Principal Product Designer (Design Systems )

Palo Alto Networks; Santa Clara (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 205,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading cybersecurity company is seeking a Principal Product Designer to own and evolve their NetSec design system. This role involves collaboration with designers and engineers to ensure high-quality implementation and scalability. The ideal candidate will have extensive experience in product design and a strong understanding of design systems, fostering innovation and collaboration within the team.

Benefits

FLEXBenefits wellbeing spending account

Mental health resources

Financial health resources

Personalized learning opportunities

Qualifications

• 6–8+ years of product design experience, including 3+ years leading design systems.
• Expertise in creating and evolving UI libraries and token-based architecture.

Responsibilities

• Own the Design System, collaborating with designers and engineers.
• Lead execution and roadmap for a scalable design system.

Skills

Collaboration

Communication

Data-driven

Tools

Figma

Jira

Job description

**Our Mission**

At Palo Alto Networks everything starts and ends with our mission:

Being the cybersecurity partner of choice, protecting our digital way of life.

Our vision is a world where each day is safer and more secure than the one before. We are a company built on the foundation of challenging and disrupting the way things are done, and we’re looking for innovators who are as committed to shaping the future of cybersecurity as we are.

**Who We Are**

We take our mission of protecting the digital way of life seriously. We are relentless in protecting our customers and we believe that the unique ideas of every member of our team contributes to our collective success. Our values were crowdsourced by employees and are brought to life through each of us everyday - from disruptive innovation and collaboration, to execution. From showing up for each other with integrity to creating an environment where we all feel included.

As a member of our team, you will be shaping the future of cybersecurity. We work fast, value ongoing learning, and we respect each employee as a unique individual. Knowing we all have different needs, our development and personal wellbeing programs are designed to give you choice in how you are supported. This includes our FLEXBenefits wellbeing spending account with over 1,000 eligible items selected by employees, our mental and financial health resources, and our personalized learning opportunities - just to name a few!

At Palo Alto Networks, we believe in the power of collaboration and value in-person interactions. This is why our employees generally work full time from our office with flexibility offered where needed. This setup fosters casual conversations, problem-solving, and trusted relationships. Our goal is to create an environment where we all win with precision.

**Your Career**

At Palo Alto Networks, to be the cybersecurity partner of choice, protecting our digital way of life. As part of our Network Security (NetSec) Platform team, you’ll help shape intuitive, scalable experiences for complex enterprise environments. You’ll drive impact by elevating our design system into a flexible, empowering platform that supports both product delivery and design excellence—end to end, from concept to code.

**Your Impact**

About the Role

We’re looking for a hands-on Principal Product Designer to own our NetSec design system. This critical role combines the mindset of both an architect and a gardener, shaping the system to scale with quality, flexibility, and cross-functional alignment. You’ll ensure the system evolves to meet the highest standards of craft, performance, and accessibility across our platform.

What You’ll Be Doing

+ Own the Design System, End-to-End: Collaborate with designers to expand the system thoughtfully, and lead enablement efforts to keep the team informed and empowered to use what's new. Build and maintain foundations, tokens, components, templates, and guidelines in Figma. Partner closely with engineers to ensure consistent, high-quality implementation in code. Actively support visual QA, file-to-prod alignment, and bug resolution. Stay ahead of industry best practices to ensure the system remains modern, effective, and scalable.

+ Shape the Future: Lead the execution and roadmap for a scalable, flexible design system that supports a growing ecosystem of enterprise products and users. Partner with engineers to develop and maintain a robust design-to-code pipeline, ensuring pixel-perfect implementation, end-to-end.

+ Product Design: Partner with product designers to define and implement new systems based on use cases and user feedback. Proactively conduct A/B testing and audits, using data to inform design decisions and continuously improve the user experience.

+ Hands-On Delivery: Build and maintain sub-atomic foundations, Boolean components, interaction patterns, and page templates, while defining LLM content guidelines. Ensure a unified Figma file as the source of truth for designers, integrate Storybook for seamless handoff, and establish clear logic for reusability and scalability.

+ Drive Consistency & Product Quality: Ensure visual and interaction consistency across teams and products. Audit components for performance, accessibility, and clarity—and evolve them to meet modern standards. Utilize Jira dashboards to provide visibility and accountability, while proactively addressing and resolving issues. Develop a plan to reduce UX bugs upstream, ensuring that issues are addressed before they reach the codebase.

+ Centralized Repository & Integration: Establish and maintain a centralized design system library for easy access, sharing, and version control of design components. Work closely with design teams to ensure seamless integration of the design system into their workflows.

+ Enablement: Guide senior designers and cross-functional teams on systems thinking, driving adoption through workshops, design reviews, and office hours. Champion a bottom-up contribution model by creating tools, workflows, and ongoing support that empower teams to contribute confidently and scale the design system across the organization.

+ Governance & Flexibility: Create operating models that allow for easy, scalable contributions to the design system while maintaining high-quality standards. Develop programs to scale governance processes, ensuring quality signals are consistently in check. Focus on balancing consistency with flexibility, with the goal of corralling creativity—not controlling it—so teams can work efficiently and productively.

+ Support Migration & Modernization: Lead initiatives to refactor legacy designs into the system. Balance business timelines with thoughtful, user-centered migration plans.

**Your Experience**

+ 6–8+ years of product design experience, including 3+ years leading design systems in complex enterprise environments. Expertise in creating and evolving systems, UI libraries, and token-based architecture using Figma and front-end frameworks.

+ Experience empowering teams with scalable tooling, contribution models, and governance practices that enable efficiency without slowing progress.

+ Systems-thinking mindset, connecting design patterns to product goals, workflows, and constraints, with a focus on scalability and practical implementation.

+ Collaborative approach, driving execution independently while mentoring others and advocating for design quality across functions.

+ Excellent communication skills, simplifying complex concepts and influencing teams to adopt and improve design systems.

+ Data-driven, using user feedback to continuously improve product design.

**The Team**

If you’re excited by the opportunity to shape the future of cybersecurity through design, Palo Alto Networks is the place for you. We are a passionate team of designers working on cutting-edge solutions for global security challenges. Join us to make a real impact and grow in an environment that fosters innovation and collaboration.

**Compensation Disclosure**

The compensation offered for this position will depend on qualifications, experience, and work location. For candidates who receive an offer at the posted level, the starting base salary (for non-sales roles) or base salary + commission target (for sales/commissioned roles) is expected to be between $180000 - $205000/YR. The offered compensation may also include restricted stock units and a bonus. A description of our employee benefits may be found here (http://benefits.paloaltonetworks.com/) .

**Our Commitment**

We’re problem solvers that take risks and challenge cybersecurity’s status quo. It’s simple: we can’t accomplish our mission without diverse teams innovating, together.

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations for all qualified individuals with a disability. If you require assistance or accommodation due to a disability or special need, please contact us at [e-mail] .

Palo Alto Networks is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity in our workplace, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or other legally protected characteristics.

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.