features and connect it to product and customer value
• Set quality standards for design execution, accessibility, and usability
• Create interaction and visual patterns across product areas and user types
• Define contribution, versioning, and deprecation models for Interstate
• Shape Interstate's AI tooling by making the system machine-readable and defining how agents compose UIs
• Identify gaps in the system, drive improvements, communicate changes, and measure adoption
• Develop other designers' judgment through critique, pairing, and clear standards
• Collaborate with product managers, designers, engineers, and the broader organization
• Report to the Design Director as the senior-most individual contributor and design voice for Interstate

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in a related discipline and 6 years' experience in a related field; or a master's degree and 4 years' experience; or a Ph.D. and 1 years' experience in a related field; or 10 years' experience in a related field
• Systems thinking, including token architecture, components and states, reusable patterns, and contribution/governance models
• Expertise in visual and interaction design quality
• High agency and influence in ambiguous problem spaces
• Ability to ship quickly without sacrificing quality
• Clear communication, teaching, advocacy, and documentation skills
• Fluency with AI-assisted design and agent-based workflows
• Strong grasp of WCAG and hands-on experience designing and testing for assistive technologies
• Ability to connect design decisions to measurable outcomes
• Must clear a pre-employment drug test
• Nice to have: experience with widely adopted or open-source design systems and their stewardship
• Nice to have: depth with Figma variables, theming, and token pipelines such as Style Dictionary
• Nice to have: experience creating AI tooling for design, including agents, MCP, context, and prompt-based workflows
• Nice to have: experience implementing design decisions in code using React, web components, and HTML/CSS

Core Competencies

Demonstrates expertise in visual and interaction design, with a strong focus on accessibility and usability standards. Proficient in systems thinking and AI-assisted design, capable of connecting design decisions to measurable outcomes.

Highest-signal resume keywords

• Visual And Interaction Design Quality
• AI-Assisted Design
• Systems Thinking
• WCAG Compliance
• Clear Communication

ATS Optimization Keywords

Hard Skills

• Token Architecture
• Reusable Patterns
• Design Systems Stewardship
• Figma Variables
• HTML
• CSS
• React
• Assistive Technologies
• Contribution Models
• Governance Models

Soft Skills

• High Agency
• Influence In Ambiguous Problem Spaces
• Teaching
• Advocacy
• Documentation Skills

Industry Keywords

• Design Execution
• Accessibility
• Usability
• Interaction Patterns
• Design Critique

Tools & Technologies

• Figma
• Style Dictionary
• AI Tooling
• Agent-Based Workflows
• MCP